When trying to decide on a relevant web site for our class, I tried to find something in which all college students would be interested. Eventually I found the Kaplan test prep homepage. I looked it over and the site has some really good information about their programs and other student resources. I evaluated this site on the following criteria: How clearly is the information presented and is it the information I was looking for when I came to the site? Is the site understandable and can I navigate it easily? And most importantly, is the site visually appealing?
Kaplan is one of the businesses that offer prep courses designed to help students do well on post graduate exams such as the GRE, GMAT, MCAT, DAT and other similar tests. Since Kaplan is designed to help college students it is obvious that this web site was written for them. Their target audience might also include some high school students as they do offer some SAT and ACT prep courses as well. Still, the majority of their market are juniors and seniors in college.
Since I am planning on going to Dental school I will consider myself as the normal type of person who would be expected to visit this site. The index page is very helpful for a first time visitor to the site. All of the information is presented in tables as well as in a large gif map. One thing I really liked about the page was that it was not cluttered with textual information. Rather it had many different categories in which the user could choose for themselves what information they wanted to read.
Being a pre-dent major I chose to look up the Dental School and DAT link. It was a local link and it gave me a definition of the DAT, what types of questions the test covered, as well as pertinent facts and dates of the test and prep courses. Information-wise the site did give me what I wanted to know and I am satisfied with the data. I did not have to spend a long time searching for the information that and I liked that a lot. I looked at the other links and there is quite a bit of depth to the site with many local and non-local links. For my first criterion the site did very well. The information was presented in a logical fashion with many categories for any type of visitor. Everything on the site was clear and it did not take a long time to find specific information. The site definitely answered all of my questions that I had before I visited.
The site is very user friendly and they even have some games for the bored student to play. This is a good thing to have because it would bring students back to the site even if they aren't necessarily interested in the prep courses. Then these people would tell their friends about the site and even more of the target audience would visit. As well as games Kaplan also offers links to student resources like libraries, on-line stores, and other related software items. These links were very helpful and I plan to make use of them on my future projects. The links were easy to navigate and they did a good job of explaining where they were taking you. Regarding my second criterion the site did well again. The site was detailed and very understandable. The majority of the links were local ones and did not take a long time in loading. Also every page had links to return the visitor back to the homepage in case they got on the wrong link. This saves the visitor from having to wade through needless information or using their browser to go backwards.
For the final portion of my evaluation I looked at the site's aesthetic quality and found it sorely lacking. I understand that the color scheme of Kaplan is always green and a pinkish-red but these colors do not work well on a white background. To start with the image at the top of the page is very bulky and doesn't explain much. It does have six links in the image but its not very clear where they will take you. All the image really does is name the page. I know they could have found a better image to accomplish this with. After you get past the first image the next one is a link that takes you to a sample GRE. This image presents more of the commercial aspect of the site. Not only do you get to sample the test , but Kaplan asks that you register with them to do it. This gives them your name and address as a potential customer. This is obviously a good thing for them.
The text begins immediately following these two images and it is very hard to read. The font is incredibly small and after staring at a computer screen for a few hours it is impossible to read. An additional problem is the poor contrast between a light green font and white background. These colors are very close together on the visual spectrum and consequently project the illusion of waving or vibrating at you. This makes it hard to focus on the letters and as there is no stark contrast between them they run together very easily.
These problems would be easy to fix. All that would need to be done is to increase the font size and change the background color of the page. I would try to use a better image up top but that is not the main problem. Just the size of the letters and the green/white contrast. Once those have been corrected throughout the site, nothing more would have to be done. Thus for my criteria the Kaplan page does a very good job in presenting its information and being understandable to the first time visitor. The only shortcoming is in its use of color and contrast. Once these minor things are corrected it will be an all around great site.
Click HERE to see my updated one.
Ford Worldwide Connection Homepage Ford Motor Company. http://www.ford.com/home.html (25 Feb 1996)
This has some really great stuff on all types of Fords and Ford history. I was going to use this site first but it was too good.
Kaplan Educational Centers KAPLAN. http://www.kaplan.com/ (26 Feb 1996)
Test prep homepage. Good information. Bad design. For more see paper.
Ramsey, Paul. History of TOS Romulan Empire. The Romulan Empire. http://tos-www.tos.net/tos/romulan/romhist.html (6 Feb1996)
This is the same site I pulled my information from for my last paper. Interesting site for trekkies with lots of factoids about romulans.
Welcome to UH Online The University of Houston homepage. http://www.uh.edu/
My girlfriend goes to UH and I wanted to check it out. Good graphics but doesn't compare to our system here. They don't even have a student directory on-line.
UT Austin Web Central The University of Texas at Austin. http://www.utexas.edu/
What can I say, its home. Very sophisticated and up to date. Couldn't possibly improve on UT.