Top 10 Law School Home Pages of 2012

Journal of Law, Vol. 3, (Journal of Legal Metrics, Vol. 2), pp. 51-76, 2013

Georgetown Public Law Research Paper No. 13-039

27 Pages Posted: 10 May 2013

See all articles by Roger V. Skalbeck

Roger V. Skalbeck

Georgetown University Law Center; University of Richmond - School of Law

Matthew Zimmerman

Georgetown University Law Center

Date Written: 2013

Abstract

For a fourth consecutive year, every website home page of every ABA-accredited law school is evaluated and ranked based on objective criteria. The goal is to identify well-executed sites adopting best practices. For the 2012 report, twenty-six elements are evaluated across these three categories: Design Patterns and Metadata, Accessibility and Validation, & Marketing and Communications. For 2012, there are four new elements, two prior elements have been combined, and one element was dropped.

For 2012, forty-six schools now use the HTML5 doctype, which is up from thirteen in 2011 and just one in 2010. Eighteen schools achieve perfect scores in an adjusted web accessibility evaluation, which is a slight increase over previous years. One of the new elements awards points for use of Responsive Web Design practices, which is a page layout method that shifts the order and number of elements on a page, based on the screen size displaying the content. Our survey discovered fourteen home pages using responsive web design.

As has been the case since this annual study launched in 2009, there is still no objective way to account for good taste. For interpreting these results, please decide for yourself whether any home page is greater or less than the sum of its evaluated elements.

Keywords: website design, law school rankings, home page analysis, online communications, marketing, website usability, content accessibility

JEL Classification: K, M3, I29

Suggested Citation

Skalbeck, Roger V. and Skalbeck, Roger V. and Zimmerman, Matthew, Top 10 Law School Home Pages of 2012 (2013). Journal of Law, Vol. 3, (Journal of Legal Metrics, Vol. 2), pp. 51-76, 2013, Georgetown Public Law Research Paper No. 13-039, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2262377

Roger V. Skalbeck (Contact Author)

Georgetown University Law Center ( email )

600 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
United States
202-662-9158 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/staff/bio.cfm?id_no=105

University of Richmond - School of Law ( email )

28 Westhampton Way
Richmond, VA 23173
United States
(804) 289-8218 (Phone)

Matthew Zimmerman

Georgetown University Law Center ( email )

600 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
United States

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