jamilin.com: Personal/business website of Jami Lin.
I don't know who this Jami Lin is, and I don't care much. She is either the flakiest person walking or the most unscrupulous, preying upon the callow and gullible. Her website is still one of the worst I have ever seen. It reminds me of the kind of websites people put up 25 years ago. Here are just some of the things wrong with the home page, alone.
1. Above the navigation menu is a big banner ad for herself. This ad is hideous with about four different illustrations and a numbered list of five things, plus a couple URLs.
2. There are actually two menus. The top one is multi-colored and appears to have nothing but random items on it. Then there is another menu that has another set of random links on it.
3. The center of the home page is dominated by a HTML table that lacks any styling at all. This is what I mean about being 25 years out-of-date. This is HTML without CSS.
4. Along either side of the table are two narrower columns with their own littler displays that appear to only be advertising "classes" that she offers.
5. Below the unstyled table is another styled table. Seriously, who publishes a web site with some tables styled and others bereft of CSS.
6. Finally on the bottom is an actual footer, with a site map and a copyright notice. However, the print is much smaller than the other text on this page, and it is haphazardly colored and it might be unstyled.
I could go on, but this website is a disaster, or at least it would be, if Jami Lin were unsuccessful. However, she has a video of herself talking at a conference on her home page, so she might be proof that it is possible to be successful when your website is a wreck. On the other hand, the video is from a 2013 conference; maybe she has not done so well since then.
roverp6cars.com: MGBD Parts & Service
This is another terrible website, but this is the kind of business that can survive no matter what the website looks like, because the customers are going to buy from it if they have the products that the customer needs. This website is for a British business that sells parts for a specific British car, the Rover model P6, a car that has not been produced in Britain for many years. The Rover P6 was only produced from 1963 to 1977, so anyone who wants parts for one now is probably trying to restore an old one as a "classic car."
https://www.aronline.co.uk/cars/rover/p6/
A classic car owner is happy to get any part, and they don't expect a slick and organized website. As unattractive as it is, the website has a handy left-column menu that helps the user find the part they need without having to use the search function. The menu in the header uses small fonts that are harder to read, but they connect the customer to information that answers their most likely quesetions as to how they should order the parts and how they will be shipped, what is the business return policy, etc. The home page also has a lot of other text that uses a serif font that is too small to read easily. However, a typical classic car owner is willing to go through almost any inconvenience or annoyance in order to get the parts they want to buy. Although the site is a good functional e-commerce site, it is not an attractive one,
artcenter.org: California Center for the Arts Escondido
Having visited the Arts Center in Escondido before, I can say that this website is a very good one for the organization. The home page includes a large announcement for an upcoming show at the Center; the website should actually present a slideshow of announcements rather than one, randomly-selected announcement, but it is pretty good overall.
The home page includes a header menu with big buttons for "Contact" "Visit" and "Give," along with a link to what appears to be a drop-down menu, but is actually a jump to a page of links to different parts of the site below the below-the-header event announcement.
The Arts Center is a multi-faceted institution, hosting performances by national and internationally-known stars, along with a small art museum, community art classes, and it rents rooms for weddings and other community events. Given this diversity of uses, the website does a good job presenting all these elements, compared to a website for a symphony hall or auditorium that hosts only performances.
Below that navigation "section" is a list of upcoming events, as prospective ticket-buyers are apparently the most kind of users that the Arts Center expects to be the primary user of its site.
Finally, there are more Contact Links, including information about the phone number and e-mail address for the Arts Center, along with social media accounts of the Arts Center. Lastly, the website has a footer that uses print that should be larger, but is still large enough to be useable.
nps.gov: National Park Service
In my experience, the NPS website is a difficult one to navigate. However, it is very well designed, given the sheer volume of information that the NPS provides. There is so much information that it is impossible to fully outline what is there.
Aesthetically, the dominant colors of nps.gov is green, although the pages for the individual parks and museums are mostly black and white, with large color photos at the top of the page and elsewhere. Photos, in particular, are used to help encourage users to visit the parks; the mission of the NPS, after all, is to encourage people to visit the parks, as well as protect the resources therein.
