by Stephanie Tennille
Deer Valley Unified School District
® Use of color: The color scheme of this site revolves around the colors in the district logo…green, gold and black. The site was recently revised and the color scheme in this revision is much more pleasing to the eye than the previous version.
® Graphics: The graphics on this website are minimal consisting mostly of the shared border/banner of the district logo and name on each page.
® Organization: The site is organized with a shared border on the top of each page. The content is displayed with 3 vertical tables similar to a newsletter format on most pages.
® Speed: Since the graphics are very minimal, the download speed is fairly fast.
® Quality: The overall quality of the site has improved immensely since it has been revised. The only major thing that I would personally change on the site would be the amount of text on each page. Some of the pages are a little too busy with all the text. Maybe if the site was organized with 2 vertical tables for content instead of 3, it would be more aesthetically pleasing.
Peoria Unified School District Special Education Site
® Use of color: The pages of this site are consistently the same colors…maroon, blue, white and black. The colors compliment each other very well.
® Graphics: Each page shares the same banner and right-aligned borders that look like they have been created as gifs. A nice touch on every page is a photograph (jpeg.) of a student. There are a few gifs from a clipart program that are dispersed through out the page that helps to break up all the text.
® Organization: The navigation of this site is very user friendly. There is drop down menus in the top border and the right border on each page that makes navigation through the site very easy. The text is done is one vertical column.
® Speed: Since each page of the site contains a jpeg of a student, the speed of the download is a little slow. Personally, I think it is worth the wait to see the students' smiling faces.
® Quality: The overall quality of this site is very professional. The design is consistent throughout the whole site. I really like the use of drop down menus and the links that are not blue and underlined. There are few improvements I would make on the site. First of all, I would limit the amount of text. Some of the pages are quite wordy. Also, the home page has a big white gap at the beginning of the page. It makes the viewer wonder what is missing. Finally, I would minimize the size of the graphics the are dispersed throughout the test. Other than that, I think the site is quite impressive.
® Use of color: The overall color scheme of the site is very appropriate. The colors are understated and the background is simple so that the pictures of all the Apple products stand out.
® Graphics: This site has lots of graphics mostly pictures of Apple products. The shared border at the top of the page that is used as a navigation bar has separate gifs for each area on the site.
® Organization: The organization of this site looks great, at first…until you actually try to navigate through for something specific. I found the navigation of this site to be very frustrating. In the past, when I have tried to find certain links, it has taken me a lot of time to locate what I am looking for. The search engine does not seem to help.
® Speed: Depending on the day, the speed can be very slow on this site. In fact, today when I viewed the site, the home page never did download completely. I even went tried 2 different browsers to see if it would work better in one.
® Quality: The actual 'look' of this site is very professional but the overall quality of this site is very disappointing. Apple has some great ideas for the site, especially in the education area but the organization is very frustrating and the content is geared more to selling products than educating people.
® Use of color: The use of color is very appropriate. The shared green banner at the top of each page compliments the artwork that is displayed very nicely.
® Graphics: The site has lots of graphics that consist mostly of jpegs of the artwork in the museum.
® Organization: The navigation of the site is very clear. There is drop down menus on the top of the page and on the side border that is consistent throughout the site. Although, I preferred the look of the hover buttons on the border menu. The drops down menus on the top border are the gray pull down menus that detract from the overall look of the site.
® Speed: Very slow to download. I almost fell asleep while the index page downloaded. Of course, when artwork is being displayed on each page, it is going to take some time to download. Maybe the webmaster should try optimizing the graphics more to speed up the download.
® Quality: The quality of the site is quite professional except for the gray drop down menus on the top border. Some of the pages are jammed packed with content, but overall the content is nicely displayed.
® Use of color: The only color on the site is the red, white and blue displayed in the Webb66 logo.
® Graphics: The only graphics on the site are the logos on each page and the map of the United States that can be clicked on to locate school websites in the United States.
