Chapter 3 "Door County Maritime Museum" Website Review

Door County Maritime Museum: Where Great Lakes History Comes Alive! Website official

Target Audience:

My First Image

Types of Navigation Evident

How the design principles of contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity are applied.

Web design best practices

a. Consistent site/ header logo: Yes b. Consistent navigation area: Yes
c. Informative page title that includes the company/organization/site name: Yes
d. Page footer area- copyright, last update, contact email: Footer includes date last updated and all rights reserved. The website’s footer should include contact information such as the phone number or email address.
e. Good use of basic design principles: repetition, contrast, proximity, and alignment: The website utilizes contrast well. However, they have numerous areas where information is repeated. The menu page could be aligned more neatly as well.
f. Balance of text/ graphic/ white space on page: There is good spacing on the home page. The informative paragraph could be more precise with fewer words and a greater font. Having fewer words could be possible with bullet points/ topics of focus.
g. Home page downloads within 10 seconds on a mobile device: yes
h. Viewport meta tag is used to enhance display on smartphone: Yes. Information is consistent with mobile devices and computers.
i. Responsive page layout is configured for smartphone and tablet display: Yes
j. Main navigation links are clear and consistently labeled: Yes
k. Navigation is structured within an unordered list: No. Menu information is not alphabetically or numerically sorted.
l. When the main navigation consists of images and/or multimedia, the page footer area contains plain text hyperlinks (accessibility): Footer is consistent throughout website (Quick links, E-News, and locations)
m. Navigational aids, such as site maps, skip to content link, or breadcrumbs, are used: Menu and Logo for home page should be throughout whole website even when scrolling to the bottom of the page for easy access (particularly those on a smartphone).
n. Use of different colors is limited to a maximum of three or four plus neutrals: Website consists of shades of blue, gray, and white colors.
o. Color is used consistently: Yes
p. Background and text colors have good contrast: Yes. Background is light gray while text is dark blue (almost black)
q. Color is not used alone to convey meaning (accessibility): no. Meaning is made clear with photographs and text.
r. Use of color and graphics enhances rather than distracts from the site: Yes, the colors are not bright to distract from the information. The graphics are consistent with the information on the site. For example, pictures of what each location looks like. Some areas may even have too many unneeded pictures.
s. Graphics are optimized and do not slow download significantly: Yes
t. Each graphic used serves a clear purpose: Graphics show the locations of the information being talked about
u. Image elements use the alt attribute to configure alternate text (accessibility): No, the pictures have no explanation.
v. Animated images to not distract from the site and do not loop endlessly: Pictures on homepage loop without an arrow to go back. It would be useful for the “loop” to have a way to view the last slide instead of waiting until it shows up again.
w. Each audio or video file used serves a clear purpose: Yes. There are videos consisting of “news” related to the museum.
x. The audio or video files used enhance rather than distract from the site: Yes
y. Captions or transcripts are provided for each audio or video file used (accessibility): Captions are included for videos, explaining the context.
z. The file size is indicated for audio and video downloads: Yes
aa. Common fonts such as Arial or Times New Roman are used: An atypical font is used for the website
bb. Techniques of writing for the Web are applied: headings, subheadings, bulleted lists, short sentences in brief paragraphs, use of empty space: Heading and subheadings are used. Some paragraphs seem to be lengthy which could be shortened by bullet points.
cc. Fonts, font sizes, and font colors are consistently used: Yes. The font and font sizes are consistent throughout the website.
dd. Content provides meaningful, useful information: Yes, all information is useful and has a purpose (education).
ee. Content is organized in a consistent manner: Yes
ff. Information is easy to find (minimal clicks): There is a lot of information that is overwhelming.
gg. Timeliness: The date of the last revision and/or copyright date is accurate: Yes
hh. Content is free of typographical and grammatical errors: Yes
ii. Avoids the use of “Click here” when writing text for hyperlinks: Website consistently uses “more info” throughout. This takes up a lot of extra space. Other areas of the website have a hyperlink over the heading/subheading. This is a much better method for hyperlinking. It also would make the website more consistent.
jj. Hyperlinks use a consistent set of colors to indicate visited/nonvisited status: No hyperlinks give no indication of whether a link has been visited yet or not.
kk. Alternate text equivalent of content is provided for graphics and media (accessibility): No. Images do not have additional wording for those who are unable to view the images.
ll. All internal hyperlinks work: Yes
mm. All external hyperlinks work: Yes
nn. All forms function as expected: Yes
oo. No error messages are generated by the pages: No
pp. Additional Accessibility Criteria: Yes
qq. Use attributes designed to improve accessibility such as alt and title where appropriate: Yes
rr. The html element’s lang attribute indicates the spoken language of the page: Yes
ss. Browser Compatibility Criteria: Yes
tt. Displays on current versions of Edge, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera: Yes
uu. Displays on popular mobile devices (including tablets and smartphones): Yes
8. Recommend three improvements for the website.

Pictures should have footer describing their purpose.

Home pages are more easily accessible for those who are an older age. People visiting this location seem to be part of an older generation. Because of this they should make things easily accessible and understandable.

Some areas of the website seem to have abnormal proportions. For example, the news page has an oddly large “more info” button and page numbers are the bottom (personal preference)