If I Were having a Nightmare About Having to do an Assignment on Critiquing a Web Site, This is What I Would Say
Web sites are just like magazines, newspapers, brochures, menus, or even directions on how to make nitroglycerin from house-hold goods, in that they all have to be put together in such a manner that whoever is reading or browsing over it will be able to clearly distinguish this from that. In this sense, a critique of any particular web site will have justification, while carefully considering also that this is an altogether new medium of information exchange. Now, all of this talk of togetherness is actually a general reference to basic design principles, such as color coordination, if color is used, text size, font choice/ style, art integration, accessibility, and just plain and simple design of the page. For example, it wouldn't be all that appealing to the eyeball if a page being viewed had all the text jumbled up in a corner, so small your eyes were bleeding by the time you figured out that it wasn't even worth the trouble. Darn. It's important to rememeber, especially these days, that what you read is as important as how it looks. Have you ever tried reading an interview in a Raygun magazine? Kinda hard, right? Design totally for its own sake is nice, as art that is, and admittedly it looks cool. However, it's two in the morning and you're standing in line at the corner 7-11 trying to pay for your 40 ounce bottle of Kool-Aid, and you happen to see that your favorite MTV Pearl Crap-clone band is on the cover of this hip magazine and you go to read it, but you can't. It's not because to you failed elementary school three times in two years, but because the maestro in charge decided to get fancy with it and thought it'd be cool if he hid the text under a black box or likewise photograph. I like to look at stuff like that, but when the transmission of information, maybe vital information, is disguised under a ton of make-up I say Slut. I'm not saying make-up is evil, but we all know what's in somewhat good taste, and what isn't. But, hey!, I could be wrong: There could actually be a great person hiding under that crusty exterior; most of the time there is. A balance needs to be achieved or at least strived for when designing a web page or any page for that matter. I'm not trying to rag on Raygun or anything, because I like A LOT of the stuff that they do, but one must not get carried away with it and ignore what one is supposed to be doing in the first place. For this reason I have chosen to pick on the Alternative X web site (http://www.altx.com/), for this paper. Well, not really pick on them, but you know what I mean. So in our quest to discover the ideal web page we must look at the following things: 1) Does it make sense? Is its layout so erratic in such a way as to render the viewer blind because of the designers lack of vision and utter stupidity? 2) Organization. How and why were things placed in the places they were placed, needs to be known, or at least made seemingly apparant. 3) Since this is a web site we are critiquing, and like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Book one can skip to another section with almost no fear of being inquisitioned, does its "links" lead to somewhere meaningful?
The first thing one sees when first viewing this page is a yellow screen with a single "X" in the center with "alt" typed across it. Nice. Let me go off on a tangent here: I like "white space," that is, space that isn't occupied or cluttered with noise and traffic and unwanted pedestrians with a death-wish. Not showing something is as important as showing what is there or what could be there. Saying nothing can hold as much water as saying a whole lot, which nobody really wants to listen to anyways. They get Brownie Points on this one from me. After clicking on this "link," the viewer/ browser is taken to another page with this cool-lookin' girl on it, and a list of other links one can go to, a sort of menu page. Again, it is simply done, not intimidating in any sense. However, some graphics would help to liven up the Gatorade-reminiscent background.
There is one link, called "The Write Stuff," that showcases this month's interview[s] with well-known/ talented writer[s]. In addition, they allow the voyeur to check out past interviews with such people as Nicholson Baker, Bret Easton Ellis, John Shirley, and the William Gibson-interviewing, Larry McCaffrey. Keeping a hold of these past glories is not mere nostalgic patheticism but can actually turn out to be a valuable gold mine for those late night/ early morning web masochists, like myself. More Brownie points for these people for being so considerate.