® Organization: The organization of the site is quite simple consisting mostly of hyperlinks to all the school sites. Unfortunately, quite a few of the links to schools no longer work.
® Speed: The pages download very quickly since there isn't much on the pages to cause the download to be slow.
® Quality: The concept of this site is commendable but the site looks very dated and boring. In the past 2 years that I have visited the site, it has not changed. In fact, I had registered my school site, several times and it has never appeared on the site. One gets the impression that the webmaster of this site has not upgraded the site in quite some time.
® Use of color: The index page is the only page that has any color. It has a dark blue background with neon green text that is a little hard on the eyes. All of the other pages have the basic white background with black text, except when viewed in Netscape. The background is gray because the webmaster did not set the page color properties to white.
® Graphics: The site contains very few graphics. The graphics on the index page seem to be placed there without any thought to organization and appeal to the audience.
® Organization: Organization is very basic with hyperlinks. Half of the links to other pages did not work.
® Speed: The speed of the site is just fine.
® Quality: The overall quality of the site is very poor. I am sure that the webmaster had good intentions when he/she started the site but it doesn't look like much thought went into the overall design.
® Use of color: This site has lots of colors throughout the pages. On some of the pages the colors work very nicely but some pages contain too many different colors schemes, which detracts from the site.
® Graphics: Loads of gifs and jpegs. Some are used wisely but the majority cause sensory overload.
® Organization: This site contains too many navigation elements…search engines hyperlinks, drop down menus, etc. Each page is overloaded with information. The format on changes drastically from one section to the next.
® Speed: SLOW! I read parts of the newspaper while I waited for each page to download.
® Quality: The content of this site is excellent but it is almost too much of good thing. There is too much information, too many links, too many different design elements, etc. The most annoying part of the site is the blinking advertising banners. This seems to have become a common trend on websites. I know the sites need the advertisements to fund the site but they definitely are a nuisance.
® Use of color: The color of the site is a very understated white with a gray border. Some color is introduced by using maroon for the text. The color is consistent throughout the whole site.
® Graphics: The majority of the graphics on this site consist of gifs of examples of websites.
® Organization: The overall navigation of the site is very user friendly. It is very easy to follow the format of the manual with the navigation buttons and links provided. The page layout is structured nicely, although there is a lot of text. But…it is a textbook online.
® Speed: The download speed was fairly quick on most pages except for the pages with website gifs or jpegs.
® Quality: To be quite honest, I was surprised that a site that is all about website design would be so boring and mundane looking. The content is great but the 'look' is nothing more than a textbook online. I'd rather use the actual book.
® Use of color: Nice use of color on this site…blue, black and white theme.
® Graphics: The graphic shared banner and shared borders are very professional looking.
® Organization: The navigation buttons on the shared banner make the site easy to navigate through. The page layout contains frames. Frames can be a great way to set up a site, but unfortunately on this site the goes beyond the frame so the reader has to scroll constantly to read all the text…very annoying.
® Speed: Since the banner and border is a graphic, it takes a little while to download depending on the time of day.
® Quality: The quality of the site is very aesthetic and professional looking. Aside from the annoying problem with scrolling to read the text, the site is very well organized.
® Use of color: Color scheme blends nicely on each page although some pages are quite different. The background page with the muted name of the school is a nice touch and does not detract from the content.
® Graphics: Lots of graphics including animated gifs, jpegs of students, staff and students work. Some of the animated graphics need to be eliminated.
® Organization: The page layout is very basic designed by a novice webmaster…ME! Navigation is very simple and easy to follow. This site would definitely benefit with a shared navigational bar so that the pages would look more consistent.
® Speed: Way too slow! The graphics and pictures need to be minimized and optimized to increase the download speed.
® Quality: Overall, the quality of the website is not bad for a novice webmaster but the site could use some upgrading. Hopefully, after the webmaster completes the Advanced Internet class, the site will look more professional.