I have edited these responses, in most cases to preserve the anonymity of the site under discussion.
(this was a site which provided, amongst other things, a digital creative writing journal)
I was very impressed by the XXXX web site. The site provided an extensive range of easily acessible information concerning the acitivities and members of the writer's workshop. The information presented was well ordered and inviting and only one major navigation difficulty was encountered. The Workshop's home page gives a good overview of the range of information contained in this website and allows you to access all the general areas of the site. The page is divided into two columns. The right hand column contains a general introduction to the site and mentions a few of the activities of the Wirter's Workshop. The left hand side of the home page is divided into sections titled "Who We Are", "Electronic XXX" (the e-magazine produced by the Workshop), "Haiku Spirit", "Resources", and "Guest Book". These categories have then been subdivided into three or four separate pages. The reader is thus informed of exactly what information thie website contains and where to find it. Each page on the site is divided into well spaced short paragraphs. This ensures that the reader is not bombarded with too much information at once and . . . [invites] the casual internet browser who may be put off by pages of dense text. The site makes extensive use of hyperlinks to help the reader navigate their way around the infomation presented. This does, however, mean that the interested reader has to keep moving onto other pages for more information on the Writer's Workshop and it's activities. Each page also contains a wide coloured border along the left hand side of the page which provide some enticing bright colours to attract readers....
Overall, the ... site made a great introduction to this group, whom I previouly knew nothing about, and an interesting and informative website to explore.
(this was basically a resource page which provided links to other sites of interest)
Initially on visiting "An Index of Web...." I was unimpressed with the opening page. A shade of yellow that can only be described as gaudy, the reader is greeted with reams of print which at first is off-putting. However, on further inspection, the site is not as, to use no less a term, boring as it first seems. Although visually disappointing, the content within the site is excellent. Covering a wide range of ...arti[s]ts, this site links with. . . [many] other sites dealing [with] this topic. One problem which arises, is the many links to pages of foreign languages like eg. Norwegian, which unfortunately is not my mother tongue. The lack of translations for these pages is somewhat frustrating. However, navagatability and readability, where English, are fine. In regards to the usefulness of the content and information, any 3rd Year English student will be happy to know of the existance of this page- I know I am.
(this was a translation of a text from Irish into English)
The author of this site is attempting to outline the life of XX, the author of ZZZ This is a poem
which I have never read, and it is worth noting first that the author does very little to explain the context and import of his
subject's work.
The worst of the many failures of this site is its lack of links. There are no links to other relevant pages, no links to the poem itself, and no links to images. With good links, the author could perhaps justify his failure to explain anything about the poem which was apparently the sole achievment in an otherwise bleak life. This page is effectively isolated from the exterior network, an informational cul de sac, and without links there is no hope that the reader might piece together something meaningful from the somewhat scattered information provided.
On a different level, the site fails to hold together thematically. The author begins with the life of XX, but somehow
concludes with a brief critique of the effects of the Famine on Irish sexuality. A number of ideas are thrown out but never fully developed. Again, this might be interesting and useful if each of the ideas the author presents were linked to relevant sites.
There are no images on the page. This is better than using bad or irrelevant images: if images are symbols, and symbols generate a language, then internet authors have been careless with their words.
I like the large type, and the blue-on-yellow text resonates well. The text moved fluidly with the window (when I resized it) and I liked the paragraph formulation. Overall, though, this site is unimpressive, and for the most part leaves me wondering why it exists.