Rec Sports redesigns website

The Lyon Center recently revamped its website, and the results are receiving mixed responses from its visitors.

The old website appeared more cluttered and wasn’t in line with the rest of the university’s websites, said Jennifer Siu, associate director of Recreational Sports.

The new website — sait.usc.edu/recsports — was designed by the Student Affairs Information Technologies department and features a “quick and sleek” look drawn from many other websites, she said.

“The new one basically gives you all the information Rec Sports has to offer: intramural schedules, special hours and different events we hold,” said Kevin Chang, a freshman majoring in business administration who works in Rec Sports.

Long-time site users such as Dan Hilderman, a senior majoring in economics, said  the new changes can make it more difficult to find information quickly.

“Before there was a lot of stuff on the front page. Now you have to go through so many links to get to the links. I think they should just put that stuff on the front page,” said Hilderman. “It’s not too bad — it’s just in a different format.”

The new site can be a little difficult to master, Siu said, but that is common when a new website layout is introduced.

For others, the experience will be much improved, she added.

“What’s interesting is you can bookmark pages, which you couldn’t do before,” Siu said. “The old one didn’t have a search engine and on this one we do.”

The website is just one of the ways Rec Sports officials say the department is working to better communicate with students.

“This is one of many electronic ways that we promote our programs to our students,” Siu said.