NAMES: Rob Hooper & Heather Pattison

LECTURERS: Ross Dewston & Mae McSporran

SUBJECT: 06.532 IWD - Assignment 1

DUE DATE: 10/9/1998

Table of contents

Introduction
Research
Analysis
- Academic
- Entertainment
- Arts
- Information
- Personal
- Business
Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendix 1 - 3 site critique
Appendix 2 - Analysis forms used
Appendix 3 - E-Mail Communication
Appendix 4 - Peer Review

Introduction

In the multitude of web sites to be found on the World Wide Web, is there any relationship between the intended purpose of a web page and it’s particular style?

To start to answer this question the authors have surveyed and analysed a random selection of web sites.

What types of Web pages are there, and what are their “purposes?”

Web pages come in many guises, each with one or more intended purposes.

This survey has looked at 6 generic types of web sites:

Academic - main purpose is to educate it’s users.
Arts - presentation of visual, literary and media arts.
Entertainment - prime purpose is to entertain the user.
Business - pages that focus on commerce and industry.
Information - sites designed to give information to a particular type of user.
Personal - those web sites that present information about & by individuals.

What is meant by “style”?

“Style” is a widely used term that incorporates all sensory aspects of a web page content, including the form, colour and composition of text, images, animation, sound & video.

“Style” also refers to the “context” of that content- i.e. what a page relates to.

Subject, theme, symbolism, analogies and metaphors are all aspects of context, and how we may think of, or respond, given our expectations and stereotypes.

What is the relationship between purpose and style?

The relevance of style to different media has a long and complex history.

“Roman” text, which can be found as a font in all computers today, relates back over 2000 years to the writing style of the “classical” Roman Empire.

This style of font is still used to give a classical or formal look to documents and web pages.

Conversely, present day web pages, with their mix of text, images, sound, animation and video, may have a range of styles combining into a competing visual cacophony.

This high level of sensory input is a reflection of the society we all live in, and though this input may be subtle, will nevertheless affect each of us.

What style would we expect to find on a particular type of web page?

We all have learned expectations after having observed many types of media presentations.

Newspapers, for example, have become stereotyped by much text with an attention grabbing headline first, followed by a cursory overview, and then, possibly, further details and an image.

Although we each have our individual expectations and tastes; the authors have suggested stereotypes that may typify each type of site and it’s intended purpose.

Academic - informative, text heavy, highbrow.
Entertainment - visually striking, multimedia (use of animation, sound or video), entertaining.
Arts - original, graphical, stylish.
Business - practical, user friendly, thematic.
Information- user friendly, straight forward, high on links.
Personal - individualistic, reflecting personality of creator/owner.

Research

A survey of this type can, at best, only give an indication of any observed relationship between a web site’s purpose and it’s style.

Sampling is of only a few examples of each type of site selected at random.

The authors have created two forms to take samples of web pages & sites.

Form 1. “Types” is a list of types of sites sampled.

Form 2. “Components” sets out a list of style components that may be included in a site.

Academic

Academic Style Expectation

Of all the categories sampled this has the longest history on the internet and thus has the most established stereotype, with expectations of verbose intellectuals in ivory towers.

Universities

The Internet was first established by academics at universities when all Internet use was text only, giving an expectation of lots of highbrow discussion in plain text.

Schools

Schools were expected to diverge the most from the dry, intellectual stereotype, with the use of images of student work and perhaps less professional, but more imaginative pages.

Science

Science also has a stereotype of being full of obscure, sesquipedalian words and not generally of interest outside the academic arena.

Academic Analysis

Universities

The 3 universities selected at random by throws of the dice, didn’t reinforce the academic stereotype.

Duke University was a huge site, well designed (with a design guide) and had lots of images and user -friendly information.

The University of Buenos Aires site was similar to, but not quite as large as Duke University.

American River College also didn’t fit the expectations, being small and short on text, though the lack of images and colour was closer to the stereotype.

Schools

Of the 3 schools visited (all High Schools), Kamo High School in New Zealand (random selection), had the most professional look, but was short on graphics and links, as was Fall Mountain Regional High School.

Xiamen International School diverged from the stereotype in the other direction, with lot’s of ads on this hosted site, dead links and poor design.

Science

Science sites are plentiful on the internet and a sampling of only 3 sites cannot establish a pattern, if there is one, but of the 3 sites visited only the Earth Sciences Virtual Library was short on colour and graphics. (This might be expected of a page of resource links.)

The other 2 science sites both had good design, continuity and strong, appropriate themes.

Academic Summary

The expectation that academic sites would be text heavy and highbrow appeared to be incorrect, with 2 of the 3 sites being colourful, using many images and necessary links as well as being informative for all visitors.

Entertainment

Entertainment Style Expectation

Visually striking, with good use of multimedia and, obviously the purpose of the site, entertaining, were the expected results of this sampled topic.

Games

Game playing is one of the most popular uses of the Internet, and games were one of the foundations of the computer software industry.

From the simple space invader games of the seventies and eighties to the complex role-playing games of today, all provide expectations of fun and colourful graphics.

Music

Music, with it’s long history and diverse range, was less easily stereotyped and expectations were for no particular style and of great variety.

Entertainment Analysis

Games

The Sony Station and Shockrave sites were, as expected of large entertainment sites, slick and professional with good continuity and use of multimedia (requiring plug-ins) to allow the visitor to interact with the games.

Brian’s Puzzle Page, an individual home page, was less professional, less stylish, but nevertheless still entertaining.

Music

The 3 music sites, as expected, varied considerably in their style and themes, which in each case were clearly evident.

Only one, Broadcast Com. actually had the ability to play music, and only if the visitor had the required Real-Time plug-in.

All 3 sites rated favourably on suitability and visual style.

Entertainment Summary

As expected these sites all placed strong emphasis on good visual style, though it was thought that music sites would make more use of sound files. All these sites had good entertainment value.

Arts

Arts Style Expectation

Of all selected topics this one was expected to show the most acknowledgement of “style”.

Visual Arts

People involved in the Visual Arts are often thought to be very aware of aesthetics and social trends, and evidence of this would thus show in the “style” of associated web sites.

Dramatic Arts

Although possibly not characterised by an emphasis on visual aesthetics as much as the previous category, expectations were that dramatic arts sites would still show an awareness of fashionable style.

Arts Analysis

Visual Arts

Artslab, the first of four visual arts sites chosen by the throw of the dice, proved to follow the expectations well. This site from the University of California at San Diego Art Department, had the highest rating for both suitability and visual style. It was original, informative and stylish while still being user friendly and not over the top.

The following site, the Arts Division of Pennsylvania State University, proved to be almost the opposite of what would be expected; black text on a plain background with a single e-mail link in colour.

The next 2 visual arts sites, a personal page with images of graffiti and a personal/ new-age arts site from Australia, were both strong on graphics and imagery but were slow loading and somewhat amateurish.

Strong reliance on graphics in both these sites didn’t make them easier to navigate or generally more user-friendly.

Dramatic Arts

The Philadelphia Young Playwrights Festival, though well written as expected, and well organised was unoriginal and lacked any style.

The American Academy of Dramatic Arts was also very straight forward with no set theme but showed good continuity, was informative and user friendly.

The last Dramatic Arts site, a single page obituary to theatre director Gilbert Russak, was appropriately black , well designed and had only 2 links.

Arts Summary

Apart from one site that proved to be a complete exception, these sites relied on dramatic images.

The main difference between the others was in the degree of expertise involved in the construction and design, with inexperienced sites being evident.

Information

Information is usually provided by a business or organisation as a service to it’s customers. This information can be provided directly as a part of it’s site, or indirectly as links to other sites. Some very useful sites are provided by sponsorship.

Finding information is the most frustrating part of the exercise. A request for “Weather” through Infoseek produced 3,407,556 sites, a request for NZ+weather - 74 sites. Randomly selecting a site by the throw of a dice can lead to some very unhelpful sites - personal home pages with links to a forecast, or indexes to other sites - not all of them relevant. Using one’s ISP’s homepage to find relevant sites of this nature can be far less tedious.

Information can be found on almost any topic one cares to mention. For the purpose of this report the sites sought were weather, share market, computers and gnomes.

Information Style Expectation

Straight information sites were expected to be clean, clear, concise, accurate and to the point with references to the integrity of the data. Pages were expected to conform to the style used within the rest of the site. Pages were also expected to be fast to load with a minimum of links that are necessary and to the point. Animations and graphics were expected only where necessary and were not expected to slow down the loading of the site. Sound and video were also not expected.

