Taught Elective: Website Evaluation

MAPS Taught Elective: Website Evaluation Assignment

Helen Williams MAPS y2.

31^st January 2007

Site Evaluation

You are asked to choose a website, possibly in keeping within your own interests or area of research. Once this decision has been made you are then asked to consider the following.

1.     What is the site for, what information is to be communicated? What, in your opinion, is the author trying to achieve?

The site is designed to be the shop window for landscape photographer Harry Cory Wright and his company, Saltwater. It gives information about the person, the gallery venue, and the work produced. It appears that the author is aiming to provide a source of both straight information (maps, places to eat and so on) as well as aesthetically pleasing images for us to look at and admire. The site is, therefore, a showcase for Cory Wright’s photographic expertise and a vehicle for promotion of his core business.

2.     At  whom is the site aimed? What is the target audience for the site?

Fellow photographers (amateur and pro) prospective purchasers of fine art photography and people who enjoy looking without buying.

3.     What is the interactive experience? How easy is to navigate through the site? How is the information structured? How quickly does it load, are you left waiting for sections to load?

The simple, uncluttered homepage offers us a promise of what can be found inside through the use of a typical Cory Wright image and little else:

There is a hierarchy of information, with the links divided into a menu of three items and submenu of a further two. There is no indication as to a preferred route through the site.

If the obvious first link  - Gallery - is followed then we arrive at a page which is sparsely populated with text but dominated by a large photograph of an interior:

We are not told where the shot is taken but, as it is a departure from the landscape images we are expecting, it could be inferred that this is an image of personal significance to the site owner; perhaps an interior shot from his own house, or at least his ideal house. It gives us a nice, cuddly feeling which is somewhat at odds with Cory Wright’s usual outdoor images. For those who know his oeuvre, this has a destabilizing effect, which could be quite intentional of course.

The text on this page is small and could be somewhat difficult to read on anything less than an XGA display. (It is also repeated needlessly elsewhere.) It makes reference to the site owner’s background, his activities, his oeuvre and his current business, none of which bears any relation to the cosy-hearth image over which it uncomfortably hovers.

From this point the viewer is led towards a link to View Photographs, making it less likely to return to the main menu in the top right hand corner (where, incidentally, the Photographs link is repeated, but links from the sub menu on the homepage have disappeared – will we remember to go back there to see what they were?) Navigation around the site has now become serendipitous rather than didactic.

If the Photographs link is followed, we arrive at a list of photographic galleries listed in plain text which, whilst loading quickly without the hindrance of graphics, does nothing to help us choose which of the image collections to visit next. Small thumbnails which were indicative of the pages to come would have helped inform the viewer’s navigation route and, in this day and age, would have done little to slow down the loading speed of the page.

From this list it is a straightforward matter to follow the text hyperlinks and, from any given gallery, navigate back to the Photographs index.

The Gallery pages have a neutral grey background which, whilst inoffensive, does not give the site the air of sophistication which might be felt if either black or pure white had been used. The thumbnails hotlink to larger versions of the images in the usual way, most of which are a sensible 300-400px wide. A second click takes the viewer to a much larger 600px wide version. All images are copyable and downloadable and therefore easy to appropriate.

Elsewhere there is a helpful information page which provides all the usual contact and location details, including an email hotlink, but the two clickable maps are not credited to the copyright holder. An embedded link to Googlemaps might have been a better alternative as it allows the user to go further in route planning and understanding the location of the venue.

If ever the viewer remembers to go back to the homepage, there are two further links in the sub menu which go to a book promotion and some downloadable desktop wallpaper images.

Overall the site loads quickly on my fast machine with broadband connection. The images are sensibly sized so there should be reasonable access on a dial-up, if not for the largest images then certainly for everything else.

  4.          What is the relationship between text and image?

See above for comments on the introductory text. Elsewhere on the site images are placed alongside text to add interest but have no direct relevance:

7.          Finally draw out the site structure, using a site map, showing the pages and all the links connecting these pages.

Using web authoring software, this sitemap has been reconstructed from my navigations around the original site:

http://www.saltwater.co.uk/

URLs
All sites accessed and working 7/3/07

Evaluating Web Pages:
Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly:
or, Why It's a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources

Cornell University Library: five criteria for evaluating websites

Webcredible: usability website evaluation

Xyone Website Evaluation

Bowen Craggs and Co evaluation of a site

Richard Seah Effective Websites

(C) Helen Williams 2007