| Good Site | Bad Site | NCC Competencies |
NCLC 249:001 Website Evaluation
by Aram Zucker-Scharff
This site is the homepage for the Angels Fall First Universe which is a group of projects, including a total conversion modification for the game Homeworld 2, a modification for the game Nexus, a modification for the game Half Life 2, and a completely original game engine. This site is for people who are interested in making “mods” or games in general and important for those interested in the Angels Fall First (AFF) collection of programs in specific. It is also the only place to go for those with skills in the general IT field who might be interested in getting in on the ground floor of the AFF project.
Any visitor should expect to find, (and does,) a report on the progress of the project, a method to contact the project leaders, a listing of the project’s essential documents, a place to see results of the latest work, links to associated sites, a list of associated documents, and a place to download the latest release of the various programs. All that information is there and easily accessible. Even deeper access is available to the user via the sites forum system. Any visitor to the site should find a full amount of content and the intended audience would get a full experience of the project through the site.
All the information on the site is easy to find. The most important news is listed right on the front page along with links to the most important documents and a header bar linking to all the other important subjects. Anything not found via the main page can be found via the well organized forums, and if the information still can’t be found the forums has a search function that works very well. Everything on the site is well worded.
Visitors to the site need to know very little to use the site. It’s fairly self-explanatory and shows or tells the visitor almost everything they need to know. On the main site the information is solely posted by team leaders, in the forum anyone who signs up can post but it is made obvious who the official posters are, to insure that there is no confusion. The information on the site spans a long period of time and is consistently updated, on the main site the latest news post is just from the end of this January and the posts on the forum are updated every day.
The graphics on the AFF site are exceptional, they are not only of excellent quality but are also well integrated into the site in the form of thumbnails or links for larger pictures, amazing looking headers, and visually pleasing frames and containers. The graphics fit very well with the content, they are used to emphasize certain parts of the website and to highlight the latest news. Additionally, they also are good showcases that match well with the text.
While this site is very well done, there are one or two things I would change. For one I would change the header links, they don’t fit well with the graphic, so I’d either change the graphic or the configuration of the link graphics. The only other thing I’d change is that I’d make all graphics thumbnails instead of making a good many of them text hyperlinks.
Back To TopThe site seems to be appealing to young people who purchase Casio products, it’s hard to tell. I would expect to find some sort of information about Casio products or even just a link back to the Casio website, neither of which is there. It seems to just be random graphics with no real explanation beyond some very odd text. The content itself seems to be totally irrelevant, what little there is. The site is totally dependent on a mostly non-labeled interface (or badly labeled) so you can’t find half of the stuff and what you can find you don’t know what you are clicking through to. The way things are worded on the site are rarely in correct grammar format and even when they are it doesn’t make much sense.
Visitors don’t need to know much to use the site, it seems to be entirely based around randomly clicking and mouse-over-ing random parts of the site. The information seems to be entirely posted by Casio except it’s very spread out. Even the small amount of information immediately available after the intro flashes in and out and doesn’t stay on mouse-over. Casio is posting information about their products so that doesn’t make it the most reliable source. The information that is on the site seems to be on fairly new products.
Some of the sites graphics are very nice abstract designs that go well with the site, however there are also these random pop art pictures which are just plain strange. There is far too many graphics compared to the amount of text on the site.
If I were to improve the site, assuming that it was a site about a lifestyle involving using Casio products, I’d get rid of the nonsensical intro, add labels so that people could click through and know where they were going. I’d increase the amount of flavor text and put more in about actual Casio products. I’d also put in more about actual Casio products altogether, including pictures and reviews. I’d get rid of some of the ridiculous pictures as well. Also the transitions between flash “pages” takes far too long, I’d cut down on that as well.
Back To TopThis assignment let me practice a bunch of different NCC competencies. It allowed me to practice my communication skills, making me read, write and understand text in context. Critical Thinking came in handy to allow me to summarize, synthesize, find connections, and distinguish between facts and simple propaganda. It also allowed me to expand my competency in Aesthetic Awareness by judging artistic and design issues on the two websites. Of course it also helped with the Information Technology competency, it helped me to master an activity, new technology, and helped me to learn to locate and evaluate information.
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