Information Analysis

Weather

Five sites were investigated - one through an ISP, four at random through Infoseek.

Clear Net Weather

A brief forecast for New Zealand. Gives a very concise summary of the four main centres. Information as accurate as most forecasts. Fast to load, the style is consistent with the other pages on the site. Links are both text and graphics. There are however at least 23 links to other pages on the site. Visually acceptable and easy to read.

The Weather Underground - University of Michigan

An index to sites in the US. A very complex “Weather Globe - spin and click” graphic. VERY slow to load. Eventually says one requires Shockwave - and then does not load the Globe. Leads by graphics to weather warnings in the different states. A pretty page but not worth bookmarking.

The Web Limited

A site which could be bookmarked for the weather. The menu is scattered - links are at the top, side and bottom of page. Content was relevant and to the point. Links to the Metservice.

Advocacy

A straight index to 500 weather sites. Not all of which are particulaly relevent. The three New Zealand sites referred to are from the Frontier Fishing Gazette. Clicked one of them at random and discovered an interesting photo with the weather for 22nd December 1996. The site was fast to load as it consisted entirely of brief descriptions and links.

MetService

The home page of the Met Service. Clear and concise. The links are all text within the text with a description - which is the right place for them. A pleasant site well thought out. An example of the site expectation.

Sharemarket

Global Register

A very useful site (if one owns AMP shares or the like). Fast to load, clear and concise. The site gives today’s share market price. Details covered are company name; code; buy; sell; high; low; first; last; +-.
Linked pages show extended data and also the NZSE40 Capital Index Graphs - 30 days and 3 years. If companies listed have a Web page then it is linked. The style and format, although plain, are relevant to the site use.

Shares

Selected by the throw of a dice. Lists in a compressed font table format the top 40 companies as at 10th May 1996. Heading scroll off page. There is no reference to the integrity of the data and no links. There are also no references to the authors. Worth avoiding.

Computers

Two sites were selected, both having been used in the past.

PC Webopaedia

A site to bookmark. All computer terms are explained in an easy to understand concise sentence or two with relevant links to further details and sites. For beginner computer users to advanced. The style is consistent throughout the pages and easy to follow. The pages are fast to load, no unnecessary sounds or graphics are used.

PC Guide

Has many links to the PC Webopaedia. Provides detailed information on computer components. The style is consistent throughout, fairly plain but relevant to the site. The site is sponsored and the site reflects the time the author is thus able to devote to it’s creation.

Gnomes

Information is in the eye of the beholder. What adults regard as Information may not necessarily apply to a 15 year old with an English assignment due - or a teenager entering a science fair.
I could have used solar cooking eggs, making a battery to run a watch on beer......
Including gnomes under information shows the overlap of home pages into the information world. (Solar cooking and beer batteries were actually on either a University or Electricity site in the US - it was a while ago).

This is an example of the range of information available on the Net.

Gnomes

A lovely site giving plenty of information about gnomes.

Gnome Facts:

Males indulge in pipe-smoking
Males think of marriage about age 200 years
Gnome women deck themselves out with blossoms or berry-bearing twigs for the celebrations
Greetings, farewells and goodnights are expressed by rubbing noses.
Gnomes are 7 times as strong as a man.
............

Male Gnome frown due to posing in harsh daylight. At 275 years old he is in the prime of life...actual height (without cap) 15cm. The adult male gnome weighs 300 grams Tool kit attached to belt. Feet slightly turned inward to insure great speed (over grass, etc...) wearing deer fur boots.

The site is colourful, clear and well constructed and provides plenty of information. The site style is generally consistent throughout although the wall paper changes unexpectedly on a couple of the pages.

Information Summary

Excluding the gnomes the style was generally as expected. Some sites were obviously designed by beginners and others disappointed in some way - too ambitious, incorrect choice of fonts, too many irrelevant links. Most are reasonably user friendly.

Personal

Personal sites are created for a number of reasons. Reasons range from incredibly useful information that is offered to the world, through to “Just because I can”. Large numbers of the last litter the Web clogging up search time and getting in the way. Others provide the information one is wanting. Without the home pages the Web would be far less interesting and informative.

