I strongly dislike the new website for the dining halls. First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the time and effort the creator put into creating the website. Creating one is not an easy task and they should be recognized for their efforts However, as Thomas Bertram Lance, known as Bert Lance, once said, “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it,” which he explained in a 1977 issue of Nation’s Business newsletter meant not to focus too much on fixing things that are not broken and fix the things that are broken. This statement can be applied to a lot of things, some major and some minor. One thing being the new dining hall website.

There was nothing wrong with the old website. It was very easy to understand and use. I think there were about four steps that you had to do which was: one) Search for the website, two) select the website, 3) find the dining hall you want to go to, four) select that dining hall, and then you would be able to see every food item they were serving. For some people it would only be steps three and four because they had the website already loaded on their phones. Students would know when the dining halls were open on the initial page and they could figure out what foods had allergens or which food were vegan, vegetarian, halal, etc., based on the icons or by looking at the ingredients list. 

Now, there are twice as many steps when using the new website.  one) Search for the website, two) select the website, 3) find the dining hall you want to go to, four) select the dining hall (which brings you to a new page), five) again select the dining hall you want to go to, six) determine which day and which meal you would like (breakfast, lunch, dinner or late night), seven) select the day and meal, eight) select which items you want to view (for example, soup of the day, entree, dessert, panini of the day, beverages, etc.). Also, you have to go through and select each item name so that you can see what is there and what the classification is for the food (vegan, vegetarian, halal, whether or not it has an allergen, etc.). Loading the website eliminates the first four steps, cutting the process in half. However, it is still twice as many steps as the old website.

The most annoying thing about it is the amount of clicks that it takes to just figure out what I want to eat. Before it was a simple one-two step, and now it is a whole process, especially if I make a mistake. If I were to select the wrong date or wrong dining hall, I would have to redo the entire process and waste even more time. I do not think there was anything wrong with the old website so I wish they did not change it. I have heard students say the same thing, but I am also pretty sure that there are other students that like it. 

At the end of the day, it is a matter of preference because the information is still the same. It is just the amount of time it takes to get to that information.

Photo via oswego.edu