Architecture Schools Site Evaluation

There are a total of 394 architecture schools in the US. While all of these schools have websites, 377 architecture schools have some social media presence, having accounts on at least one of the three major social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Of the schools that have a social media presence, the greatest number, almost 96% are on Facebook.

Visual Preferences

Color

Approximately 62.4% of the 394 architecture schools use white as the primary color on their websites. Another 11.7% use grey as the primary color on their websites. Black (7.1%), blue (7.1%) and yellow (5.6%) are other colors commonly used as the primary color on architecture school websites.

The colors used on the websites of the largest architecture schools in the nation, are as follows:

1. Arizona State University: grey 34% and white 4.5%
2. Miami Dade College: white 10% and blue 2.9%
3. Ohio State University - Main Campus: white 30% and grey 3.4%

Font

The largest number, nearly 42.9%, of architecture school websites use Arial as the primary font on their websites. Other fonts commonly used on architecture school websites include Verdana (23.4%) and Helvetica (9.1%).

The largest architecture school's websites use the following fonts:

1. Arizona State University: Arial
2. Miami Dade College: Arial
3. Ohio State University - Main Campus: Helvetica

Social Presence

Exactly 276 architecture schools have YouTube channels. These schools each have an average of 948 YouTube channel subscribers. The architecture schools with the greatest number of YouTube channel subscribers are:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 113,180 subscribers
2. Harvard University: 28,331 subscribers
3. Yale University: 20,055 subscribers

Exactly 319 architecture schools have Twitter accounts. These schools each have an average of 3,100 Twitter account followers. The architecture schools with the greatest number of Twitter followers are:

1. Harvard University: 69,704 followers
2. Arizona State University: 24,295 followers
3. Yale University: 23,748 followers

Web Metrics

Although all architecture schools have websites, only about 20% of these schools actually appear to regularly maintain their sites. This can be deduced from the fact that 80.6% of architecture school websites have 3 or more broken links one click away from their homepage. The architecture schools with the most number of broken links are:

1. Tarrant County College District: 14,140 broken links
2. Independence Community College: 6,000 broken links
3. Harrisburg Area Community College - Harrisburg: 4,597 broken links

It is also interesting to evaluate the number of HTML and CSS validation errors on architecture school websites to get a sense of the quality of these sites. The architecture school websites with the cleanest websites, i.e., least number of HTML and CSS validation errors are:

1. California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
2. University of Connecticut: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
3. Norwalk Community College: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors

The architecture school websites with the greatest number of HTML and CSS validation errors include:

1. Alabama A & M University: 63 HTML validation errors; 905 CSS validation errors
2. University of Colorado Denver: 0 HTML validation errors; 794 CSS validation errors
3. Milwaukee Area Technical College: 519 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors