Sprint: Plug into Now.

The purpose of this Web site is to... Well, it's hard to say, right? That's the main reason I chose it. No doubt people who stumble upon the site will ooh and aah at the sleekness of the product. After all, it's from Sprint. However, despite the beauty of it, this site was listed as one of the worst Web sites of 2008 on WebPagesThatSuck.com, and here are some reasons why, provided by myself and Vincent Flanders. (Click to see what he had to say about it via YouTube.)

For one thing, the navigation is unfriendly at best. The main site is cluttered with widgets that do not fit on smaller screens (definitely not 955 x 600 pixels). Worse is that in order to get to the widget on the bottom left, you have to use your mouse and shimmy yourself over there. Why not make life easy for people and allow them to scroll? If you go to another window or tab, the site automatically scrolls to the bottom right for you (so when you go back, you have to manually shimmy yourself back to the top left for the semi-relevant information). I don't really care about how useless the widgets are because that decision was clearly intentional, but the most important (if not only) important element on the page is practically invisible in the mess of pointless information.

Once you finally realize the only effective link is the "Take it to go with Mobile Broadband" button, our big question ("What is this?"), is finally answered on the new page, which features the sky view of a city. Little speech bubbles pop up randomly with equally random messages. When you roll over certain locations, bubbles follow you around, but still some popups are random, and the first time I was on the site I spent a bit too much time trying to figure out whether I was having a Beautiful-Mind moment or not. Again, it takes a lot of concentration to not focus on the city and actually read the blurb on the left, which vaguely defines the product and finally gives you a link to a purchasing page (which is a clear and concise subpage of Sprint - thank goodness!)

It's not that I don't think the two pages and their ideas are cool - I can picture plenty of people having fun "in the moment". But, as Flanders notes, the "metaphor navigation" is distressing. The creator obviously knows Flash, but as we have discussed in class, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." Actually, all the important elements are there, but they are overpowered by the widgets on the first page, and the popups on the second. Never at any moment in time do I get a concrete sense of what the product is, so never do I want to purchase the product - which I still don't fully understand. Maybe a Sprint user would know better?

The site definitely has redeeming qualities. It's a mess, but at least it doesn't give you seizures. And the idea of always knowing what's going on at any second of the day? That's always been a hot topic. I'm sure males respond positively to the sexual voiceover. I definitely got a good laugh out of it when she said, "Feel free to touch it." Yep, that's what she said!

If the purpose is only to entertain, then thank you Sprint, you have succeeded. It is a very pretty site, and you let me play pong on a 50 x 50 sized widget. However, I think Sprint's goal is to sell me something, and based on the Web site alone, I am not buying.

Sarasota-Tampa Express

This website hits pretty much all of the high points of a bad website in my opinion.

First there is the music that starts as soon as the page loads, and doesn't have an off button. Its different on every page and I can't think of a single reason that it would be necessary.

Second, as soon as you move your mouse  the words start following you. In order to ensure that you can read the text you must remember place the mouse at the header when you've finished clicking. Randomly, you loose the mouse trail on some pages while it continues on others.

The rainbow flashing "New" indicators are especially distracting as you try and figure out what service this site is offering.

There are two types of navigation, the buttons that run down the left side, and another set of buttons the run across the bottom. They have the same links except for the addition of "Photos" at the bottom.

The look of the buttons and page layout are consistent for some of the site. However, when you look at "Tampa Airport" and "Contact Us" pages its entirely different.

Also on the "Tampa Airport" page, it seems they have taken the graphic of the airport straight off the airport's page.  Sure they credit it, but clicking on it automatically takes you to the airport page in the same window. 

The "Maps" link also doesn't take you to a page with maps. I can't tell if that is  on purpose or if their maps just don't load. 

In their defense however, it is easy to navigate and prices, schedules and contact info is easy to find.

Bad Site -- New York Film Academy

As bland as our own school website might be, at least it doesn't look like a cheap hooker on a street corner. Fortunately, this look was achieved by the website of the New York Film Academy, School of Film & Acting.

Lets just start with the obvious: the color palette is HORRIBLE. It does nothing but improve the cheapness that is emanated from the fonts, blinking words, and the low quality pictures found in certain places on the site. Um, did you know that Miss Universe 2008 went to school here? Um, did you know that NYFA couldn't get a high quality picture of their own student?

