Week three. Go Falcons!

Did you hear the news this past week? The English language is now up to one million words! I only mention this because the irony of the one millionth word in relation to this class is hysterical! The newest word, are you ready? Web 2.0! Can you believe it! Now I personally don't think this should be considered a word but it is, and I thought it was too funny hearing this, just had to mention it.

Week three already, going so fast. I loved the html homework, couldn't believe all the cool things that can be done just by typing code. I really had fun playing around with the vocab page, I was kind of bummed when I saw that it was only worth ten points, I'm still proud of it though. While I'm on the subject of homework, I hate Gimp! Now I'm sure that it is a great graphic tool, but since we have been learning everything in Photoshop, I can't stand trying to figure out the correct wording for what I know how to do and just don't know where it is in the Gimp program! I think that I am going to try the free trial of Photshop because Gimp was really stressing me out this week. Anyway, I enjoyed the reading, still plugging away with "The Non-Designer's Web Book," good information on good and bad web designs. I felt that everything is explained very well and easy to comprehend. The topic did get a bit repetitive though by the time I finished reading the web pages from Diigo.

So this weeks blog is to have two web pages that I "evaluated" with my new knowledge from the weeks reading. I really do not "surf the web" at all, which kind of made this blog difficult, mainly because I have no idea what sites to look at. So I decided to use a little friendly competition with my choices. We are football fans in our home, that is the only sport, just football. That being said, my wife is a Steelers fan (booooo!) which makes things interesting because I am an Atlanta Falcons fan! I know what you're thinking, GOOOOOOOOO Falcons! Since pre-season is right around the corner, well more like two months but close enough, I thought why not compare the two teams web pages.

I'll start with mine, http://www.atlantafalcons.com/ Now for both and only for this assignment, I will be evaluating with a non-biased opinion and will use the same criteria to make judgements on good or bad design. The criteria that we have learned with evaluating web pages are authority, purpose, currency, objectivity and accuracy. Overall these things fall under the "crap" logic that I discussed in my week one post. When looking at the Falcons page, it has a great appearance and overall feel to the site. When you first log on, everything you need to see is right there, centered and without the need to drag the page side-to-side for viewing. The home page has a search engine, menu bar and up-to-date info right from the start. Each page continues the same feel throughout the whole site and it is very easy to navigate back to the home page since the menu bar is located in the same place throughout the site. I feel that the Falcons web page falls under an example of a "good" web design.

Now for the other, http://www.steelers.com/ (booooo!) What a mess! I really have no idea where to begin. Everything on the home page is a link or an advertisement, there is a busy ticker that just distracts me right from the start, the whole page is set to the left of the screen, fan or not this is a bad page! The first search engine you see on the home page takes you to any other team in the NFL, now I understand why, mainly because you must have stumbled to the Steelers page by mistake but come on, why would that be the first thing I see? Once you are able to find the navigation bar (located on the left) if you click to another page there is not a visible link to get you back to the home page. Every page is filled with busy things and loads to look at and click to. I feel this to be a disaster and certainly an example of "bad" web design.

For the record, I am being non-biased, really I am, the Steeler page is just a bad set-up but will at least give me ideas of what not to do when creating my own page. After reading the homework for this week I certainly feel that I look at all web pages much more critically and will continue to do so from now on. With the information that I have already learned from this class I think there is no excuse for bad design, you just have to take the time to make it right along with having a friendly design so that everyone, yes even a Steeler's fan can enjoy what the page has to offer.