The graphics this particular page has to offer are, quite admittedly, scarce compared to other sites, but are undoubtedly better than some I have had the unpleasure to view. At the beginning of most of the links to the other pages, there is at the top of the page a neat graphic with some cool picture in it. This is a good thing. For one thing, it adds spice to an otherwise dull recipe of just straight text. The graphics are bright with color, sharp, clear unless otherwise made to look blurred. It's an aesthetic thing for some people, I guess, to do things out of the norm, which I totally salivate over in agreement. A cute little computer, with a smile on its monitor is well... cute. But I'd at least prefer the Little Mermaid in an S&M outfit if we had to get cute.
What you read is as important as how it is presented. I agree with this statement. Both the concept and its look should strive to better the other, complimenting the other's existence period. At any rate, the text on the screen has its advantages and disadvantages. For starters, 8-point text can get a tad bit annoying to decipher at three in the morning, especially when it's all pixels, dots, electron-wavelengths burning out the retinas of our eyes. On the other hand, it is slightly more tolerable when grasped in our sweaty palms. The Alt-X site seems to handle this fairly well: There are no black screen/ blue text to be seen here, or microscopic fine print, usually reserved for important documents concerning our future lost at the bottom of the page. The contrast between background and foreground text/ images are clean and cut through effectively. Leading, the space between lines of text, are large. Again, I like this type of thing. There's something strangely alluring about 10-pt. text at 15/ 20 pt. leading. On the other hand, the reading that is had here is both smart, varied, and most of all, INTERESTING. There are literary journals one can link to, interviews to read, artwork to look at, short fiction to read, essays to scratch your head over, all contained within this one handy web site. More Brownie points for this.
The flipside, however, is that this site is really quite a bore to just stare in awe of it. The visuals, as I have stated earlier, are lacking in force. Then again, this isn't some by-product of some major corporation, like buffalo chips on an Oklahoma hillside, for the kiddies to download on their home computers, either, but rather the brainchild of a guy named Mark Amerika. I am sure that in the future artistic collections of works like this, both of literature and art, will continue to grow on both levels of mere talent and packaging accessibility/ artsy-ness. The other thing I find terribly distressing is the fact that computers are still not as mobile as a glossy covered magazine or book. When was the last time you dragged your computer down the hallway to show your friend this great line in a story or piece of artwork? Didn't think so.
All in all, this web site was chosen to show what I believed to be good design/ content techniques, while maybe showing its flaws or lack of good points to be, hopefully, remedied or avoided in the future. Web sites are a relatively new technology and medium for information exchange and this seemingly obvious fact should be taken into account when criticizing these efforts by hard-working people.
Lots to be learned, lots to be clicked on, lots to be downloaded... lots, lots, lots...
The site critiqued in this paper can be found by clicking on the highlighted letter somewhere in here.
I redid another site. Check it out.
if you're feeling like talking, talk to me by clicking on me.
--this page was the one I talked about in the paper you just read. lots of stuff concerning this new literature: avant-pop. interviews with people we discussed in class, too.
http://watt.seas.virginia.edu/~msk4m/
--okay, so what if i'm a big misfits fan, I had to check out this page. besides, it's a good example of a page with lots of information, including pictures, sounds, interviews, time-lines, etc... I like what they did with the misifits skull in the background. nice.
http://www.lehigh.edu/~pj12/kubrick.html
--clockwork orange... at times I wish I had those eye-lid clamps for some of my classes, that and bottle of visine, too. it's a nicely designed page, with lots of information on his films. I forgot he was the one who directed dr. strangelove, a personal classic of mine.
http://www.ee.pdx.edu/~caseyh/horror/hellraiser/
--i'm a clive barker fan, so this one was an obvious pick for me. lots of information anybody could ever want to know about the cenobites and the hellraiser mythology.
http://nw.demon.co.uk/barkerverse/
--the official clive barker web site... duh. I particularly enjoyed this site because it contained much information on him and plenty of graphics and pictures from his new movie, Lord of Illusions, and others. Besides, it was nicely put together.