Critique of a Website Essay

When researching information on websites, there are many credentials that should be looked at. Credentials can include looking up the author names, checking the validation of the information, looking at dates and researching the articles published. By studying the topic of nutrition, there are thousands of websites out on the web with numerous amounts of information on them. Nutrition is a very detailed topic, and readers have to be careful on what they are reading in the fact of the information being true. To show the process of evaluating websites, I have picked two different websites that are paired together. The first one was for the company called JuicePlus, and the other was title EatRight by the Academy of Dietics.

As someone who loves bright, colorful visuals and dramatic design, graphic novels and comic books are some of my favorite things to read. Web-comics are one of the more accessible types of comics, since they are generally free and can be read entirely online, and they usually take the same form paper comics have taken for years: images arranged in a grid on one standard size page. While this layout of comics is perfectly fine and has been for decades, it doesn’t take full advantage of the web format. Coded webpages present a nearly endless number of ways to manipulate the images, allowing artists to tell their stories in new and exciting ways, and yet most people stick to the same format that’s

Not only is the website generally easy to use, but the navigation elements makes a visitor’s process even easier. The first element a visitor will hopefully utilize is the “I am a…” dropdown box which provides the options of “Current Student, Faculty / Staff Member, Parent, or Research Partner” (University). These links redirect the main page to whichever page the visitor desires. This saves the visitors’ time and patience because they do not have to search through various links to find this specific page. Another navigation element that helps save a visitor’s time is the “Search” box. Whether the visitor is a prospective student hoping to learn about different housing options or a parent concerned about their child’s safety, the search box provides various links to web pages regarding this information. When a visitor is redirected to a new page they can easily return to the home page by clicking on the UAH emblem in the upper left corner. While the website does not provide a link to the top of a web page, the web pages are short enough that a visitor can easily scroll to the top by themselves. With multiple navigation tools, a visitor can quickly and effectively find what they are

The 17th- Century Colonial New England historical website was produced and maintained by Margo Burns. Margo Burns is an independent scholar with a bachelor’s degree in English from Mount Holyoke College. While she has no academic background in history, she has a growing reputation for specializing in the Salem witch trials, especially those in North Andover. There is much history to explore in the 17th century; however, the witch trials of Salem have attracted more scholarly attention than most events in colonial America. Although some of the recent scholarship examines these trials, there is still so much more to learn about this revolutionary event that impacted the American society. The Web site, 17th-Century Colonial New England, can help mitigate interested researchers.

This study found that three main elements are needed: consistent font style, consistent text and background color, a fast loading time, and well-placed hyperlinks. Hite and Railsback (2010) also determined that website development teams should possess several traits, such as marketing and technical skills and knowledge of user-interfaces and effective content. Because hyperlinks were noted as one of the most frustrating components for study participants, Hite and Railsback (2010) also suggest these design rules: do not use colors other than blue or photos/bullets as links, but do have an easy way to get to the home page. Hite and Railsback’s (2010) provide an excellent list of design elements that have been tested and proved, which will act as additional foundation for my analysis. I also plan to use their methods as a foundation for my own, since they were able to analyze a large amount of websites in a relatively short

Even if a website has good information architecture and content, poor design can take away from the two elements and negatively affect the usability of the site. According to Johnson, successful web design is minimalistic and easily readable with font choices and color palettes (39). The design of Sassy Fox’s website is either extremely busy and misleads users or is minimalistic to a fault. Examples of these extremes are the website’s header and user forms.

What has a hippo in common with a feather?” “What is the longest place name in the world?” “Can green ideas sleep furiously?” “Rim ember us poke in cent tense all mow stall ways con deigns word snot in then did.” These are just a few of the topics you will find under A Web of Linguistic Fun. Phantom Linguist, Bucknell University Professor Robert Beard, provides a unique collection of “fundamental subdisciplines of linguistics”(1).

In this evaluation, there are two informational sites and one business site evaluated. In order of their overall ranking from high to low: Anderson County Sheriff Department (http://tnacso.net) is an Informational site, KetoDiet (https://ketodietapp.com) is a Business/Marketing website and Tom Klindt’s home page (http://www.toddklindt.com) is an informational website. The content for each site was evaluated for authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency and coverage. While the criteria varied somewhat between the different types, all received top scores for accuracy.

