Web Design Goodies Critique #6

Web Design Goodies Critique #6

Published October 18, 2000 By Joe Burns, Ph.D.

Greetings, Fellow Designers

I have said many times that I believe content is king. A Web site must provide a killer app to survive. But if content is kingwhat’s next? What is the second most important thing in a Web site?

Easy navigation.

You must give your audience good content. Once you have that, you have to give them a solid method of getting around within that content. Today’s site has great content. It just makes it a little hard to get from point A to point B.

Now the obligatory release statement

>>>>The critique below represents the opinions of Joe Burns, Ph.D. Feel free to disagree, argue, forget, or accept anything he writes. The purpose of the critique is to offer examples that you may use to revise or forget about when it comes to your own Web site. As always, remember that there are simply no hard and fast rules to Web design. Any choice is the correct choice as long as that choice aids the user and fulfills the site’s purpose.<<<<

Title: Mason Photography
http://www.masonphotography.com
Author: Paul Mason
Load Time: 8 seconds, 56 Kbps modem, cleared cache, 9/10/00 5:35PM.
My Screen Size: 1024X768
Browsers Used: Internet Explorer 5.5 and Netscape Navigator
4.5

Concept: Getting married? How about having Mason come and photograph the proceedings? He’ll get the shot and put it onto CD for you. Not only that, but you’ll get the images both in an album and on the Web, so friends and family can order prints right from their browsers. This is a solid and very smart idea. Mason–you da man.

Praise: Fast, fast, fast. Wow–did this puppy fly in quick. I would think the reason is because it’s a fully text-based site. There are a couple of very small images, but for the most part, this site is text, text, and more text. If people do take the time to read all of it, they’ll find a great idea. The problem is that the great idea is hidden.