Web Design
Web design is essential in today's world. The design of a website and its accessibility can determine if it fails or succeeds. The website I chose was the "Magic of Baltimore", I found this website in the "The twelve worst over the top websites of 2014" section provided this week. At first glance at this website, I didn't know where to look. There are many images and fonts that make my brain confused and clearly ignore some of the main aspects of web design.
- Usability - From exploring this website, I believe that this website lacks usability. When you are on the home screen of this website, you are met with many pictures of historical figures from Baltimore. You would think, that if you clicked on these images you would be directed to something. But, you are not. I also feel that the way information is organized is quite busy, making it harder to find information wanted by the user. The article, "10 Principles of Good Web Design" talks about usability and states "Users don't read, they scan". This website is a good example of way too much information, again, making it difficult for the viewer.
- Simplicity- This website also lacks simplicity, at first glance you are not sure where to look. There is a ton of information along with multiple images. This enables the viewer to make an easy quick decision on what they choose to look at.
- Typography- Going along with the simplicity, typography is an element that stands out for this website. The text of a website is one of the most important elements in its design, in my opinion. This particular website has a lot of different fonts, colors, sizes, and spacing choices. The article "9 Essential Principles for Good Web Design" discusses how "Different types of fonts say different things about a design." On this particular website, there are multiple different font choices. I feel with all of these different fonts impacts the way the website is received as a whole.
- Equitable use- This particular website also lacks equitable use. When I pulled this website up on my computer and Ipad, I was greeted by two different views. On my Ipad, the website's image wasn't as clear as it was on my computer. This creates equity issues as the website isn't viewed the same by all users.
- Clarity- Lastly, I concur that this particular website also lacks clarity. At first glance, you see a random web address in the corner, many colors and fonts, and a blurry background picture. I feel this takes away from the message or information throughout the website. With more clarity, the information would become more accessible.
While reading through this week's material, I couldn't help but think back to last week's topic of multiple intelligences. After viewing many "bad websites" I struggled to focus on exactly what to look for. I can see how if students were assigned content on a badly designed website they might struggle to focus or find information. The website I used would immensely turn off a visual learner. The information on the website isn't clean or visually clear. I also could see how learners who are logical/mathematical would struggle with navigating a website as busy as this one. From this week's readings, it is clear to me that the design of a website goes a lot deeper than just how nice it looks and can impact different learners in many different ways.
Hi Olivia,
ReplyDeleteI agree with all your points. This web site was created by an amateur and there was no thought put into how to effectively impart the information to a user. What I found extremely annoying was the endless scrolling of the page. The site just seemed to go on and on forever. As I explored further, the site was created in Blogger and this platform, perfect for blogging, is not suited to web development. The web developer, an I use that term loosely, would be better served by going to one of the web development sites like Wix, GoDaddy, or Square Space. These sites offer ready made templates that would eliminate the cluttered look of any of these sites on Web Sites that Suck! You points about the font are incredibly important. Any cursive font or curly style font should neve be used. The font should be a times roman style but never should contain cursive or curly styles. It makes it very hard to read. My web site I reviewed loved to use center justification. Your site did too. This is week language layout. Blocks of text should be left justified. It's stronger. Visually, the site had a good color scheme and the pictures were nice. The developer just could not find a way, using Blogger, to present the information in a logical way. All in all, I think the site I chose to critique was worse but your site was bad too!