Website Analysis

This is the first stage in creating our own working of the website re-design and re-brand as the feedback we received on our website analysis report will help us to grasp what is expected upon completing the finalised website.

As the group analysed the website for the town of Tallong, we discovered many unnecessary pages and links as well as recognising its navigation and ability to find the necessary information needed for a town website. This gave us the knowledge needed to implement our design skills and build our knowledge on the user interface design aspect and to practice that extensively to achieve a great outcome.

We were initially underwhelmed with the website at first glance for how generic and unmaintained it appeared to be, however after navigating through the several links, there appeared to be a large number of external links that were visually represented in an unflattering manner.

The following is a description on the current website:

• Currently run by Tallong Community Focus Group (TCFG), non-profit organisation.
• Include; header, scan column, content area and footer.

Information Architecture:

• Too many unnecessary links.
• Navigating to find something may require a few clicks beforehand.
• Abundance of links may cause the viewer to be overwhelmed.

Layout:

• Initially confusing.
• Awkward positioning of images.
• Images overlap the scan column border.
• Overwhelming amount of hyperlinks.
• Social media links, images and text do not conform to a grid-like structure

 

Colour Palette:

• Consisting of:
  • Sky blue (P 542 C)
  • Mid-range blue (P 535 C)
  • Navy (P 7546)
  • Dark heavy grey (P 7540 C)
  • White.

Content Area:

• Information does not conform to a grid structure.
• Paragraphs, isolated sentences, links and images spread out.
• Point of text varies between paragraphs.
• Usage of hyperlinks are far too frequent.
• Inconsistent fonts.

Header:

• No links
• Displays, ‘Tallong, NSW’
• Set up as an unjustified and unorganised manner.

Footer:

• Located in the bottom right-hand corner.
• Three links:
  • Secretary email address
  • Facebook page
  • Site map
• No housekeeping or legal matters located.
• Page author not specified

Scan Columns:

• Navigational to an extent
• Include links such as;
  • ‘Home’
  • ‘Tallong’
  • ‘Tallong Community Focus Group’
  • ‘Tallong Apple Festival’
  • ‘Tallong School’
  • ‘Tallong Rural Fire Brigade’
  • ‘Tallong Park Association Inc’.

Social Media:

• Manage Facebook page for community.
• Don’t necessarily advertise social media page.
• ‘Tallong Twitterings’ not to be mistaken as a town Twitter page.

Effectiveness of Site as Communication Tool – Effective:

• Scan column.
  • Contain a substantial amount of information
  • Easily navigational
• Amount of information displayed.
  • Communicates relative information
  • Includes essential facts and figures
• Links to external pages.
  • Provide bank of insight as to what to expect

Ineffective:

• Overwhelming amount of hyperlinks.
  • Randomly placed
  • Visual noise, disrupting flow of readers
• No grid structure.
  • Visually disruptive and broken
  • Ineffective layout of information
  • Lack of thought process
• Underwhelming use of header.
  • Users might find the site to be awkward to function
  • Absence of links in the header result in a non-cohesive user interface

Competitive Set:

After the final analysis of the website had been completed, that gave us a gauge as to how we were to tackled this project from scratch, we knew we had to get a plan going that included our aims and goals for the final website, and so we decided to work on a rationale at the completion of the analysis.

Conclusion

• Overall, the scan column seems to be the most effective component of the Tallong website.
• The common impression and feel of this site in its current state is confusing, messy and unfamiliar.
• Lack of town logo or brand mark, diminishing overall effectiveness of the sites visual communication.
• There seems to be no consistent colour system.

This exercise provided us with enough feedback to further our progress in creating a concrete website for the Tallong community.