Top 10 Law School Home Pages of 2011
Journal of Law, Vol. 2, (Journal of Legal Metrics, Vol. 1), No. 1, pp. 25-52, 2012
29 Pages Posted: 10 Feb 2012
Date Written: February 9, 2012
Abstract
For the third consecutive year, the website home pages for all ABA-accredited law schools are evaluated and ranked based on objective criteria. For 2011, law school home pages advanced in some areas. For instance, there are now thirteen sites using the HTML5 doc type, up from a single site in 2010. In addition, seventeen schools achieved a perfect score for three tests focused on website accessibility, up from eight in 2010. Nonetheless, there’s enough diversity in coding practices and content to help separate the great from the good.
For this year’s survey, twenty-four elements of each home page are assessed across three broad categories: Design Patterns & Metadata; Accessibility & Validation; and Marketing & Communications. Most elements require no special design skills, sophisticated technology or significant expenses. For interpreting these results, the author does not try to decide if any whole is greater or less than the sum of its parts.
Keywords: website design, law school rankings, home page analysis, online communications, marketing, usability, accessibility
JEL Classification: M3, I29
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation