Web Critique
The website I chose to critique is Jezebel.com, which is a women’s interest blog website, coming under the Gawker.com media umbrella. Overall I found it extremely user-friendly and easy to navigate. I also found it interesting that, as it started out as a blog, it functions quite differently from other websites which do a similar job to it (i.e. gathering news stories from across the internet and presenting them in an informative and entertaining way), and relies more heavily on user input.
User-Centric Design
Jezebel as a website is extremely user-friendly, as it functions as a blog but on a larger scale, with a number of editors who seek user input regularly via comments and emails. Naturally the content is extremely specific to its audience, which is assumed to be female, media-savvy and more liberal, politically, and all stories posted have a definite ‘feminine’ slant (e.g. photos of celebrities, general news stories about female-related issues from around the world). Posts can be either about serious issues or more lighthearted, which reflects the fact that most readers are probably logging on and off throughout their working day and want to be both informed and entertained. A quick scan down the page shows all posts in chronological order with clear headlines to indicate what they’re about, and a “more” button to indicate where you can read the entire story. Beside each post is the most responded to comment by the author, letting people know what the hot topics are at that time. The masthead of the website on logging on also features the headlines and accompanying pictures of four of the most commented-on posts on the website, assuming they’ll be of most interest to the reader and allowing for quick scanning. Advertisements are visible but not intrusive. Having accessed the website from both a Mac and a PC, I don’t think the layout is affected by the hardware used to read it.
Simplicity
The layout of Jezebel is generally very simple, making use of all pixels in a useful way. The background is entirely plain with the logo at the top of the page, but beneath the four most commented-on posts, which may be a bit confusing for new readers. On the bar beside the website logo are the buttons for searching the site, filtering content and accessing your profile or logging out. Further down the page on the side bar is the contact information for all of the site editors and a box for subscribing to the site, which is all easy to read and navigate. Each post has a picture relating to the story with a small headline over it, and the headline for the story itself, which contains more information. Beside every post is the most commented upon comment, the time it was posted and the name of its author, which is straightforward enough. Commenting on a post once you have clicked into is also very easy, and arrows indicate whether you can minimise or maximise responses to comments. The bottom bar links to all of Jezebel’s sister sites and below this again, tucked away, is the technical, legal and Q&A section. I don’t think there are any unused or decorative pixels on the entire website, and yet it never looks too stark or uninviting, in my opinion.
Layout
Jezebel adheres to the “Divine proportion” layout. There is a large block for the main content, and a smaller block for the sidebar and its less immediately important information. The main masthead does not passively state information about the website, but features the most popular news stories on the site, even above the website logo. The content is by far the most important thing on Jezebel. It is apparent immediately where one should be looking when you log on, as the eye is immediately drawn to the darker and larger font and pictures of the blog posts in the middle of the screen. This font and picture is enlarged again on clicking on each individual post. This layout is, in my opinion, extremely pleasing to the eye and not too confusing at all, and the colour scheme complements it excellently. More columns would ruin the white space available and make the most talked-about topics on the site very unclear.
Colour
The colour scheme of Jezebel is mainly a calming turquoise across the board. The main background is a light turquoise, with a darker shade of turquoise for the sidebars, which accents nicely. On its own, this could seem quite cold, but the Jezebel logo itself is a dark pink colour which offsets the turquoise in an offbeat but distinctive way. The font used generally is black, apart from links which are all highlighted pink. I think the colour palette they’ve gone for in a way reflects the website perfectly, it’s aiming to be feminine but with a bit of an edge (also reflected by the Jezebel logo picture of a 50′s siren with half her face distorted).
Conventions
The navigation of Jezebel is very straightforward, and it adheres to all the conventions of web design. Each new post is clearly marked, and every hyperlink is highlighted, as well as the “more” button which appears at the end of the front page summary to be clicked to get into the rest of the post. On clicking on this, the headline of the post is enlarged and all of the comments are shown as you scroll the page. Clicking the logo, as with most sites, brings you back to the main site. Everything is marked quite clearly on the front page as regards searching the site, filtering content and logging into your profile. Apart from the rest of the stories disappearing on clicking into an individual post, the layout and colour scheme remains the exact same always, which cuts out any confusion in navigating the site, in my opinion.
Niamh replied:
Excellent work Sophie, you shown a clear understanding of the topic and have made soem excellent observations, well done
May 14, 2009 at 9:57 pm. Permalink.