The NPS logo and name, along with a navigation menu, are always present in a slim header, to reassure the user that they are on nps.gov.
One issue with the NPS website is that it manages much more than stereotypical "National Parks" whose chief attractions are scenery. For example, the current splash item on the home page relates to African-American History month. Clicking on a couple links brings the user to a page with a whopping 32 sites managed by NPS that relate to African-American history. Clicking on any of those links brings one to what are effectively separate web sites that the NPS maintains for all its facilities and units.
In short, the National Park Service website is a good illustration of how to organize a very large amount of information. Navigating across nps.gov is reminiscent of the Internet itself; the nps.gov website is full of useful information that is very well organized, but there is still more information available than one can review in a single sitting. The best approach is to know which park or museum one wants to visit, and then get useful information from nps.gov.
toyota.com: Toyota automobiles, U.S.A.
The Toyota U.S.A. website is primarily designed to sell cars, rather than help a customer locate repair parts and service, download manuals, and other items typically found on manufacturers of things like computer equipment, for example.
I have used the site before, when I was considering whether to replace my 1997 Lexus ES300 with a new Toyota Camry. This website has a sort of "Wish Book" type feature called "Build" where you can see all the features you can add to your dream car, choose colors for interior and exterior, and get a manufacturers suggested retail price for the car you want.
Aesthetically, the website features the Toyota logo and the signature red color of the company a lot; both of these are well-known around the world and identified with the Toyota company. All the test is easy-to-read sans serif font, probably Arial. All elements are conveniently grouped to help potential customers find information they want.
The website has other useful aftermarket information, such as a dealer locator, recall information, and mobile phone compatibility, to name just a few things. The gamut of information on the Toyota U.S.A. site is in the site map in the footer, and the items are groups in categories like "Shopping Tools," and "Helpful Links" to help a user find the information they want right now. However, the primary purpose of the site is to SELL NEW CARS, and it features many elements that literally whet the appetite of a prospective Toyota buyer.
I don't know who this Jami Lin is, and I don't care much. She is either the flakiest person walking or the most unscrupulous, preying upon the callow and gullible. Her website is still one of the worst I have ever seen. It reminds me of the kind of websites people put up 25 years ago. Here are just some of the things wrong with the home page, alone.
1. Above the navigation menu is a big banner ad for herself. This ad is hideous with about four different illustrations and a numbered list of five things, plus a couple URLs.
2. There are actually two menus. The top one is multi-colored and appears to have nothing but random items on it. Then there is another menu that has another set of random links on it.
3. The center of the home page is dominated by a HTML table that lacks any styling at all. This is what I mean about being 25 years out-of-date. This is HTML without CSS.
4. Along either side of the table are two narrower columns with their own littler displays that appear to only be advertising "classes" that she offers.
5. Below the unstyled table is another styled table. Seriously, who publishes a web site with some tables styled and others bereft of CSS.
6. Finally on the bottom is an actual footer, with a site map and a copyright notice. However, the print is much smaller than the other text on this page, and it is haphazardly colored and it might be unstyled.
I could go on, but this website is a disaster, or at least it would be, if Jami Lin were unsuccessful. However, she has a video of herself talking at a conference on her home page, so she might be proof that it is possible to be successful when your website is a wreck. On the other hand, the video is from a 2013 conference; maybe she has not done so well since then.
roverp6cars.com: MGBD Parts & Service
This is another terrible website, but this is the kind of business that can survive no matter what the website looks like, because the customers are going to buy from it if they have the products that the customer needs. This website is for a British business that sells parts for a specific British car, the Rover model P6, a car that has not been produced in Britain for many years. The Rover P6 was only produced from 1963 to 1977, so anyone who wants parts for one now is probably trying to restore an old one as a "classic car."
