Blog Week#3 Website Evaluation

This weeks lesson had me thinking back to week one when we analyzed advertisements and applied the CRAP principles. Web design is similar in that there are certain rules and techniques to keep in mind in order to create an enjoyable and impressive website which your users will appreciate. In my opinion the most important piece of information I took away from this week is to keep it simple. Sometimes a classic design that is not overly busy or flashy can create a better impression upon the user than one that is too busy. After reading the websites assigned, article and chapter reading one can determine that using specific criteria when creating and searching websites is crucial.
One such criterion is to make sure your website has a purpose. Whether it is for educational, entertaining, or personal purposes it is key to make sure your web site has a purpose. Often times you can tell the validity of a website by the URL or web address. I often look for sites that end in .edu or .gov when doing research because I know they are valid sites. In my reading I came across a site given as an example called the onion. This is an example of a hoax site. Sometimes you can read the name of a site and think it means one thing but after navigating you can quickly tell the site is not for you. In this case I thought perhaps it was a cooking site. Instead it was a somewhat trashy site with some shocking articles. This is a good lesson when building your own website to be sure you are clear in your purpose and name your site accordingly.
Another criterion is authority, which means being able to readily determine who authored the site and being able to easily contact that person. If the person has good credentials and references chances are the site is going to be dependable and worthy of your time.
I also learned the importance of objectivity. It’s key to think about the author’s agenda for keeping the site and whether or not there are any bias you need to be aware of which may slant the view of what you are reading. Still another criterion to use when creating or selecting a website is that of appropriateness. Your website should be created to cater to those viewing it. For instance if the website is for children it should be written on the grade level you are creating it for. The website should be as accurate as possible and the information relevant to your purpose.
Did you ever go to a website where the information is not current or the links are broken? It is very frustrating and creates a very bad impression no matter how pretty the graphics might look. This to me is the most important of the criteria. It’s so important to keep your information current and you links working. If the information is not current and your links do not work then your website is pretty much useless.
When creating your website take responsibility. If referencing other information that is not your own you must then give credit where credit it due. I also learned the importance of clarity and accessibility. There should be no misspelled words and the pages should be organized and clean and crisp. The resolution should be set as such to accommodate those with laptops or smaller monitors without a lot of scrolling. Usually 800 x 600 is a good size.
All of this information ties into the interface experience of the person navigating around your site and the experience they come away with after visiting your site. I learned the importance of starting with a plan or outline. I thought it was a good idea to start with a pad of sticky notes to lay out how you want your website to look.
Taking all of this information into consideration I decided it was time to check out a few websites and critique them according to what I learned. Just like when critiquing advertisements and flyers in week one I found that this exercise made me consider that I may never view websites quite the same way again. Since I am going on vacation soon I thought it would be fun to critique the website of the resort I am staying at and an overall travel tourism site for the Dominican Republic. The first site I analyzed and navigated through was www.majestic-restorts.com. I was really impressed with this website. The reason is that as I applied the criteria of what I learned, I found this site had it all covered. First, when you come to the site the pictures fade out to the next picture. I thought this gave the viewer a calming effect which is what you want from a vacation site. Secondly, the layouts of the pages are repetitive with the same type of elegance. Because of the name of the resort, majestic elegance, I thought they did a nice job of staying with this theme. They chose a burgundy color which gave it a regal look. They keep their M logo at the top with the grey scroll design to the right throughout navigation which solidifies the theme of the luxurious experience. The site has a main purpose which is to advertise or sell their resort and make it tempting for travelers to stay there. It is easy to navigate through and see the resort services, the rooms, the restaurants, bars, spa, etc. There is clear authority in the website in that you can easily click to see who to contact with address, email and phone number information. The criterion that the website does have less of is objectivity. That is mainly because of the type of site it is. Of course an owner of a resort is going to be bias and try to show the property as best they can with the most stellar reviews. I did, however think that this was done in good taste and respectfully. Because this would be expected of any travel website I thought it was acceptable and didn’t take away from the qualities of the website since it was done tastefully and was not overbearing. The website was current and even had a navigation point entitled latest news from the resort. It also had a navigation point for the weather which of course had to be kept up to date or else it would have been useless. The site was appropriately written for the proper audience to be able to understand and appreciate. Lastly the site had clarity in that there were no misspellings, there were references throughout such as the meetings page where the person to contact was referenced. I was very impressed with this site. It made me feel comfortable that I had made the right travel choice. It left me with a feeling that there would be nothing left to chance when I got there and that I would be treated majestically. I will report back when I return to tell if the website lived up to the actual experience as I would have expected it.
The next website that I reviewed was www.godominicanrepublic.com This site was a tourism site and the first thing I looked for was its authority and accountability to be sure that what they were telling me was accurate. I easily found this and was confident when I saw that the information was coming from the ministry of tourism with contact numbers, names and addresses. This gave credibility to what I was about to view. The site had a purpose and that was to promote tourism to the Dominican. Across the top there were choices allowed you to read about Dominican, research things to do, learn about the regions, plan your trip etc. I personally prefer left side navigation and so I found it a bit cumbersome to be directed to those places but then had to back out to come back to the home page to see other choices boxed out such as beaches, golf, ecotourism, and cigars. I found this to be a little choppy. Once you opted for a choice from the home page at the top it opened up left navigation but I still felt that the flow of this was awkward. On my computer there was a bar of empty white space to the left of the screen which I thought was poor planning of whoever designed it. I would have expected to see some island colors on this site but for the most part it was bland as far as color. However, the pictures were a nice touch. I liked the fact that you could go to the top and change the language to view the site. The information was accurate, spelled correctly, and up to date. The accessibility of the links was adequate and the pages loaded quickly. For the most part the website was good with just a few opportunities for improvement.
I will be sure to take these criteria into consideration when creating my own website because navigating around and analyzing other sites allowed me to experience the importance of these techniques.