| |
|
Inventory of Web Sites
|
|
Good Site Design
|
| |
(1) Fraser
Valley Regional Library System
|
(2)Mary
Engelbreit
|
(3)Rie
Munoz, Ltd.
|
| |
| Good Site Design/Fraser Valley Library System
(1) |
| |
|
Company:
URL:
|
Fraser Valley Regional Library System
http://www.fvrl.bc.ca
|
|
| |
| During the assignment in Dreamweaver, I happened upon this
Canadian library system site, and I was enthrawled at the wonderful navigation,
graphics, and comple site I experienced. |
| Consistent background color scheme throughout site. The white
background is expectedly consistent with a library environment. The headers
are most often in turquoise and the general text is black. Grid is uniform
and consistent on most pages. Font colors are black, turquoise, and rust
used in text and links. |
| The table of contents on the home page shows that the viewer
has an extensive library system represented by this site. This menu selection
offers an "event-complete" calendar, with pages devoted to children,
teens, seniors, resources, community libraries, and Fraser Valley specific
library information. |
| Design of the home page falls comfortably above the fold. |
| The site map appears complete and the navigation throughout
the site is with ease and excitement. |
| I had to search a long time, though, to determine exactly
where this library existed. I finally found in "Administrative Services"
that the site is at Abbotsford, B.C., Canada. |
| There was such a wealth of hyperlinks on each page for specific
viewing groups that it appeared one wouldn't have to go to the library for
anything but a hardback book. |
| The graphics were free-spirited and colorful, with clean lines
and a positive, uplifting theme. |
| Visiting this site was a very pleasant experience. I'm going
back to learn and see more! |
| |
| Good Site Design/Mary Engelbreit (2) |
| |
|
Company:
URL:
|
Mary Engelbreit
http://www.maryengelbreit.com
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| Mary Engelbreit produces greeting cards, pottery, rugs, dolls,
wrapping paper, and a variety of other whimsical "at home" objects,
all executed in alarmingly bright colors and color combinations. Her product
line is also carried at her eleven stores located within the United States.
She is a sales institution, with accolades of all sorts throughout the years...designer,
watercolorist, craftsperson, publisher (books, magazines, articles), businesswoman,
philanthropist, and very active in current events and citizen projects and
causes.. |
|
|
|
Her most recently loaded web site includes a flash page
before going to her home page. She generally has so many graphics on her
site that collectively the site must be huge in size. Her pages are taking
a noticeably long period to load. I do not necessarily care for the flavor
of her home page, but all of the bells and whistles are there.
|
|
| In her current site, she has a number of forms available for
her admirers to communicate. This is in contrast to her former sites where
one could write in comments via email but, in regularly checking the messages
that had been posted on her site, they very seldom changed and one could
not recognize that Mary had "read her mail" and incorporated some
of those suggestions into her product line or into her magazine articles,
etc. Her message is most often very uplifting. Her following is immense.
However, it has always been nearly impossible to communicate with anyone
at her headquarters in St. Louis. Even if you have an employee's specific
phone number, your call will always go to voice mail. There have never been
any phone numbers on Mary's site indicating any way to reach Mary or her
staff. The receptionist takes messages, but does not relay them onward,
so the reader and admirer of Mary Engelbreit must just accept whatever Mary
has to offer and whatever Mary offers, the public gets. Fortunately, Mary
has been able to market her vast resource of personal talent as well as
licenses with other product-associated firms. |
|
| There is usually so much "going on"
within Mary Engelbreit's web site that it is hard to determine which bright
word to click for a hyperlink or a link. The site designer is beginning
to use a lot of rollovers. Mary's site uses red, yellow, and black very
often. Those bright red, bold-faced words just look like they'll link to
something, but they don't. As an example, she has a map of the United States
showing locations where one can obtain Mary Engelbreit products. When you
"rollover" the map, there are a few random alt messages. She is
all over the United States in many stores, so why even have the map if it
isn't going to be the marketing tool intended? It takes real determination
at her site to pursue and find what it is you are searching. She does have
a search resource on her home page, though. |
|
| Do I buy her magazine? Yes! Do I shop at the Mary Engelbreit
store in Bellevue Square? Yes! Do I enjoy her artwork? Yes! Do I frequent
her web site? Yes!....I frequent her web site because the colors and subjects
she uses are fun and fanciful and her web site environment conveys that.
If I want to buy any of her products, I make certain I visit eBay and take
a look before trying to obtain from a retailer. |
|
| I admire the work Mary Engelbreit is doing and I admire the
workmanship in her web site. As mentioned earlier, I continue to detect
that Mary and her employees are unreachable and untouchable. Most of her
web site viewers are content to just "look and see" and are not
interested in the human element of people being with people. |
| |
| |
| Good Site Design/Rie Munoz, Ltd. (3) |
 |
|
Company:
URL:
|
Rie Munoz, Ltd.
http://www.riemunoz.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| Rie Munoz, Ltd. began planning for a web site in 1996 because
it was obvious Rie's work was in such demand, especially in the Pacific
Northwest, that the public was going to need a visual reference of Rie's
past work, her present issues, and what new releases were scheduled to be
available on the market. I had been keeping exhaustive database records
on Rie's images, when they released, at what price, etc. Rie's son, Juan
Munoz, knew of my complete records, which did not, in fact, comparably exist
in Rie Munoz, Ltd. in Juneau. I sent numerous records to Juan and those
records aided them in being able to publish Rie's latest complete library
of her work, "Portrait of Alaska". |
|
| Juan and I had discussed the need for a web site. I input
to him those items I as a consumer wanted to see on Rie's proposed site.
Occasionally, I take a peek to see if I am still comfortable with the content
and the quality of the content. The actual authoring and physical coding
of the site has been accomplished in Juneau by an policeman aspiring to
do coding in his off-hours (and he has grown immeasurably in competence
since the beginning!).. |
|
| Rie is an extremely humble and personable individual, but
she is so popular in Alaska and environs that she needs time alone and in
private to continue her main love, watercolorist! Through sharing personal
goings-on in Rie's life, the web site has made it possible for people to
get to know her better, without demanding that they be in her physical presence.
Rie is not computer literate, so individuals would write to the web site
thinking they were writing to Rie. I emphasized to Juan that instead of
hiding the "write a note to Rie" entry deep into the bowels of
the site, he consider placing it on the home page so that people could feel
that closeness to Rie. That entry now appears on the home page. Maybe people
don't often write Rie emails, but at least they feel the closeness rather
than the distance from their ability to communicate with her. |
|
| In the beginning days, many of the photographs used on the
site were poorly scanned, resulting in less than a perfect image being displayed.
I complained, citing Rie's reputation as deserving better representation.
The images now are plentiful and well rendered. I do not personally know
how much optimizing the webmaster is doing to the pictures of the artwork,
but the images appear clear. They are using thumbnails now, with the ability
to magnify the images, and I believe this technique on the site is working
well. |
|
| Early in the web site's planning, Juan and I had discussed
the logical hierarchy of the site, and this hierarchy has not been altered
significantly over the years. There are a good many hyperlinks within the
site, including all past news archives, the files being considerable. The
site went online in l997. Juan has never shared the results of having gone
online, but I believe he is pleased with the results and assistance his
retailers have derived from the main Rie Munoz, Ltd. site. |
|
|
