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CIS233DA -- The Internet Web Publishing

Great Sites and a Lemon Assignment.

Here are the sites students submitted.

Great Site: Military, U.S. Navy's Official Web Site http://www.navy.mil/ The main page is simple, yet contains detail about the areas of the web site. A large graphic is in the middle of the page and to the left is a list of the different sections of the site.  The colors are pleasing and kept to a minimum. The main page fits very well to the screen and requires very little scrolling to see the bottom of the page. With the 'clean' design, a user of this page is able to quickly find the link to the section of the site that they are interested in.  The remainder of the site is set up very much the same.  It is not cluttered and the colors are such that all text and images are easy to see and pleasing to the eye.  The navigation from any point in the site is very easy as there many links are on each web page.  

Great Site: Sports, ESPN.com Baseball http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/ The site is part of the larger ESPN.com, however I am focusing on the baseball web site of ESPN.com.  The front page is designed with a navigation area to the left and then columns in the middle as well as on the right. The newspaper appearance to these columns provides the user with an organized view of the large amount of info on the page.  The info on the front page usually links to a page with the 'full story'.  Although there is a lot of info and some ads on the front page, it is not overly cluttered.  The pages inside the site are designed much in the same way.  The navigation list is always to the left, allowing a user to go to any other part of the site without going back to the front page. In addition, anywhere in the text where some info is mentioned, it is linked to more info on that subject. For instance, in the scoreboard area, if Arizona is playing San Diego, the score will be listed, however, the words Arizona, San Diego and even the starting pitchers, will be a link to the Arizona web page, the San Diego web page, as well as the profile page for the starting pitcher.  

Great Site: Business/Corporation, In-N-Out Burger http://www.in-n-out.com This web site is set up using frames.  The main page is very simple and clean.  It provides a large graphic as well as the company logo and slogan. It requires very little scrolling to see the whole page and the colors are kept to a minimum on a white background. The frames to the left are also to the point in describing the areas of the web site. In the frame list to the left, scrolling down to see the entire list is kept to a minimum. The colors on the site are all the official company colors, which keep a theme going throughout the site. The areas of the site provide the user with very useful information in an easy to find format. The e-commerce area is also very user friendly with graphics of item that are available.  Pull-down list and fill-in forms are utilized in the shopping area, making it quick and easy to make a purchase.

Lemon: Business/Sales, Provenfreedom.com http://www.provenfreedom.com This web site pages all are designed the same way.  Each page requires a lot of scrolling to reach the bottom.  Whereas the site is not cluttered, the text and images are in many different fonts, sizes and colors making it very unpleasing to the eye.  The images all seem to be of the stock footage type that are used in many sales brochures, which makes the site look very generic and does not portray a personality of its own.  This site is the web equivalent to a telemarketing phone call.

Great Site:  Gmunk http://www.gmunk.com/ This web site has great old-Macintosh style pre-loader. Once inside, the site uses vivid colors and sounds to give you a real New York urban-style feel. The background image gives you the feeling that it is your desktop, not just a web page. The images are all very clean and nicely placed. The navigation menus on the top and bottom combine creativity and functionality. They appear almost as if they were part of the operating system rather than part of the web page.  The site is mainly made out of java script and Flash.  

Great Site:  Archinect http://www.archinect.com This is a very informative site for architects as well as artists alike. This site uses lots of Java scripting to make very cool ways of navigating through blocks of text. They use navigation bars for each block of text. There is tons of information organized in a great manner. The site is easy to navigate through and has many sharp image links as well as an overall powerful theme, using potent colors and lots of functionally. Once inside they have news scrollers that automatically change everyday so viewers can stay up-to-date on what is going on in the industry. The main image also changes upon refresh of the page, keeping the site's appearance fresh and new. This site is mainly made with html, dhtml and java script.  

Great Site:  Surfstation http://www.surfstation.lu Surfstation is an on-line magazine for web developers. It is full of useful links and tools for cutting edge web developers. The layout of the site is great. The entry page changes every time you go to the site. It keeps it real, fresh and new. Once inside, there are all kinds of links to anything a web developer needs. There are great photo links that when clicked on, populate cells in tables with more information on that image you have clicked on. Once the cells are populated, there navigation bars within that cell. A great way to get around. There is also a great navigation bar on top of the web site that uses a jump-to menu to help you get around the site very easily. You can go forward and backwards around the site with very little effort. You can really get into the detail of what you are looking at.  

