Rough Draft
The website in trial is www.jbizmech.ca.
For an industry that is supposedly highly developed in powerful and destructive biomechanic weaponry, the "Juggernaut Business Mechanicals" (JBM) website leaves something to be desired for. While JBM has made some mistakes in the presentation of its Content and Technology, it is most deficient in usability, design, and interactivity.
First, I will briefly disclose some of the mistakes made in the elements of Content and Technology. The other three elements of of Web Design will critiqued more thoroughly.
Content:
- Body text is often too small.
- The colour of the text is difficult to read.
- JBM's content assumes that the reader knows about the business right off the bat. The home page provides news before explaining what the company is about.
Technology:
- The first splash page requests the user to download an unfamiliar program.
- *check if it runs normally with javascript off*
Usability:
Not only does this website commit seven out of the "Top 10 usability sins", it also fails Krug's "Trunk Test" miserably. The first red light is the double splash page. Finding the main content requires you to select an obscure or ill-defined link on each page. When you finally arrive to the main content, it is clear that the author is not considering its audience because it jumps right into "recent" news instead of explaining the purpose of the website. The acronym remains unexplained except for the tiny caption at the bottom of a some pages. If you try to search the identifier they rely on most, JBM, it is irretrievable. The contact page is dead, and there is no email provided for feedback.
Design:
While the creator had access to an excellent photographer, the images fail to salvage the JBM website. The ill placement of the hard-to-read fonts made it hard to read the information. The presentation made it unappealing to even look at. The creator used images as icons that were not clear enough to distinguish what the tabs were meant for. Instead the user has to mouse-over everything every time if they cannot remember the page purposes. When I clicked the tabs, the main pages they led to were all different. The inconsistent layout of the website made it irritating and confusing to use.
Interactivity:
Mark Raynor, the creator of the website demonstrates that he has no inclination to connect with his readers because his website fails to enable any communications. The second splash page offers the users a form to fill out in order to use the website more effectively. This would suggest that the user would be integrated into a community by using the website. However, the form is "offline" and there is no suggestion of when the issue will be fixed. This also happens to be the same form that users must use if they have any questions or interest in doing business with JBM. The form is also guilty of asking its users to provide inappropriate information such as: social security number, blood type, credit card numbers, etc..