Your Online Resource Centre
Website Analysis
By: Mary Anne Winslow
In this article I will analyze the websites related to windsurfing. As a big surfing fan I know what exactly needs to be on the site and what people might be interested in. I have randomly chosen 4 windsurfing web sites.
The first site I found was the "F2" site at www.F2.com. At first I had trouble getting into the site, as I was immediately confronted with the warning that I would need to download the Flash player 6 in order to view anything. At this stage the only part I could see was the disclaimer. After trying in vain to download the plug-in, I eventually found a PC with a suitable level of Flash to illuminate the flashy 'enter' sign, linking through to the main body of the site. As one of the leading manufacturers in the industry, I assumed they would be pushing their product somewhat, but I was mistaken. At first all I could view was a small range of badly written news columns, and a couple of product reviews. Even these were in irritating blocked paragraphs, nearly illegible due to the minuscule size of the text, and without clear sub-headers to scan paragraphs quickly. Several sections were invisible due to the necessity of the advanced plug-in, and it was only until I looked at the site for the 6th time on a PC with the correct Flash player that I was able to see the menu bar directing me around the rest of the site. This was still in the very top of the screen, and blended invisibly into the decoration, so navigation was difficult. They make full use of the sophisticated plug-in with some clever graphics to rotate products when hovering the mouse above the image. This quickly got annoying when nothing stopped moving on the page. Another irritation was the opening of a new viewing window every time you enter a new section, leaving me with about ten windows after blindly crawling my way around the site. To its credit, there were a great number of useful links to other pages, which open out into separate viewing windows in order to try and keep you from shutting their page permanently. This didn't work for me. Overall, I left very unsatisfied. Possibly the least user friendly site I've seen, and if I hadn't have found the sufficiently advanced plug-in, I would not have been able to find anything I wanted.
Another leading manufacturer "Naish" at www.Naishsails.com was my second find. One of the biggest family run windsurf brands, of extremely high quality boards and sails, I expected a similar quality in their website, and was not disappointed. The front-page was highly pictorial, tasteful and aesthetically pleasing, with a surprisingly quick download time. Busy, but very windsurfer orientated, the homepage is reasonably interesting as the images occasionally change when hovering over different links. The menu bar makes navigation very easy, quickly directing you into clearly labelled subsections of the site. The text is in an easy-to-read and large format, easily scan-able with bold paraphrasing subheadings and illustrative pictures. All the news is in clear hierarchical order, and products are well categorised with great summary material and pictures. For each individual board or sail advertised, there are options to view their alternative colours and graphics in a larger sub-window, and there are links to extensive technical detail. There are clear directions to distributors and their contact details, and some great screensaver and wallpaper downloads in a range of available screen sizes. The only criticism of this site is the lack of content in certain sections, and others which clearly had not been updated for some time. All in all however this is a superb site:- easily navigable, an abundance of information in a useful range of depths, and generally good looking.
www.Maui.net is a tiny site I found about the legendary surf wave known as Ho'oikipa or Jaws in Hawaii, and also sells a small range of merchandise. By the basic look of the site, I'd guess it's at least 10 years old, and is something of a Peter Pan in the web world, as it looks like it hasn't been changed since its creation. The front page shows an ancient photo of the 100 foot high wave in a myriad of blues and greys, and some bright spark has decided that the text on top should also be in blue, and black, in an illegible courier font. This colour scheme makes reading incredibly difficult, and frankly its content isn't really much better. The site has a few internal links through to dated photos of bikini clad new romantics sporting a delectable range of t-shirts, and other equally aesthetically putrid pages, which mercifully download quickly (presumably due to their age). These sub-pages however have no directions back to the homepage, making navigation a little difficult. There are a range of poor quality thumbnail action sequence gif's of people surfing the infamous wave, but your attraction is somewhat diverted from the action by the ominous words - 'Jaws' tiled in red and black in the background. All in all, a shocking site both in terms of aesthetics, navigation and content. Its only encouragement is its instantaneous download time. A massive update and modernisation is very necessary in order to bring this site into the 21st century in order to appeal to the target audience and hold their attention on what could potentially be a very interesting site.
My final and favourite choice was another manufacturer - this time from windsurfing's Granddaddy and instigator Jason Polakow. www.JP-australia.com is far and away my number one windsurf website, mainly due to its simplicity and diversity of choice within the site. Although the intro page thoroughly recommends Flash MX for optimum viewing, those without the advanced flash plug-in are treated to an absolutely brilliant site. The simple appearance of this site is very effective in terms of styling towards its target audience, with an original, laid back look. None of the site is in the abrasive computer colours most sites use, but instead looks like they've inscribed the site on a wooden plaque. Even the menu bars don't look like an added feature from the background, rather they seem to be part of the facia. The menu drops down other options when hovering above it, in a clear and concise manner, making navigation very easy. On every link page there are links back to the homepage, the top of the page, and other related parts of the site. Flash is used in a particularly subtle way, only on a scrolling message bar at the top of the screen that fades in and out relaying latest news and tips. Despite the fact that some of the pages have extensive thumbnails, the wait is imperceptible due to progressive downloading, allowing pictures and text to appear in sequential order as you watch. As in the Naish site, the product pages are superb. Hierarchical in structure, a very basic summary of all the products is given using pictures as links into specific product groups, and individual products. These again provide brief summaries, but also allow you to link into much more detailed technical specifications, sizes, colour schemes, and distribution information and their contact details. Magazine test reports are shown for each product, which unfortunately do not link through to the respective magazine's website, but I suspect this is in order to keep you glued to their own website. This site has everything anyone interested in windsurfing might want - from the casual interest browser, a beginner, pro, or simply someone just looking for action pictures. Products, news, tips, action shots and videos, technical information and screensavers, this site has it all, and is very friendly to use.
I am not particularly impressed by overly flashy sites. I think it can be put to good used in the right situation and in the right quantity - but in practise this doesn't happen very often. Straightforward, subject dedicated and easily navigable sites are by far the best. No one wants to enter a site, and not be able to find what they are looking for, or be penalised for not having the latest version of a plug-in. Keep it simple, allow the user the freedom of movement around the site, hold our attention, and give the user what they want - that's the key to a good web site.
Mary Anne Winslow is a member of Essay Writing Service counselling department team and a dissertation writing consultant. Contact her to get free counselling on custom essay writing. |