Lemon: Saturn Cars http://www.saturn.com/This site appears very clean and professional when you first enter it, but the navigation rollovers are very confusing and inconsistent. When you roll over an image it shows the menu, but occasionally when you try to move to that menu, it disappears.  It also has photo links of the car models, but when you rollover between them the images flicker back and forth.  This is because it is setup to show a default image when a rollover is not in hover mode.  So when you go between pictures it looks a little out of control. Nice looking site, but very confusing for surfers trying to take a look around.

http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/   http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/ This site is essentially a link page to newspaper sites around the world.  The designers of this page used combo boxes to group countries/states geographically which provides a very easy to use interface.  This feature organizes the information nicely, which is important since there are over 1,500 newspapers which are linked off of this page.   I am usually able to find local information when I want to read about an event somewhere else in the world without having to do an extensive search due the fact that page content is comprehensive and easy to navigate.

http://cbs.sportsline.com/  http://cbs.sportsline.com/ I dig sports pages.  On the main page, the various topics are nicely presented along the top of the page, allowing the user to navigate the pages easily.   What I really like is the MY SPORTSLINE function which allows a registered user to customize their own page (similar to what is found on other web pages).  By setting up my personal MY SPORTSLINE page, I am choose which stories are of interest to me and organize them as I would like to see them.  This capability allows me to have exactly the page that I want.

http://www.travelocity.com/  http://www.travelocity.com/ The main page allows you to see the various different type of services which are provided (airfare, etc.) and to perform a basic search from the middle of the main page.  This is nice because everything you need to begin your travel planning  is very easy to find and just as easy to use.  If you are looking for more advanced search features, those functions are also very easy to find and use.

A lemon http://gila.lib.az.us/GLOGOV1.HTM  http://gila.lib.az.us/GLOGOV1.HTM This is the page for the city of Globe, Arizona.  The page consists of a Mapquest map of a portion of the city and the phone numbers of several city agencies.  While the information may prove useful to some, there is nothing on the page that could not be found in an on line yellow page web page.  You will  note that there are no area codes for any of phone numbers, which will render the information useless to many people.  The main reason that I feel as though this site is a lemon is due to the fact that local governments have found the Internet to be a very effective way of providing people with information about city services, to access forms (job applications, etc.) and to promote local attractions.  I believe that that this page lacks does little to take advantage of the potential of the Internet and fails to provide users with information that they are accustomed to from other municipal web pages (even those of much smaller towns).

www.drivers.com. http://www.drivers.com/ Very informative and useful for finding out about the latest technology about cars and driving systems. Organized with no fancy graphics, just good information.

www.cartoonnetwork.com. http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/ On another note, this wed site displays very well the use of Macromedia Flash and Dreamweaver. I feel even though it is slightly cluttered it has some great information about the cartoons displayed on cartoon network.

LEMON!!! - www.ronneff.com. http://www.yellowpages.com/ This is my friends fathers web site. I feel it is horrible design wise, its cluttered and had no stucture. Too many forn types are used and is lacking class.

Great Site: Tony Roth Photography www.trphoto.com/index.html http://www.trphoto.com/index.html The home page is very simple giving you a general introduction of what is available on the site. A unique design element was placing some photographs in shadow boxes and 35mm slide mounts. The site allows selection of the same web pages in multiple ways such as selection by photo or related text title. There is a consistency on most pages of the main menu selections listed on the left side. The site has easy access to sub-pages areas by an organized list selection of sub-topics.

Great Site: Educators Bed and Breakfast Travel Network www.educatorstravel.com/index.html The home page along with the other site’s pages lists the main topics of interest of the left side for a consistent look and feel. The site has an interesting logo, which relates directly to the site’s main interest. The pages use a larger type for easier reading and provides good information. While the site has a look of being simple, it includes some more sophisticated functions such as a search function and on-line entry form.

