BUFS Website, How Has It Changed?

Feedback from students has been varied

The university is planning to translate it into more languages

Managing Editor Seo Yun-chan

danseo123@naver.com

Busan University of Foreign Studies had a website that supported a variety of features. Students visited the website to access E-Class, check their grades, and look at school notices. It was very practical, with all of the details located practically on the first page of the website. It even had several foreign language versions, so foreign students could easily access the website, too.

Then, in 2021, the university completely changed the whole website. The changed version looks much simpler, and much cleaner, and has a more modern feel. The campus pictures have been enlarged, and all of the achievements of BUFS are positioned so that everyone who visits the site can see them clearly.

However, despite the modernized change of the website, the feedback from users, namely the students, has not been so good. To them, the design of the website was not a priority. Instead, a website which is practical and gives fast access to what they need to use is more important. With the new website, the students have had a hard time locating E-Class and the school notice board, and even if they found what they needed, it was hard to navigate through the website. The design change is so drastic that students are not comfortable using the new website, since they were used to the original design.

Cho Hye-min, from the Department of G2 Convergence, ’17 said, “As a student who has used the original website of our school, the new look is a little too hard for me to get used to. The actual tabs for what we need to access are all hidden somewhere, and all I can see is what the university has achieved. It feels good that the students get to see what the university has accomplished, but I would prefer it if the website was more student-friendly, and did not just show our achievements.”

Another issue was that the original version of BUFS website had a variety of language translations, but the newly designed one has none. In response to this question, the Department of Public Relations Team said, “We are planning to add more languages. Some complaints were raised regarding the language translations, and we are still discussing how many and which languages we should choose. The dates of when the translations will be added has also not been finalized. We plan to set a date as soon as possible.”