Personal Style Expectation

Er...... Anything! In theory they will be individualistic reflecting the personality of the creator or owner.

For the purpose of this report I have picked three sites (excluding the gnomes) that indicate a range of technical knowledge and content abiltity.

Personal Style Analysis

Isaac Hohaia’s Home Page

Selected by the throw of a dice. A very bland index to sites of interest by the author. A red background with text. The two graphics were not available. Looks to be a first attempt at a home page with much to learn. Does lead to a Professional weather page as well as other sites of interest to the author.

The Bridge to Nowhere

A diary of a cycling trip to the Bridge to Nowhere. Of interest if interested in the Wanganui National Park or off-road cycling. Site wise - lots of bad examples. One document slow to load due to full size photos, no contact information and no links.

The Beginners Guide to HTML

A beginner’s guide to writing HTML. Introduces lots of ideas. Also advertises workshops that he runs. Great examples of graphics - still and linked, hypertext links confined to one spot, animations, sound, concise writing and backgrounds. Definitely individualistic and expresses the personality of the creator.

Personal Conclusion

We started with the assumption that personal sites are individualistic, reflecting the personality of the creator/owner. To a large extent this is true. What is also true is that individual expression can be hampered by a lack of technical knowlege and that the technical knowledge is required to express that personality.

Business

Business sites can be created for a number of reasons. Amongst these reasons are the need to communicate to existing clients and to show and distribute products and services to both existing and new customers. Other reasons can be because someone in the organisation has the ability to build one.

Three examples of businesses using the Net were selected to show services offered.

Business Style Expectation

Practical, user friendly and thematic

Business Analysis

Barrick Gold Corporation

A gold mining comapany advertising itself on the Web. Site contains share information, company details and photos of mine operation. Appears well laid out and easy to use.

Vivid Computers

A local computer site. Provides software and hardware ordering on-line, by mail or phone. Well laid out, easy to find information. Has a professional feel.

Soft Option

Provides software update information for schools. The information is there but the site could be improved. The blue background is too bold and it takes a lot of scolling to get where you want to be. The product is largely sold through size of client base and word of mouth - which is fortunate considering the on-line site. The site is used for providing updates to existing clients

Telecom

A site high on graphics and links. Very professional format - but somewhat slow to load.

Business Conclusion

We expected business sites to be practical, user friendly and thematic. This would probably be the aim of businesses but factors such as training, time and individual creativity can lead to different results. It would also appear that some sites expect their customers to have ISDN lines and consider speed of loading to be reasonably irrelevant.

Conclusion

Sampling of over 40 sites has only suggested, at best, that the type and purpose of a web site is directly related to the style of the site.

Continued sampling may be needed to prove some correlation between purpose and style or, at least show, that there is little correlation between the two.

Limiting the scope of this paper to just one type of site, i.e.- Visual Arts, may show some established connection between purpose and style.

The particular type of topic chosen, be it amateur or professional, commercial or personal, will inevitably influence the chance of establishing a relationship between the two.

Visual Arts, for instance did suggest that there is a corrolation, while personal sites are just that, and can vary greatly in style from one to the next.

Bibliography

Academic/Universities

http://www.duke.edu/
http://ARCVirtualCampus.org/
http://www.uba.ar/

Academic/Schools
http://206.183.132.7:80/fmlib/
http://www.igrin.co.nz/~khs/
http://xis2000.hypermart.net/

Academic/Science
http://nzsm.spis.co.nz/about.htm
http://www.geo.ucalgary.ca/VL-EarthSciences.html
http://www.astro.uva.nl/

Entertainment/Games
http://www.station.sony.com/
http://www1.shore.net/~btcomput/puzzle.htm
http://www.shockrave.com/members/frameset.cgi?/welcome.html
shockrave.com/welcome||0|0|2.5

Entertainment/Music

http://www.thebone.com/links.htm
http://www.filmmusic.com/index.html http://www.lycos.com/wguide/tools/pgview.html?
wwmid=74815&wwprate=0.96&wwdoc=http%3a%2f%2fwww. ritchieblackmore.com%2fshadow%2falnews.html&wwdocid
=662801&wwbestof=Y&wwtitle=Deep%20Purple

