Critique Web Sites

---------- Homework 9

Evaluate the web sites using the five principles of design: visibility, natural mapping, feedback-positive and negative, constraints and affordances, and good conceptual model. Explain how the sites measure up to or fail from a user-centered perspective.
The sites to be critiqued:

• http://www.io360.com
• http://www.itcfonts.com
• http://www.moma.org

First time when I went to the site, I used a computer whose monitor was not very good, so the font was not very clear on the background. Because of this reason, on my first impression, the web site did not have a very good visibility. Due to curiosity, I tried on another computer, but this time, the visibility was better. In this case, I thought the constraint of the site was the contrast between the font and the background. If visitors have the same monitors as I have met, they might not go further into the web site.

The site does have a good natural mapping. From every link, it is clear for visitors where they will go and they can expect to see the exact information in that link. The link to the home page is natural and mapping with the action of visitors. The affordance of the site is not very clear. From the first glance, I cannot figure our what the site is about, and after I browse the whole site, I think the site is just used to show the accomplishments of the company. It seems that the site may want business, but the site does not have any information on this aspects. The role of the site is not clearly expressed. Therefore, the conceptual model of the site is not very good.

The navigation bar of the site is good and it connects all the pages together. The site, using image map, so when the visitor puts the mouse over a link, has feedback, but it does not have a feedback of the visited links.

The site is good if it just wants to show off their achievement and their fulfillment, but if it wants to market, it may need more information about the company and the price, and so on.

I think the web site is good from the user-centered design perspective.

First, this site has a good design model. The site wants to introduce the fonts they made to the visitors and promote the visitors to buy some of the products. The affordance of the site is very clear that let visitors browser all kinds of fonts and buy what they like. The mapping between the site with the consciousness of visitors is also good. It is very clear on the homepage what one can expect when he or she clicks the second image. It is no doubt that he or she will see all kinds of fonts. The constraint of the site is that it only offers fonts, not images, not sound, or not animation.

Second, the site has good visibility. The main page tells us the web site belongs to a company, which mainly deals with the font used on the web. It also tells the web site mainly contains four parts such as the homepage, online, fonts and products, but the images used to represent for the four parts are not fully meaningful.

Last, let us consider the feedback of the site. I think it is also clear and good. From every subpage, visitors know which part of the web site they are at now, because the navigation bar at the top shows the visiting site with a bright color. They also can browser other pages from each subpages. When visitors look through one type of fonts, the page also provides navigation bar to the previous page and the next page, which is also natural and match the visitors’ needs. The site also provides searching tools and helps visitors to find their needed type or what they are interested in.

I think the page has good visibility. From the mainpage, it is easy for us to know what the MOMA refers to and it is also clear what the web site is about. The mainpage also has a link to the site overview, and I think it is good to provide a guide for visitors to know about the structure of the site, which makes the web site even more visible to visitors.

I think the site have a good conceptual model. First, the site provides many affordance to the visitors, not only the collection, but also the museum, the store, but also the membership and so on. The constraint is obvious that the site is very big and it has much content, so it will be hard for visitors to browser all the page quickly. The natural mapping is clever in the site and I like it. After visiting many web sites, visitors know that they can click on an image to go to one subsite. But this site offers another mapping. When users put their mouse over one image, the content under the category will appear. So users can further select which page they want to go.

But the feedback of the web site is not very good. The site only provides links between the mainpage with each page and the links between the upper level and the lower level pages; there are no links between different categories. It is not very convenient for visitors to browser among pages. The page also provides searching tool to help users to find their interests, while that there are no hints about how to use the search tool also weaks the visibility of the search tool.