Good vs. Bad Websites


In today’s world, you can find practically anything online. In fact, it’s actually unusual if you can’t find something. The internet has become a major tool for millions of people worldwide. It allows people to connect with others, and it also provides the ability to enhance those interactions, along with creating a plethora of new ways to get something done, whether it be finding published research for a paper, watching T.V., or shopping. With that said, it is important for any business, small or large, to make use of this, because a strong online presence opens the door to new customers and holds it open for old customers to keep them coming back.


In order to do this, a company, organization, or individual must have a good website. A good website is crucial to a user’s experience, and commonplaces.com offered their top ten tips to a good website. They are as follows: 1) Responsive design 2) Minimalism 3) User friendly 4) Personalized user experience 5) Extraordinary content 6) Bold colors 7) Fullscreen videos as backgrounds 8) Card-based design 9) Wall-to-wall site strips 10) Unusual/lack of navigation (Strickler, Kendra). To provide an example of a good website that follows these guidelines and a website that does not, I decided to show you two artists’ websites: junestratton.com and ruthshively.com. As you will see in the video presentation, junestratton.com hits most of these elements, with a simple design that is easy to navigate, fullscreen videos for a background, a personalized user experience through her messaging system, and an overall aesthetically pleasing design that works on any device. While ruthshively.com is not terrible, it is missing some of these components that could make it an overall better website, such as a personalized user experience, no fullscreen images or videos to attract and retain attention, and too much navigation required in order to get to a desired place, such as an email or Instagram account.

Good website example: http://www.junestratton.com/
Bad website example: https://www.ruthshively.com/

Screencastomatic presentation: https://youtu.be/A1ldbsrIjY4 

Source
Strickler, Kendra. “What Makes A Great Website? 10 Website Trends for 2016.” Common Places, www.commonplaces.com/blog/10-website-trends-for-2016.

Comments

  1. Christina TalloneApril 7, 2018 at 12:31 PM

    I enjoyed your explanation of these two websites! I don’t find myself on artists’ website often, if at all, so exploring what makes these website good or bad was very interesting. I think comparing these two blogs and seeing what works could also help us all make our final website project better. Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousApril 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM

    I like how in the beginning you visited the 10 tips of what makes a good website. I feel like by having them visited it made it easier to pick out the aspects you explained. I enjoyed how in depth you went in the explanations of the two websites. I also agree that the placement of the captions in the second website made it annoying to figure out which picture was which. I also find it a unique choice to evaluate two author's pages for this project!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousApril 11, 2018 at 4:15 PM

    I instantly felt interested on the good website! She shows her work but not too much where it becomes overwhelming. I like the detail of showing the viewers the size of her paintings! I like how much detail and information she gave about herself to her viewers! On the other hand, the other website like you said shows you multiple works that fall under the category that you choose which can become a bit overwhelming if you don't have a s basic idea of her work.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousApril 11, 2018 at 7:51 PM

    Jenna, I like how you said how you used the website with the top 10 tips, it is exactly what I did before my presentation. I liked the first site because it was so engaging right off the bat and I could see myself wanting to go deeper into the site, but on the other site, I feel like it wasn't as thoroughly thought through when compared to your good example.

    ReplyDelete

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