February 13, Info- Tech Assignment Page

Part 1: Website Analysis & Critique
Today, we discussed many of the qualities that make a "good" webpage or website. Now it is time to put that talk to the test.

Most of us have a lot of experience surfing the web, and have developed some really strong opinions of what we like and don't like about the pages we spend time viewing. Your task in this assignment is to discuss specific examples of websites that you are already familiar with that you would define as being either effective or ineffective. You must choose and analyze two good websites, and two bad websites.  From those 4 websites, you will discuss one site that you deem to be a "great" site and and one example of a "bad" site that you believe leaves much to be desired and needs a complete over haul.

You will have until Friday to complete this assignment.

For each site

• Record the URL of the web site being reviewed
• Include a link to the actual site that opens in a new window
• Include screenshots of the most undesirable elements or components
• Provide a detailed written analysis that clearly indicates what you appreciate and / or don't like about the site.
  • Even for your effective or good site, there will likely be areas for improvement that you can suggest to make the site even better
  • For your ineffective or bad site, be sure to make some suggestions as to how the site could be improved.
• When writing your analysis, be sure to discuss or include specific comments from the areas outlined below.
• Do this project in word and load it into a Scribd.
• Remember, your discussion is not limited to these suggestions. There are probably lots of things you can discuss that aren't listed here.

Here are some areas and questions to ask if you are stumped.  You do not have to do all of them!

Content Aspects

• Provide an overview or summary of the content of the site.
• Identify the specific purpose(s) of the site (educating users, providing news, corporate image branding, s etc.). 
• Identify the target audience or market.
• Is the site "oozing" with great content for their target audience? Or does it include very little information and just provide users with a lot of pretty pictures, fun distractions, and / or a bunch of links to other sites?
• Is the content full of information that is useful, helpful, relevant, and interesting? Or is it useless and trivial?
• Is there effective use of headers, subheaders, and captions? Are they descriptive?
• Does the site include multimedia elements? Or does it rely solely on text and graphics? Is there a balance between text, graphic, and multimedia elements? Or is the site text or graphic heavy? 
• Is all of the content relevant to the site or does it distract the user from the real purpose (i.e. games and animation that act as fluff pieces that entertain rather than add meat to the content, animations and graphics are unrelated to the content)
• What is the level of interactivity? Are there links, videos to watch, music or sound to listen to? Forms or surveys to complete? Forums or Blogs to participate in? Social networking components?
• Is older content archived?
• Multimedia components? Present? Useful? Distracting?
• What qualities make the viewer likely or unlikely to revisit the site at a later date - Does the site leave you or anyone wanting to come back again?

Design Aspects (Layout / Interactivity / Navigation)

• Discuss the visual appeal or attractiveness.
• Discuss the organization or placement of various elements.
  • Is there simplicity or complexity of design? 
  • Is the site overcrowded or too empty?
  • Is the organization logical, or are content elements thrown randomly all over the place?
  • Is the design linear (all vertical down the page), or does the designer make use of tables, forms, CSS, and / or text-wrap to make the layout more complex?
• What is the readability factor?
• Analyze the use of color, backgrounds, and font choices (face, style, size).
• Does the site have a consistent feel and appearance or does it feel piecemeal constructed? Be sure to discuss the consistency or repetition of design elements throughout a page and throughout multiple pages of the site. 
• Analyze the various navigation systems within the site:
  • What navigation systems or methods are used and where are they located? (Menu bars, drop-down menus, hypertext links throughout the document, icons, photos or graphics, lists of links)
  • Does the home page establish the basic navigation methods? And are the navigation methods consistent and in similar locations throughout the site?
  • Discuss the ease with which viewer can find and navigate to specific content.
  • Is the site too deep? (Too many clicks to get to the desired information)
  • Are places viewers are to click obvious? Or is navigation a mystery? Can viewer easily identify which text or graphics are clickable?
  • Does the site let you leave when you click the BACK button? Some sites keep hanging onto you and stopping you at their home page when you click the back button, or they redirect the viewer to another site or trap visitors in a endless loop of popup windows.
  • Is a "Home" icon, button or link present in the same position on every page in the site?
  • Is mouse over used to indicate which navigation button you select?
  • What type of hyper-links are used:  internal (to pages within the site), external (to other websites), and relative links (to different parts or sections within a single longer page)?

Technical Aspects

• Discuss the URL in terms of its appropriateness for the website.
• Look at the source code. Is it clearly organized? Are there comments to identify the purpose of specific areas of code? 
• Are meta tags and descriptors included that can be used by search engines to find the page more easily?
• Are there any obvious spelling and grammar errors (Try pasting some of the text into Microsoft Word and use its Spelling and Grammar Readability Tools to evaluate the text)
• Discuss the presence of  broken graphics, broken links (404 Error).
• Is the site easy to find if you do not already have the URL? (Maybe do a google check with partial names or various descriptors)
• Does the site require Flash, Shockwave, Adobe Acrobat, Quicktime, or other viewers or plug-ins that could prevent visitors from viewing or listening to the content if they do not have the required viewers/plug-ins installed.
• Can the site or content still be viewed in a limited manner without the plug-ins?
• Are links provided to obtain the plug-ins / viewers from?
• Review the website with popular browsers (IE, Safari, Firefox, Opera), both recent and earlier versions. Make notes of any "browser specific" problems (problems specific to a single browser or a single version of a browser) during the review.

(Special thanks to Polson Industries, and their website review procedures: http://www.virtualpet.com/industry/howto/wsreview.htm )