https://www.aronline.co.uk/cars/rover/p6/
A classic car owner is happy to get any part, and they don't expect a slick and organized website. As unattractive as it is, the website has a handy left-column menu that helps the user find the part they need without having to use the search function. The menu in the header uses small fonts that are harder to read, but they connect the customer to information that answers their most likely quesetions as to how they should order the parts and how they will be shipped, what is the business return policy, etc. The home page also has a lot of other text that uses a serif font that is too small to read easily. However, a typical classic car owner is willing to go through almost any inconvenience or annoyance in order to get the parts they want to buy. Although the site is a good functional e-commerce site, it is not an attractive one,
artcenter.org: California Center for the Arts Escondido
Having visited the Arts Center in Escondido before, I can say that this website is a very good one for the organization. The home page includes a large announcement for an upcoming show at the Center; the website should actually present a slideshow of announcements rather than one, randomly-selected announcement, but it is pretty good overall.
The home page includes a header menu with big buttons for "Contact" "Visit" and "Give," along with a link to what appears to be a drop-down menu, but is actually a jump to a page of links to different parts of the site below the below-the-header event announcement.
The Arts Center is a multi-faceted institution, hosting performances by national and internationally-known stars, along with a small art museum, community art classes, and it rents rooms for weddings and other community events. Given this diversity of uses, the website does a good job presenting all these elements, compared to a website for a symphony hall or auditorium that hosts only performances.
Below that navigation "section" is a list of upcoming events, as prospective ticket-buyers are apparently the most kind of users that the Arts Center expects to be the primary user of its site.
Finally, there are more Contact Links, including information about the phone number and e-mail address for the Arts Center, along with social media accounts of the Arts Center. Lastly, the website has a footer that uses print that should be larger, but is still large enough to be useable.
nps.gov: National Park Service
In my experience, the NPS website is a difficult one to navigate. However, it is very well designed, given the sheer volume of information that the NPS provides. There is so much information that it is impossible to fully outline what is there.
Aesthetically, the dominant colors of nps.gov is green, although the pages for the individual parks and museums are mostly black and white, with large color photos at the top of the page and elsewhere. Photos, in particular, are used to help encourage users to visit the parks; the mission of the NPS, after all, is to encourage people to visit the parks, as well as protect the resources therein.
The NPS logo and name, along with a navigation menu, are always present in a slim header, to reassure the user that they are on nps.gov.
One issue with the NPS website is that it manages much more than stereotypical "National Parks" whose chief attractions are scenery. For example, the current splash item on the home page relates to African-American History month. Clicking on a couple links brings the user to a page with a whopping 32 sites managed by NPS that relate to African-American history. Clicking on any of those links brings one to what are effectively separate web sites that the NPS maintains for all its facilities and units.
In short, the National Park Service website is a good illustration of how to organize a very large amount of information. Navigating across nps.gov is reminiscent of the Internet itself; the nps.gov website is full of useful information that is very well organized, but there is still more information available than one can review in a single sitting. The best approach is to know which park or museum one wants to visit, and then get useful information from nps.gov.
toyota.com: Toyota automobiles, U.S.A.
The Toyota U.S.A. website is primarily designed to sell cars, rather than help a customer locate repair parts and service, download manuals, and other items typically found on manufacturers of things like computer equipment, for example.
I have used the site before, when I was considering whether to replace my 1997 Lexus ES300 with a new Toyota Camry. This website has a sort of "Wish Book" type feature called "Build" where you can see all the features you can add to your dream car, choose colors for interior and exterior, and get a manufacturers suggested retail price for the car you want.
Aesthetically, the website features the Toyota logo and the signature red color of the company a lot; both of these are well-known around the world and identified with the Toyota company. All the test is easy-to-read sans serif font, probably Arial. All elements are conveniently grouped to help potential customers find information they want.
The website has other useful aftermarket information, such as a dealer locator, recall information, and mobile phone compatibility, to name just a few things. The gamut of information on the Toyota U.S.A. site is in the site map in the footer, and the items are groups in categories like "Shopping Tools," and "Helpful Links" to help a user find the information they want right now. However, the primary purpose of the site is to SELL NEW CARS, and it features many elements that literally whet the appetite of a prospective Toyota buyer.
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