One of my favorite websites that I will critique is http://ls1tech.com/ which is an automotive enthusiast website geared toward the ‘LSX’ series of engines that General Motors manufactured and put into their sports cars and trucks.  It’s main use is for the online forums for information and knowledge shared between the public, after-marker manufacturers for parts and even inside information from General Motors.  When you first go on to http://ls1tech.com/ the opening page greets you with a banner with some of GM’s most powerful sports cars and its name. Underneath it is a self scrolling pictorial news feed with new manufacturing news from GM, race videos and new products available to the LS community.  I enjoy the scrolling pictorial feed, and I feel that it draws the user in by peaking their interest and wanting them to acquire more information on the subject. clicking on the picture reveals the link for the information, but I wish that underneath the picture was a quick synopsis of the site it links you to, like for example in the yahoo news page.  The more you scroll down on the initial first page reveals previous news information, but unlike the scrolling news feed, it actually has a quick synopsis of the information underneath the picture, which I think is more desirable for the user or researcher.

What doesn’t work for the site in my opinion is besides the top ad banner, there is another side banner which is rather large and disrupting .  If anything I think it could have better placement in the site so it wouldn’t be so distracting on the page, and mess with the layout.  Also, this being a forum for LSX information shared by the public, the only way to get to the forum is to find it clustered in the middle of the top search bar – which I think is easily overlooked, when the whole point of the website is the forum.  Once you click on it you are greeted with the average form layout which is mostly text heavy besides the sponsor pictures.  I think the web designers could of made the cataloging a little more engaging with picture links instead of just a plain text catalog.  The usability is there, but once on the forum page it mostly screams function over form, and it’s not too entertaining for the user.  The user will have to actually think to find the right category to find the information or topic they need.  Overall I think the website has some good design elements, but it can also be vastly improved for ease of usability to the user.

The Fredericksburg, Stafford, Spotsylvania Historical Markers website found at http://fredmarkers.umwblogs.org/ at first gives me the impression of a website designed by a nonprofessional using some sort of website building template, but is plain with good facts and information.  It contains links in the initial page that are in the body of the text, but it would be helpful if they also added them to a side bar for easy use and access.  People do not want to have to search through things, they want to not think and have ease of access.  Clicking on the pictures leads to a plain text page with the text of the historical markers, but no corresponding pictures to go with them.  I wish they added in pictures and had a location map with pins on where each one was located. I think this could engage the user more in the information and location that this website tries to bring to the user or researcher. It would be nice for the top menu bar to have drop down menu’s instead of just being straight links, and it wouldn’t hurt to have more color instead of plain white, so it actually draws the user in, instead of just looking like a boring historical site.

Overall, the information is there for this site, and it has a decent layout.  All it needs is the small details and work to really make it from a good site to a great site.