Bobby Wilson

Quick Note

I thought it would be fun for me to do a critique of a website that I found in a “review my site” forum. I didn’t pick this site for any reason in particular, and I don’t personally know the designer/developer. I am going to try and do these semi-regularly to keep myself sharp, and to provide constructive feedback to those looking for reviews.

Site Introduction

The website I found to critique is http://www.townofgrandfallswindsor.com/. I found the site in the “Review My Work” category of the Freelance Switch forum. link

Standards

The first thing I always check when critiquing a website is standards validation. I don’t necessarily care what standard the designer chose to use, but I hold web standards in high regard. I go right to the W3 Validator to validate the site. The designer in this case chose XHTML 1.0 Strict, a fine choice. The site does not validate as of today, with one error, “there is no attribute “target”". In all of the “strict” specifications there is not an attribute of “target”. However, in XHTML 1.0 Transitional specifications there is. The way to stay strict in this case would be to use some javascript to open the link in a new window. That was the only standards concern, so we can move on to the next section.

Information Architecture

Information architecture is the bread and butter for SEO. To get a good idea of information architecture I turn off the style sheet. Doing so lets you see a nice hierarchical view of the site as far as information goes. If the site is well designed from an information architecture point of view, it should be organized and easy to read. This is also a good time to see the content by itself. This site starts pretty well, you get an <h1> of Grand Falls Windsor, which is the town that the site is about. I expected there to be a hyphen between the “Grand Falls” and “Windsor” because that’s how it is everywhere else. You a <ul> of navigation, pretty standard. Moving down, you get a teaser of copy, then an <h2> of “Reasons you should visit Grand Falls-Windsor”, followed by another <ul> of four reasons. Then, something very disappointing happens. Without any sort of separation from the reasons to visit Grand Falls-Windsor, there is a giant <ul> of links that have to do with different aspects of the town. I would have like to seen categories, or something to break down this large list of links. Below that there is “August 2008″ followed by all of the dates in august. I would have opted for a table in this case, because this is one situation where I would want the data represented in tabular form. After that there is “Upcoming Events” with an event underneath that, perfectly fine. “Latest News” with a news item. An “About Us” with some copy, and a “Links” section with a few links. Lastly a copyright notice. Nothing to complain about at the bottom, I sometimes wonder if “links” could be a more descriptive name in these cases, but it is very minor.

Layout and Design

Header Graphic

The first thing I notice when I arrived at this site was the large feathered image at the top. The page loads a random image/collage every time you refresh the page as well. After a few clicks on refresh I am undecided about whether I like this or not. Generally I don’t like the feather effect, and I think it goes back to looking at my high school yearbook with a feathered collage of pictures every other page. This is one of the better examples of feather I have seen though. The other comment I have about this header is the varying quality of photography. Some of the photos are interesting, high resolution (for the web), and colorful, while others are either pixelated, dreary, or just not very interesting. Another thing I noticed about this header graphic is that sometimes there is a translucent gray bar underneath the typography and other times there isn’t. I think it should always be there especially when using white text. The crest next to the type is also blurry, low quality, and doesn’t stand out like I think it should.

Navigation

I like the design and color choice of the background of the navigation bar. The pinstripes are a nice touch, what I don’t like is the cut-outs in the corners that look like they were done with a small eraser tool in Photoshop. I think I would like the cut-outs if they were a clean sharp curve. I also notice that there is no indicator of which page we are on with the menu items, clicking “HOME” also reloads the page even if you are home. The navigation is also somewhat deceiving, the only thing that changes upon click is a sub menu on the right hand side. This is somewhat odd behavior to me because I expect new content, especially from primary navigation. I noticed that this was an XHR request, so I turned off javascript to see if he was degrading gracefully, and BAM! exactly what I was initially looking for. Individual pages per navigation link, this couldn’t have made me happier. As well as there being a separate content page, we also get to know where we are. This is awesome, I would like to see similar behavior with the XHR requests, make me feel like something happened when I click a link, and tell me where I am once I do that. I think even minimally adding a header to the top of the sub menu would make me happy, telling me what the category the links are.

Calendar

I think that calendars can be very useful, if they are used. I do find the background graphic of the calendar distracting. It bothers me when something should be a bit distorted because of it is on a curved surface but isn’t, like the dates to the lower right corner. To me the graphic somewhat cheapens the calendar because of its low quality.

“Idea Garden”

There is the second feather job I have seen, and this one I don’t appreciate as much as the first one. The first thing I notice is that the white box below show be above the feathered image, not below it. The copy also doesn’t makes sense to me, it seems it should just be a contact us, like the page title says when you arrive there. This link could also fit into the primary navigation at the top, as it is a something that people come to look for. I also question the choice of the green in the link color, I don’t know where it fits in, in the color scheme.

“Reasons to visit Grand Falls-Windsor”

I think this section is pretty effective. The title is bold in color. The points have nice spacing and typography. The added detail with the unique bullet is nice.

Footer

The footer is another feathering. I am over-feathered at this point and I don’t think the translucent gray box helps at this point. The three columns isn’t bad, and I think it works here. The yellow headers are a bit much, and I don’t think they compliment the background color. White text as body copy is a tough call, it is always hard to read especially in a seriffed font, on top of an image. The email address link in the copy is unreadable to me. I think the photography feels a little forced, and I am fine with just plain text. When there is text my first concern is reading it, don’t put it on top of an image please.

Overall

I think this site is a strong, pretty effective design. I like the general color scheme, tan, red, blues, white. There is a few single instances of colors that I question, and I would like to have been something that fit a little better in the scheme, but nothing major. The typography is nice, it left me wondering what it was, and I think it fit the style of the site. The feel was classic, symmetrical, rich, with nice details. I am just noticing that I might have like to see what the menu looked like with a detail either side of the text instead of just the left. The site was also very close to being strict XHTML 1.0, with a minor change it will. I like the progressive enhancement with the javascript, without the javascript the site is still intact. I think the people of Grand-Falls Windsor will be very happy with their new site.

Further Critiques

If you want me to critique your site, leave a comment letting me know that you are interested. I will contact you and get you on the list for next time.