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September 30, 2005
Good vs Bad--Liz
BAD: The Feather Trade
GOOD: Tudor History
BAD: The Feather Trade
I wanted to like this site, but there were several flaws. This site was an online version of a 1999 exhibit at the National Museum of American History. The site strives to be basic—and it is … too basic. There is no great analysis; I thought I was merely walking through the exhibit. This would have been fine, if the design were better. On the home page, the font is small and hard to read (the main text on that page is an image, and appears a bit blurry). All pages on the site have huge white spaces, with images and text aligned left on the page. I would have liked to know more about the birds (their characteristics, etc), as well as had some sort interactive game or quiz.
GOOD: Tudor History
Although this site is privately maintained, it is comprehensive and well organized. To begin, the home page is relatively simple. It has an image of a stained glass window, a title, and a comprehensive table of what is available on the site. The font is consistent (Arial), although she includes .gif that reads “Tudor history,” recalling Renaissance-era lettering. She has updated the site recently (20 August 2005), indicating that she takes this site seriously. The rest of the site differs from the home page, but the design is consistent (textured wallpaper, overlaid with a white page and black lettering). The site contains a lot of information about Tudor times—I spent too much time in the section detailing Tudor words.
Posted by ejonese at September 30, 2005 09:17 PM
Comments
Hi Liz,
I was involved in this site- the editing of the object information- so I thought I'd provide some insider background. This was the first attempt by NMAH to use our collections information database, MultiMIMSY, to provide information about some object on the web. At the time-1998-99- it was a pretty innovative attempt although I agree with you that the presentation could easily have been improved. But while the obvious goal was to complement the exhibit, actually the main goal of this site was to test the feasibility of linking object records from our collections information system. Hence the little "feather" icons that hyperlink to a custom report of the records with images. We learned a lot in preparation for the next attempt which was launched this last year in the "Collections" portion of the site. It also extracts from MultiMIMSY but only presents limited fields so an improved version is in the works for next year. It really was a big deal back in 1998 when we worked on it. Only the Science Museum in London had anything comparable but it really is dated. When the site was redesigned recently one of the discussions was what to leave of the old pages but maybe if we keep them up we need a include some kind of disclaimer due to there age. Debbie
Posted by: Debbie Schaefer-Jacobs at October 1, 2005 02:47 AM