Poor Multimedia Example

The website I choose as a very poorly designed example of multimedia was: http://www.airspaces.com/

CONTENT
--Who is the target audience for this multimedia piece?
It’s hard to say really but I suppose it must be anyone who is looking to remodel or possibly build anything from a residential place to live in up to a commercial office building.

--How well is the information (including text, graphics, music, animation, and video) communicated to the target audience?
Not that well. There is hardly any text at all in the site, excepting the links. Some of the links change text as you drag your mouse across them. I can’t see the point in that. The links take you to a picture that illustrates the link, for example a link that says “cable” leads you to a picture of an aviary at the Bronx Zoo. I can’t really understand how cable and aviary connect however. There could be cable in the aviary but there is no explanation. The viewer is left to come up with that on their own. There is no animation, audio or video to the site but there are graphics. These look like poor quality digital photos. Some of them are embarrassingly bad. Others are almost clear. There is one paragraph giving information about the architect and the mission statement of the business. If you drag your mouse across this paragraph it changes to another paragraph that doesn’t make any sense. I had to read it at least three times and think it through a bit in order to determine that some of it stood for the name of the company which is AIR. The other bits and pieces I don’t know about.

--How would you evaluate the information for its clarity, usefulness, and ability to arouse interest in the target audience?
I don’t think there is an interest aroused from the site for whatever audience they are trying to appeal to. They have no information other than pictures that accompany each link. They don’t attempt to highlight any special skills they may have as a company. It’s not a user friendly, flowing, informative, captivating site.

--Weighing all the above factors, assign a value to the content on a scale of 1 (poor) to 6 (excellent).

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STRUCTURE AND NAVIGATION
--How well is this piece organized for the target audience?
The organization is mediocre. There isn’t any issue with the user getting lost in the site because there isn’t enough information to get lost in. The site has a column on the left with 17 links and the pictures that come with the links show up on the right hand side of the page. Nothing more than that.

--How easy and intuitive is it for a user to figure out how to move through it?
It’s not a hard site to use because there isn’t much to it. It’s a hard site to understand though for that very reason.

--Is the breadth and depth of the information easily apparent, and how efficiently can a user move through the multimedia piece to learn the extent of what is being presented?
Breadth and depth of the information is not easily apparent. You can move through it pretty efficiently because there isn’t much there to go through.

--Weighing all the above factors, assign a value to this piece's structure and navigation on a scale of 1 (poor) to 6 (excellent).

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VISUAL DESIGN
--How would you describe the visual appeal of this multimedia piece?
I did like the blue color on the site. The color is peaceful and nice. The fonts do not change on the links. The pictures have a location description on the bottom of them that is hard to read in several of the pictures because the font color is white and sometimes the background colors are very light. There isn’t enough contrast in a few cases for that text to stand out.

--How suited is the design to the target audience?
Well, I’m going to assume that the target audience is anyone who is in the market to build something, whether it be a house or an office building. In this case the audience is probably looking for a website that gives the feeling of professionalism and ability. In a best case scenario that site also allows them to play around with different options the company has to offer.

--Would this design appeal to users other than the target user? If so, which ones? If not, why not?
The design is boring and too simple. When a user isn’t challenged at least enough to stimulate their intelligence I think they steer away from a site. I don’t think the target audience or any additional audiences would appreciate this site. The learning that is meant to take place (I’m assuming), just isn’t.

--Weighing all the above factors, assign a value to this piece's visual design on a scale of 1 (poor) to 6 (excellent).

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FUNCTIONALITY
--How appropriate is the technology used on this piece for the type of content being delivered to target users?
There is no technology used. I mentioned before that there is no audio, animation or video on the site. It is strictly limited to graphics.

--Would this piece work on a dial-up connection or does a user need a high-speed connection? Probably not that well. There are a lot of pictures that would take a bunch of time to load.

--Do all the links work? All the links worked.

--Weighing all the above factors, assign a value to this piece's functionality on a scale of 1 (poor) to 6 (excellent).

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INTERACTIVITY
--In what ways does this piece encourage users to interact with the content? List all that apply. This site does not encourage users to interact with the content. It does give contact information so that anyone interested can call the company. It shows pictures of different examples but doesn’t explain them. It doesn’t show any options that the architect offers.

--How does this interactivity enhance a user's understanding of the content?
Because of this lack of interactivity the user doesn’t come away with a solid understanding of what this architect has to offer or is hoping to teach his/her target audience. The interactivity is so narrow that text is not offered on the site in a simple attempt to explain the message the site is trying to convey.

--Weighing all the above factors, assign a value to this piece's interactivity on a scale of 1 (poor) to 6 (excellent).

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