The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.

I believe a good website will simultaneously incorporate engaging content, good architecture, and a pleasing design. A bad (highlight this word) website that has confusing content, terrible architecture, and a poor design. I found one website I consider very good, while the other website I found, I consider horrific.

So, do you want the good news or bad news first? I’ve always been an optimist, so I think we’ll end on a good note. So we’ll start first with the terrible website.

So I’ll try and keep my complaints to a minimum for the bad site. The site is called MOCA, which obviously means this site is about coffee or something along those lines right? WRONG. The site is actually a “Museum of Computer Art. So I’ll list my complaints, because if I get going on them, this could turn into an even longer post, and we all don’t want that.

Complaints about Content:

• After clicking on at least two or three links until you actually see any art, the painting/picture/whatever it is, there is usually no explanation. I’m not an artist or an art student, and I don’t know what I’m looking at.
• The headings of all the different art pieces, what do they even mean?
  

-The Donnie 2004?
-On-line/on-wall?
-Photo Based Art?
-Ads by Google?, oh wait, that’s not art, those are ads. In the middle of all of the art.
-Drawn/Painted Art? I thought this was supposed to be computer art....

• Before the title of the website itself, there is a box that looks like this,

So is this a competition site? Or is this a gallery? Or both? What’s the goal?


Complaints about Architecture:

• There are 5 columns, with about 30 links in each column, Google Adds are inserted into a few of the columns. How am I to know where to even begin clicking?
• At the VERY bottom of the page, there is an explanation as to what MOCA is.

Complaints about Design:

• The colors of the site are tan on darker tan, and black. Not too exciting.
• Once again, terrible navigation system, way too many links.

On A Brighter Note....
One of my favorite websites is www.mint.com. Now you have to understand, that I am a statistic fanatic. But this website is cool for those who aren’t interested in graphs and charts too. The content of this site is amazing.
Mint provides a free service that allows you to see almost EVERY bank account, loan, or credit card that you have all in one place. You find the name of your bank/loan/credit card provider, enter in some information, and then voila, you can track all of your income and expenses in one place. Now I know what you’re thinking, that’s not very secure, but the site has very good privacy standards, and it was suggested by cnet.com, PC magazine, and Money magazine. One last thing on content: Mint allows you to make a budget and track your monthly expenses. So in the future, if you’re spending too much money at Starbucks, you will have a nice little email sent to you to let you know that you need to cut back on that caffeine intake. Perhaps annoying to some, but I find that it really is helpful when you’re on a budget. It also tells you when your credit card bills are due, which is really helpful if you have online banking and a statement isn’t sent out by snail mail.(And I love the pie graphs that show what portion of my income is spent on rent, utilities, restaurants, etc.)

As for the architecture of the site, Mint’s homepage gives a quick one line summary of what the site does. Another nice thing is the simplistic menu bar at the top. There are four possible choices which will give you more than enough information to understand what the site’s purpose and goals are. Another nice feature is the bottom bar. It changes the center image on the home page and further describes what the site does. Finally, the homepage features an easy to spot button that says “Sign up in under 5 minutes” which allows users to know that the process isn’t lengthy. The design of Mint is very pleasing. It has very neutral colors of greens, blues, and yellows. There aren’t a lot of buttons and the text is kept short and sweet. Mint takes a very detailed subject of personal finances and really simplifies it. It allows users to understand their personal finances all in one place, and it can be a very useful tool to save money in the future.