Great Site: Tenaya Lodge at Yosemite www.tenayalodge.com/index.html This lodge site goes well beyond just a simple description of the lodge. It offers area maps, timely information such as special events, activities for kids, information on spas and conference rooms. Also available are special Internet rates and things to do in the surrounding Yosemite National Park area. The information given is clear and displayed with good design and supporting photos. The main link areas are easy to locate due to consistent menu options. Use of links outside the site for additional information.

Lemon Site: Lisa’s Virtual Tours www.lisasvirtualtours.com http://www.lisasvirtualtours.com/ While the home page is done very well with some unique ways of showing the homes, some of the main link pages are not finished. The pricing page displays wording such as "This is where all of the text will go about the package #2". Some of the other links to the sites own pages can not be found. For a small business site that has been up for a while, the unfinished look could give the impression of inexperience in the business she is marketing herself in.

Arizona @Your Service: http://azportal.clearlake.ibm.com/webapp/portal/ The good things about this site are: a.) It is a one-stop site about Arizona. It provides most possible information for people want to do anything with Arizona. Form business to travel information, recreation, studying, history, living, everything you name it, b.) It links all the cities and counties’ sites in Arizona, so the users can also take advantage of the information in all the cities and counties web site information, c.) It provides three different search engines to accomplish your goals.

A cool web site that has many cool stuff: http://www.coolhits.com The good things about this site are: a.) Good home page design. All the search links are in the central area of the page for surfer to find quickly and easily, b.) It provides a wide range of topics and links, c.) It is better than many other sites by providing 50 mb free web hosting which includes: FTP access for uploading, no file size limits, free ready to use CGI's, server side include support, unlimited hits and bandwidth, hosting on secure high end unix servers, choice of advertising (including BANNERLESS), unlimited aliases for your site.

A good web site for bargaining tickets: http://www.orbitz.com/ Most of time I can find best bargain from this site. Besides offering the air ticket, it also provides many related travel information such as, hotel, car rental, cruises, travel package, etc. It also has the most major airline’s flight status, which make it a one-stop travel related search site.

Lemon: http://www.team2u.com/. Poor home page design. This is the site suppose to sell sports apparel and gift but the colors of the home page like some pornography site. The speed of the site is slow.

UNITED NATIONS http://www.un.org/ The design and presentation of the opening page is good. Identification and mission is signified by the UN symbol. The content associated with the navigation buttons and the use of graphics and symbols are clearly visual and help to signify contents. Lots of information with databases, bibliographic information, and full-text documents.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS http://www.loc.gov/ Presentation captures mission as national bibliographic service. It has nice images on the navigation buttons and provides direct access to information. Has a lot of information to serve general public, researchers, and library community. It even has a Q&A page, and contact point.

HOBBYLINC http://www.hobbylinc.com/index.htm This is one of my favorite sites. Home page covers the entire screen and has a point of contact. The content is good and has its own search engine. The navigation buttons are clearly identified to the specific type of hobby material you’re seeking. Some items even have images of the material being sold. Good site for hobby stuff.

Lemon: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US http://www.planettribes.com/allyourbase/AYB2.swf What is this? This happens to be one of the worst sites I’ve ever seen. There is no basis for this site. It doesn’t even talk about what the title means. Other than the video, there’s nothing else on this site.

Posh Tots www.poshtots.com This site is organized to make it easy to search for children’s furniture by type. Once the user has chosen a furniture type, the furniture choices can be sorted by price. Thumbnail images of each item are displayed. The images of all item makes it easy for the user to shop without having to click on an item and then go back to start again. Detailed descriptions are available for each item. While it amazes me that someone would spend $39,500 on a little girl’s bed, the site is laid out well.

MapQuest www.mapquest.com This site opens with a main page that is simple and easy to understand. Each function (such as driving directions) of the web page is shown on the main page either in a navigation bar or icons. The user doesn’t have to search multiple pages to get to the desired task. In addition, once the user has entered the required map or directions needed, the site provides a option for a printable map. The user doesn’t have to worry about conversions from the web to hardcopy.

Internet Movie Database www.imdb.com The site has 2 navigation bars to help the user maneuver around the site. The site also provides a search engine for direct navigation if the user knows exactly what he/she is looking for. The organization within the different pages is usually by tables. The tables summarize and organize the material in an easy to understand manner.

