Surveying the Possibilities

The purpose of this assignment is to begin considering what makes a quality web site.

Examine the advice given at this site to start developing useful terminology for critiquing web sites.

• Learningspace site : School HomePage Building Blocks
  
  
  

  Criteria used by others:
  Bill Hurd, Manager, Wall Data corp.	Encyclopedia Britanica
  1. visual complexity	1. depth, accuracy, completeness, & utility
  2. amount of information	2. quality & effectiveness of presentation
  3. flow	3. credentials of the author
  4. theme	4. elegance of design & ease of navigation
  5. accessibility to other areas	5. frequency of revision
  6. usage	6. quality of graphics or multi media
  7. bandwidth issues
  8. browser support
  9. backend data publication

  
  

Visit as many high school web sites as possible (and a few commercial web sites) while keeping detailed notes about what you observe.

• Rate each site from 1 to 5 (5 being the highest).
• Comment on the site’s design. Does the site look good? What is the eye drawn to immediately?
• Comment on the site’s content. What seems to be the main purpose of the site? Is the purpose clear?
• Comment on the site’s noteworthy features. How do the features enhance the site’s main purpose?

Create a table for your notes which looks something like this:

1. Look at schools in our district, state and around the world. Focus mainly on high schools, but elementary school, middle school, and district pages may also be good models.
2. Record as many excellent examples as you are able to find (at least two) and two horrible examples.
3. Visit at least two commercial sites and record one good example and one bad example.

List of Bellingham School District schools	http://www.bham.wednet.edu/schools.htm
Washington state registry of schools on the World Wide Web	http://web66.coled.umn.edu/schools/US/Washington.html
International registry of schools on the World Wide Web.	http://web66.coled.umn.edu/schools.html