This is the most beautiful design I have seen.  Unfortunately I am not sure if it will be the most usable.  My guess is that the majority visitors will be coming to asu.edu for information, not for the graphic eye candy.  If it were otherwise then I think sites like Google, Ebay, MSN and Amazon would be more magazine-ish in their appearance.  But they aren't.

The top informational sites are designed to be familiar and quickly digestible. So I think our home page needs to be more like a business tool than a art exhibition.  But this design really is flippin sweet!  I might not sue if it's chosen :)

cheers,

Cameron

I actually think that in addition to being the most drop-dead gorgeous of all the comps, it's actually among the most usable as well. Looking at the others, especially those with three vertical columns, I have a hard time finding specific information and I end up feeling a little overwhelmed (in fact, on our current homepage I usually just hightail it to the search box before I have a nervous breakdown, but I that's probably more a personal issue :) )

I love the idea of hiding the news down a level. Yeah, there's great stuff going on at ASU, but I'm frequently not coming there for the news - I'm coming to find information - or rather, I'm looking for the bucket that my information is likely to be in. This funnel-shaped layout shows me quickly and simply where I'm supposed to be. It's well-suited to both new folks (they get pulled in by the big shiny eye candy bits at the top) and frequent users who just need to get in and find their info.

I don't feel eye candy and usability are always necessarily at odds, and this one I think does an amazing job of uniting form and function. The best part is, it absolutely looks like no school site in the world - and we're like no other school in the world, right? I think it's just perfect. :)

Melanie

P.S. I do think, though, that the MyASU button looks like it's floating off in space and I'm not sure why it's there. It's defintely more homeless in other comps where it's off to that side though, than this one.

This design makes me want to go to school at ASU.  The design highly complements the changes being made around the university.  This design also seems to fit well with the Rhino design that the core pages are moving to.

* edit - I just wanted to point out that the girl's laptop in that graphic looks like something from the 90's... maybe I am just picky, but it stands out as out of place. 

 -A

I love that it doesn't look like every other university Web site. (As pretty as the other versions are, they still look like a university Web site, no?) And I love that you aren't hammering us with the maroon and gold in this version.

And that the background/sidebar images reflect the desert/sky/stone that defines and roots us. We've been forgetting that recently, with all the 'force not place' rhetoric, but a subtle reminder of where we're embedded is important to coming here. This does it well.

I like tdeal1's idea of incorporating subtle sunburst in all the white space at bottom.

My only 'not so liked': do we need all that white space in footer? You keep it much trimmer in versions like 1g. Text is fuzzy, so I can't really tell what you've got there, but it's all clumped in that one spot under Sparky. Awkward. Rest of page is gorgeous.

i like D because its easy to navigate and you dont have to look everywhere to find what it is you're looking for. as a student the easier it is to navigate a webpage the happier you are. considering how much i depend on the the webpage to complete my tasks for school; its nice to have a page where i can do what i need to do and not be confused.

This comp is the most visually appealing to me. I like the layout of the information; everything seems to fit together logically and could be found without much searching. The only real problem I see is that there are links to the Tempe, Polytech, and Downtown campuses, as well as for online classes in the top navigation bar, but there is nothing for the West campus.

If I were a prospective student searching for university info online, this site would stand out from the others. We tend to follow what's been done before, but if we want to make an impact, we need to emphasize that this is not your typical university -I think this one does the job!

I'm tossing my hat into the ring for "D" and "G." Considering we are apart of a unique academic model, our web presence should also be unique. While many of the proposed sites are nicely done, the two I've selected certainly stand out. They both appear flexible in their structure, friendly for content purposes, yet they easily accommodate branding. Another key issue for me is the usability by the colleges, schools and units. With minimal adjustments these templates could be applied across the campus for those units choosing to apply it to their web presence. Oh yea, the background photo needs to be addressed. It is distracting at best. I'm curious to see how these designs will be carried over to daughter/secondary pages, especially in regards to the navigation. In summary, nice job to those involved! I think you've come up with some great solutions. Mark

After considering all the designs, I have decided that this is the best.

•  I did a quick search of Michigan, UCLA, NYU, and the University of Washington's sites and this version is far superior. It draws attention to the highest information level. Emphasizing the "New American Univeristy" helps bring credibility to the site.
• The background photo is beautiful and I'm worried that that's the only thing drawing me to this comp. The colors work great with the rest of the navigation system and I certainly don't like the gray background of version B.
• I do not like the graphic that replaces the "search" term. It looks like it was dropped there right from Apple's website. It's a great idea, but I think something can be done to mimic the idea without using the exact same format.
• It's difficult to see the text at the bottom of the page, but it looks easy to navigate.
• It's great how the "What degree is right for you?" graphic draws the user in. I would have an easy time searching this site if I were a prospective student.
• I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but one of the things I don't like about the current site is that I have a hard time finding relevant information for myself. It would be great if there was a sub-site dedicated to current student, faculty, etc. that where users could remain logged-in and would include news highlights about their colleges and majors. Nothing extremely fancy and not to take the place of myasu.  
• Overall this is a huge improvement over the current site. The other comps seem to mimic the old site, but this is something completely different.

I hope this helps. I'm a second-year Visual Communications student in the pre-design program at ASU. While I love design, I haven't gotten very good at critiquing it yet. :-) Thank you for asking for our input!

 Angie