Lemon: Slashdot www.slashdot.org The site is full of useful information. But due to the layout, it can be hard for the user to find what he/she is looking for. With tool bars on both the right and left side, the user needs to read a lot of links to find something. The links’ descriptions aren’t always obvious as to what they connect to.

http://www.thebestdesigns.com/ This particular site sparked my interest due to the fact that they desgined a very eye catching and user involved website. The use of graphics for navigation and the general flow of the site makes it engaging to the user. The site is artistically sound, and flows well. Their use of monochrome colors for the scheme of the page makes it easy on the eyes, yet it still gets a persons attention.

www.google.com Google.com is perhaps one of the best and easiest to use search engines, and yet it was designed with extreme simplicity. In my opinion this site was well made because of what it can do, but having no confusing menus or eye scorching graphics.

www.html.com This site ranks as one of my favorites because it tells everything you need to know about the owners of the site, and still has good design qualities. They give you all of the information you need, and make it easy and simple to navigate.

Lemon site: www.hp.com This site makes the list due to its difficulty to navigate, its enormous size, and poor design. The site has extensive and multiple menus on one page, so that the user is easily confused as to where to go. The site is enormous, so it is very easy to get lost and not so easy to find what you need. Lastly they have seemingly designed the site so as to bury key features like contact numbers, search engines, and menus.

http://www.yahoo.com/   Loading doesn't take too long. Very well organised, Displays as many topics as I need  in a simple easily accessable manner. Navigation is simle with distinctive  clickable important links at the top in the form of buttons. It has got its own search Engine at the top which makes easy index search. Easy access back to home page from any other link on this page.It has little scrolling but of worth having so many important links handy .Moderate text & Graphics with light colors makes the page comfortably readable.

http://support.intel.com/   A single  Homepage with quick loading.No scrolling is needed.Navigation bar is at the top & easily accessable.Page made up of simple table with clickable buletted links on left side. Return to Home page from any other link on this page is easy & quick.Not too much of text & minimal Graphics yet lot of information.

http://www.bettycrocker.com/ Fast loading .minimal scrolling.Made up of nice & simple table with clickable links on left side.Easy navigation with Link to Homepage on the top left corner from any other link on this page.Search at the top makes it easy to explore other related topics. Very decent combination of Text & Graphics.

Lemon: http://reiki.7gen.com/ No tables,making the page lengthy.Lot of scrolling.Too much of text .Navigation is not organised .Monotonous color combination.Clickable links are not organised hence not easily accessable.  

Great Site: http://www.audiovox.com I liked this site because the majority of the pages are single pages with hyperlinks. The initial screen is colorful, graphical and breaks down the info into major categories. The second page I went to display pictures of the devices offered, making it easy to select without reading, while a short description appeared in the center graphic when a "mouseover" event occurred. Outstanding feature: it suggested to change the printer to landscape mode in order to correctly print a hardcopy page. Very good.

Great Site: http://www.soulplayer.com/home.html This is an interesting site. Good first page, well laid out with good use of color. I especially like the use of Flash graphics to make the screen come alive. Also uses sounds to liven it up a bit. The long FAQ page includes a "back to top" link after each answer, very good. The one bad thing about this site is every time you go back to the home page, a new window pops up and start playing the intro music and graphics. This should be coded to play ONLY the first time.

Great Site: http://www.circuitcity.com Good home page, just a little over 1 page long. Very descriptive menu on left side of screen with sub menus popping up on a mouseover event. I was able to get to the info I wanted very fast (2 clicks) and the page offered more than I expected (reviews, prices, comparisons, etc). The colors are a little to clashing for my tastes, but I liked the frames (I think they are frames) style of the layout.  

Bad Site: http://www.pjbox.com Really, this is not a bad site, it's just not a good site. None of the graphic pictures of the products are hyperlinks and one of the "more..." links takes you to a consumer review site that does not display anything about the product. There is no sound here even though it is a product of sound. Also the home page is two pages long (better to have one). I was able to finally find the info I wanted, but it wasn't easy. The only thing that kept me from leaving the site is that I really wanted the info on this product. They need to work on this site.

