Website Evaluation

Okay never done this before so lets hope it works, knowing me i'll post this to the wrong place but never mind!!

Okay my outline for auditing a website:

Good colours
Clear text
Relevant content
Clear Visuals
Good download tools
Good layout/design
Hyperlinks should work
Good search bars

My good website: www.musicroom.com

The home page is clear and has a good layout. The information on the homepage is all relevant to the genre of the website, for example the advert on the homepage is for music lessons, given they sell this type of stuff people may go through this kind of place to gain access to such teachers.

The menus on this site are very useful, firstly you have the main search bar across the top of the page which enables you to search the whole site or if you prefer there is the drop down menu which enables you to search in certain areas. Secondly, for example, if you choose to view sheet music, the side navigation bar allows you to choose what intrument you want the music for and some, like strings, even have a sub category like, violins, viola or cello. This all makes it much easier for the viewer to find the type of music they are looking for quickly and easily.

Another great part of this site is the download tools, a lot of times you can onto websites and you have to download some software before you can look at what you want, however, the download for the program is never on the site and you have to go searching all round the internet for what you want, not here though! On the musicroom they have an automatic down if it is not detected on your computer and once again saves you time and is very user friendly.

The colours are bright and make the page nice and visable and the size and style of text are very clear and easy to read. This website also has a high Google ranking therefore making it easy to locate in a search. All hyperlinks on this website work.

Bad Website: www.allpoetry.com

Well to start with the homepage is very dull, its all of a very basic layout and website design. Search bars are hard to use because they are drop down menus and if you move slightly off the title for example, it flicks to the drop down menu next to the one you want. Another problem is the log in details they are not in a very visable place, and logins to accounts can take some time to load. At times not all information is viewable.

Another problem with this website is that it has a 'chatterbox' at the side of the screen that everyone can view all the time so when your trying to read someones poetry all you can see at the side is someone conversation being updated second after second which puts the reader off what they came to the site for! Another problem with the site is that a 'comments box' comes across the screen when you are viewing someones poetry however, this can get in the way of the poem so you have to scroll down further than you want to to view it.

The colours of some pages also make it very difficult to see the content of the page, some of the fonts are also small and hard to read and the content of some of the pages is not at all relevent to the site. Not all of the hyperlinks on the website actually work either so you end up with a 404 which is always annoying!

Another problem is the use of their search bars, you can search for a poet if you know their name however, most websites have if you spell a word wrong will give you w link to what they think you meant however, AP does not do this and given the fact that some of the names on here are very difficult to spell this could be a useful tool for them!

Okay I think thats finally it. I'm sure I'll think of something I've missed out though!!