Arts/Visual

http://artslab.ucsd.edu/HTML/slab.html
http://www.ces.psu.edu/CWC/WELCOME/Academic/Arts.html
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/IcebergSoftware/
http://www.chartersart.net.au/

Arts/Dramatic

http://www.libertynet.org/pypf/index.html
http://wheel.dcn.davis.ca.us/~basykes/gilbert.htm
http://www.aada.org/

Information/weather

http://www.clear.net.nz/common/news/archives/articles/00005656.html
http://groundhog.sprl.umich.edu/
http://web.co.nz/weather/
http://www.advocacy-net.com/forecastmks.htm
http://www.frontierfishing.co.nz/w221296a.htm
http://www.met.co.nz/
Information/Sharemarket
http://globalregister.co.nz/share.htm
http://www.charm.net/~lordhill/top40/stks.htm

Information/Computers

http://www.pcwebopaedia.com/
http://www.pcguide.com/topic.html

Information/Gnomes

http://foundus.com/jani/gnomes/welcome.html

Personal

http://members.wbs.net/homepages/i/s/a/isaac007.html
http://fims-www.massey.ac.nz/~PEtherid/mtb/bridge/bridge.html
http://members.aol.com/teachemath/wkflyr2.htm

Business

http://www.investquest.com/.html/COMPANY_LIST.html

http://www.investquest.com/InvestQuest/a/abx/

http://www.barrick.com/home.htm

http://www.vivid-computers.co.nz/

http://musac.massey.ac.nz/softopt/INDEX.HTM

http://www.telecom.co.nz/

Appendix 1

3 Site Critique Site Critique Number 1

Name of Site:

Artslab (Computer Arts Department of University of California at San Diego)

URL: http://artslab.ucsd.edu/HTML/slab.html

Layout: Symmetrical/assymetrical lettering on a black background.Animated graphics. Minimal.

Colour Balance: Strong, 256 gif.colour and tonal contrast against black background.

Text / Graphic Combinations: Text is treated as a graphic - is animated and linked.

Navigability: Good- no frames, with minimal text & graphics. Pull-down menus of links to student and staff sites. Some scrolling required.
Moderate loading time, but good, considering use of animation.

Hyperlinking: 7+ Links to Arts Department using same style 300+ Links to the rest of the campus and many related sites

Site Critique Number 2

Name of Site: Photo Policy, Office of Public Information Services

URL: http://www.uni.edu/pres/procedur/misc/90-b-1

Layout: A written document transported to a Web page.

Colour Balance: Two colours - black writing on a white background

Text / Graphic Combinations: There are no graphics.

Navigability: The page fits to the width of the screen. Six scroll clicks reach the bottom of the page.

Hyperlinking: There isn’t any.

Summary of Site: This site has been included in the critique as it easily wins the award for the Worst Page on the Web.
The site has been produced for the Public Information Office of an unknown University and is signed by the Vice-President for Administration and Finance. It appears to itemise the procedure that should be followed if one wants a photograph taken to include in written assignments.
One gets the impression, both from the text and the site, that they are trying to discourage business.

Site Critique Number 3

Name of Site: A Beginner’s Guide to HTML

URL: http://members.aol.com/teachemath/bclass.htm

Layout: Picturesque heading followed by a photograph of the author and son, introduction to homepages and the steps needed to create them. Links are then included to pages that introduce these steps. This is followed by 2 advertisment banners - for services offered by the author, an e-mail address, visitor counter (254,656) and a sliding control for the sound. Lastly there are links to other sites.

Colour Balance: The background is an easy-on-the-eye swirly grey pattern. Writing is black with blue links - that change to a purple on access. Graphics are bold and contrasting.

Text / Graphic Combinations: Headings and text are divided by a narrow, colourful, animated horizontal line. Graphics are confined to the beginning and end of the page.

Navigability: The page fits the width of the screen and is navigated in ten scrolls. The photograph is split between two scrolls. The site is fast to load even though it appears high on content.

Hyperlinking: Link colour changes on access. All links are confined to the bottom half of the site. There are 13 relevant links in total. Links are by both hyperlink and graphic. E-mail can either be addressed to a hyperlink or to a letterbox with an animated flag and door.

Summary of Site: A well constructed site well worth visiting for creation ideas.

Appendix 2

Analysis Forms Used

Appendix 3

E-Mail Communication

Appendix 4

Peer Review

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