In an effort to increase accessibility, Kent State rolled out a new design for the Student Tools and Courses tab on Flashline.

The University Communication and Marketing Web Team decided to update the Student Tools and Courses tab based on the fact that “it was cluttered, out of date and on the suspicion that it was difficult for students to navigate,” said Christopher Hallahan, Kent State interactive web designer and developer.

Next to the Kent State homepage, Flashline has the most traffic, said Hallahan. It seems that the courses, schedule and grades box is the most important so it is placed at the top of the page for easy accessibility.

“I like how the things I use the most are in the top box instead of being all over the place,” said sophomore visual communication design major Gina Leone.

Hallahan added that the interactive links are the main focus of the page while the informational boxes are on the right side of the page.

Information that was hidden before has now been made more prominent, including a link to ALEKS and a calendar box, which Leone likes.

“The information is organized in a clear fashion and the page seems cleaner,” says Leone.

The new page launched a few weeks before classes started with the hope of new students starting with a fresh page and breaking away from the outdated Flashline page, said Hallahan.

“The icons make the page more visually appealing and will make it easier for new students to understand,” added Leone.

However, Leone is not the only Kent State student with an opinion on the new design.

Hallahan said designers have been receiving reviews via [email protected] that ranged from, “Flashline looks amazing,” to “This new page is confusing.”

Incoming freshmen may not have experienced the old Flashline page, but that does not mean they do not have their own opinion about the design.

“As a freshman, I never used the old website so the new design of Flashline hasn’t affected me in a way that makes it confusing,” says freshman Electronic Media Production major Ali McNeese.

McNeese found that the website was rather easy to navigate and found the interactive guide available to students to be helpful the first few times she viewed the page.

The Student Tools and Courses tab is just the first of many changes to come to the Kent State pages, Hallahan said. The web team plans to make additional changes in the future to increase accessibility for students.

Contact Taylor Williams at [email protected].