The prestige of this school is lost on me. I use the word prestige with reserve because the website seems like something more reserved for a rip-off, fake school, than some college that produced..well, no one all that important. Especially for a school claiming to be "one of the most prominent fixtures of film education in the world." Diane Neal who played Case Novak on Law & Order: SVU is about the most popular alumni they have on their webste. Oh, and Lonelygirl15, Jessica Rose. Classy. On the plus side, it's pretty easy to find most of the information you may look for on a school website, such as tuition, or available programs.

Bad color scheme, some videos that start automatically, cheap looks, and bad photoes equal bad website.

Bad Site--Restaurant Guide Atlanta

The Restaurant Guide Atlanta site is impressive with its 12,000 restaurant listings, but it's overwhelming use of every space and bright colors make you think you're looking at a spam advertisement.

Within the home page, the problems are massive. There are two animated objects moving at the same time at different places on the screen, the links and nav bars are buried within the text and the page is overloaded with info.

Some other major problems include the banner going to different home pages, each additional page has a different layout and a tacky, inconsistent color palette.

The site has lots of information, but the clutter makes it impossible to read. It is a horrible site to serve as a guide and would easily confuse any tourist.

Event Site -- Common Ground Festival

I don't know how many of you have been, but the Common Ground Festival is a big deal in Lansing during the hot summer month of July.

The festival is usually a combination of local bands and a couple of high profile acts that come annually. The festival isn't scheduled until July 6th - 12th this year, so some of the information on the website is lacking, but the design is nice.

To reference acts that have been at Common Ground, there is a built in playlist of music from past performers. The color palatte is simple primary red and blue on a mostly white page. There is a background picture that is mostly covered by the center scroll, and a line of ads down the left side of the scroll also. The ads on the left also serve as a secondary navigation of sorts, pointing visitors to social networking pages for the festival on places such as Myspace and Facebook.

The main navigation bar is forefront and apparent, in red and white, with very easy to read text and no drop down menus. The utility navigation is in the footer, but there is also a link home and to a contact page at the very top above the main navigation bar. The header "Common Ground" is also a link home.

From what I can tell, it would be very easy to find information for who may be performing, when, even though that information is not currently available. Ticket prices on the other hand, can be seen and easily deiphered.

Overall, I think the site does it's job of giving out information for the next festival, being easy to navigate and inform, and it keeps a visitor's attention.

No Joy in Toy Joy

ToyJoy.com shows that no matter how pretty the package is, an empty website is still an empty website.

Surprisingly, toyjoy.com is a decently designed website. The colors are fun yet slightly controlled and they are all pulled from the overbearing background. Navigation is simple and it's easy to understand. This site is obviously designed for a younger audience, or at least the young at heart.

The title page needs a little work. All the images are interactive, once you move over the icon, it interacts in a entertaining motion. But only one of the buttons are actually active. The rest react to clicking without performing any action, leaving customers wondering why they can't move to the next website. Some of the motions on the website causes the main page to move slightly, which is annoying.

Once you enter the shop page, the navigation is clear and the page is well organized. The color changes, but the obnoxios background and the colors stay consistent. There are even options to recieve RSS Feeds and change font sizes.

Then you realize that the toy store is practically empty.

Each product section has less than ten items, seven having no products at all. The top ten products list only contains two products.

I realized after browsing through that this website isn't complete, but is it worth it to make an incomplete website live? Would you give a child a brightly colored present with nothing inside?

I hope not.

Event Site--Rothbury

The site for the music festival in Rothbury, Mich. over Fourth of July weekend is a professional site with entertaining elements that make visitors eager to attend the event.

The site has an overall calming feeling with bursts of excitement from its interactive features.

The color palette is made up of subtle earth tones, which stem from the background picture of a forest with a stage made out of trees.

In the the woodland stage there is a scrolling menu listing the several musicians scheduled to perform so far. It is the first glimpse of the site's interactive features. The most impressive feature is under the gallery tab where there are amazing photos and videos from the first-ever festival in 2008.

The site also has an easily accessible navigation bar. The bar is informative and helpful with its extended ways to learn about the festival and how to plan your festival experience.

Traveling through the different tabs on the navigation bar, the color palette remains the same, but each border picture is a different moment from the previous festival. Visually, it provides both continuity and surprise. The subtle change makes the transition easy to understand while still keeping your attention.

I think the site clearly explains the event and how to participate while exciting and entertaining the viewer. I think this combination achieves the goal of an event site.