The layout remains the same, although smaller devices would require you to zoom in to view the website clearly. It is not optimised for Internet Explorer 8 or below. However, if the user is using an older browser, there is a recommendation to view the website using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox as stated when viewing the page source from the home page. The site is simple to navigate using keyboard keys like the tab, directional keys, and enter. This is important for the visually impaired who cannot use a mouse. All internal and external links are working as

For my typography project, I chose to redesign Bath Magic Inc.’s webpage. I found this poorly designed webpage by simply searching the Internet for “ugly websites”. It was at the top of a list of “Top 10 Worst Websites You’ll Wish You Hadn’t Seen”. I figured that I couldn’t make it look any worse. What I first noticed about this unfortunate website is the overload of information that overwhelms the page, as well as its viewers. The information the site is attempting to convey is also repeated numerous times. There is so much going on and being offered, that I, the viewer, am not sure what Bath Magic Inc. is. Do they fix bathrooms, sell certain products, or all the above? The website’s information is not organized in a way that’s usable and logical to the everyday site visitor. In order to clearly convey what services their company has to offer, I sought to establish good visual hierarchy in my redesign with the size, alignment, contrast, and density.

On the surface, a well-made website not only needs very little energy to use but also feels as if it were easy to create. In reality, a usable website requires a lot of time and effort before a single string of code can be written to build a seamless experience for the user. Jesse James Garrett in The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and Beyond offers a road map that considers each of the five planes, strategy, scope, structure, skeleton and surface, that contribute to a well thought out website. Applying Garrett’s five planes to the “Bundle from Scratch” page, http://www.localfairmarket.com/copy-of-the-bundle-bags, at Local Fair Market will show how well each plane was considered during the website’s

Web portals in the past were seen primarily as gateways as was stated earlier, thereby limiting the creative control administrators could have over the design of the web site. Due to the shift in functionality of web portals however, as well as the added value of UCC, it has become increasingly challenging to design web sites where users can find exactly what they are looking for (Fang, et al, 2004). Prominent gaming portals IGN (Fox Media, 1996), and Gamespot (Deemer, et al, 1996), display the attributes of good web design, limiting the amount of useless hyperlinks, and utilises taxonomy for articles to make them easier for users to access the information they need. Gamespot also allows for a degree of personalisation within the site allowing users to select which background and forum theme they wish to use, whose selection will be stored with the user account information, and this personalisation can help the users feel connected to the portal, thereby ensuring their continued presence (Bellas, et al, 2004). A web portal needs

The study of and analysing aesthetic scopes of web page design and how design affects attractiveness is vital for HCI designers which will enable them to implement and produce a suitable system for users which meets their requirements. It is imperative that the HCI designer takes into consideration the necessary factors related to attractiveness and unattractiveness of websites. It is imperative that the design of the website must include technical and low-level aspects making sure that it interacts with each other. There has been research relating to design concepts. The work of Kim et el., 2003; Park et al., 2004 where they found out that design features that relate to websites objects, backgrounds and the

The BBC History website is very eclectic, covering an immense range of history and as a resource, it could be suggested that it is a victim of trying to appeal all levels of historical interest from the academic to the mildly interested. It has been variously described as relevant and fascinating , a useful research tool , catering to the non-specialist whilst including valuable material for the historical researcher . As a site there is an obvious preference given to any historical programming by the BBC be it television or radio and such programming is also available through the iPlayer facility. The home page of the website is attractive and designed to appeal to as many readers as possible. It is sub-divided into boxes each giving

In contrast to most of the other people in this class, I had never done any net surfing. So to prepare for this paper I explored the WWW for approximately seven hours. This helped to create an impression on me of what constitutes a good Web site. Finally, I decided on a favorite SF/CP Web site and I asked myself what made this site better than others. The Web site is dedicated to William Gibson (Foley) site which scrolls a picture of the writer on the site projecting an air of authority. The problem with the William Gibson site is that the background does little to complement the site. The background for the BR site however, not only complements the title but helps project the mood