Great Site: DancingPaul.com http://www.dancingpaul.com/ The key word for this website is FUN. Paul has created a highly interactive site that encourages laughter and ease of use. Although, it may take a while to load, the results are worthwhile. It is easy to navigate, the slide-out tabs are interesting, and the uses of graphics, color, music, and layout are great

Great site: Qwest http://www.qwest.com Qwest has developed a site that is extremely easy to use and informative. The starting page is laid-out simply with minimal clutter. Once a category is chosen, the site very becomes useful with extensive, thorough drop-down menus. This easy navigation feature allows the user to go directly to the page needed without needless waiting for page after page to load. This site is clean, easy to look at, and efficient.

Great site: Farscape http://www.farscape.com If one is going to have a sci-fi site, this site would be a great model. The design is beautiful to look at through its use of color and graphics. The black background contrasting with the vivid colors combine to add impact. The advanced use of buttons and images keep the integrity of the overall design together, in addition to making it enjoyable for the user.

Lemon site: RipeInk http://fargo.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~das287/ripeink/features.html When I first encountered this site to read an article of interest, my initial impression was that this was a good site. It has a good use of color, especially since text is presented against a white background. This is a nice contrast with green and black on either side. The site became a lemon when I tried to go past the first page. Each link is directed to either outdated material, or is "under construction" (a tool that I think is amateurish). Other pages have correct headings but are filled with irrelevant board game instructions used as filler text. This is a site that was never ready to be published and hasn’t been updated since 1999.

Edmunds.com is a car-buying website.  This site is laid out such that a prospective buyer or investigator can immediately jump into the information he needs.  Although the home page does require some scrolling, the pertinent links are right at the top and one does not need to go any further down the page except for extraneous information.  The graphics are simple and, while somewhat busy, does not distract from the job at hand.  This site is easy to use!

The Grammy site http://www.grammy.com/ is a well-designed site in that it is easy to navigate and is pleasing to the eye.  All pertinent links are located on the right of the page with color coding that allows ease of decision making and getting to the location a user desires.  More links are featured in the middle of the page and pans down to the length of a second page.  These items are available only if the user wants additional information.  Along the left side of the page, current performers, acts, and stars are featured. These items change weekly.

Musician.com is a site dedicated to helping musicians find other musicians in their area to jam with.  The site is well set up with the search engine available on the home page.  Once the user enters the pertinent data, the search engine starts chugging away and identifies several options. It's easy to read and to finds your way around.  A few related links are available on the left side of the page if the user wants to look at some other info regarding the music industry.  Unfortunately, there is a little advertising along the left hand side but, it's tastefully done and does not intrude.

OAG.com http://www.oag.com/web/default.asp is a site intended to allow one to search for a variety of travel options.  Although it appears to be set up like other travel sites I have seen, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, etc.  I am not as please with it because, although it identifies a variety of flights, it does not provide pertinent data like, how much the flight costs, how does one avail oneself of these flights etc.  I made a three attempts to get data I needed from this site and, in every case, came away with some scheduled flights but no way to make the travel plans.  In every case, I had to exit out, go into other sites, check the respective prices and make reservations through those other site.  It was, essentially, a waste of time for me.

Great Site: www.cartalk.com - AKA Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the Tappet Brothers For the beginner or the advance auto person, with lots of humor. Just about everything you wanted to know about cars. All the navigation is at the top of the page, with pull down menu screens. Easy to move around and very easy to read.

Great Site: www.artbell.com Good site if your interested in UFO's, ghosts, space images, chupacabra, Big Foot, Alien images, Crop circles, and more. Nice graphic and lots of information. The only problem I had was it had a lot of photographs and took time to download.

Great Site: www.enterprisemission.com - "To Boldly Go Where Someone Has Gone Before...." Again a good site if your interested in Mars, Anti-Gravity, Anthrax, N.A.S.A., and more. You can click on different subjects or scroll down the page and read different articles. Easy to move around and lots of images.

Lemon Site: www.jacksonbrowne.com When I first sign on, it took about three minutes to download. Then the first screen asks if you want "flash enhanced or HTML only". For someone that didn't know anything about computers, they wouldn't know what to enter. Also it had one of those mini screen, I had to close out.  And last, it wouldn't let me back out of the screen.

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