Marc Chance:
Web Page
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In a nutshell: Formatting and content are consistently innovative, interesting. Pages are well-written.
Stimulating and inventive splash page, but welcome page not working.
Fine use of graphics but the overall arrangement seems at times circular and slightly confusing as though navigation within the site were more important than getting somewhere.
Use of Microsoft Front Page software may leave proprietary codes which are hard to understand and modify.
Rachel Perez:
Web page
| In a nutshell: Commendable effort and experimentation which run ahead of the results.
I thought this site too often disrespects itself. There's a good deal of serious content, but you'd never guess it for the eyetoys.
When I see pink type and teal ornaments on a black background with three ornamental animations, I want to head for the hills without reading anything!
What does the divider "Articles" refer to?
Putting up the contributions to the Observer is a fine idea, but the graphical support tends to run away with itself. To illustrate an article on careers for a librarian by using a provocative womens.com picture and a cliche silhouette doesn't exactly invite respect. Why not identify the nature of these articles?
Blue type is a bad idea -- what do you save for links? One article
is in italics -- why?
The visited links on the home page don't change color to remind the reader of progress.
The Cuba essay changes colors. "Abstract" in big type makes it appear that the essay is not yet written. Is this a class project?
Most of the "School Stuff" links are dead.
There's no IC project, just links to other pages.
The Portfolio top page seems to have a lot of headline and little content. The Articles background image hurts the eyes and makes reading unattractive. What are some links to some items here and others on the top page? The Cuba link here is redundant. The Observer link is dead.
The First Webcast needs to explain itself -- I checked out at once for fear of lacking some plugin. Same for Urban Arts.
The animated Cooldeco link is dead.
Jim Robbins:
Web page
| In a nutshell: Good content, but too much of it pre-dates this course.
Not much evolution in design, which tends to get cluttered, but very good and deep content, much of which pre-dates this course.
The use of large initial letters in bold followed by small caps is an interesting magazine technique, but the general use of whitespace in the site is not effective. It's not clear what the background graphic means.
Sergio Santos
Web page
| In a nutshell: Much improved site.
Probably the page is more mature now without the gifs and queries but surely there's a better way to use space than to dwell on things that once seemed terrific. (They can always be put into an archive or basement of horrors of noble experiments.)
The top navbar works well -- nice and thin gifs with strong legibility but with sub-titles to say where you are. But the labels are vague: "Products" could be book and records and "Services" could be guides & news or portals.
Under Class assignments, "The Good and Bad" is all italics -- hard to read. Italics have a meaning -- they're not just an ornament. "Printed resources" could make better use of whitespace -- there's too much text perhaps for the line. "Online resources" is one glob -- no divisions. In "story board" the word "ruff" imitates the sound a dog makes; you mean "rough."
The IC report has an amusing animated graphic of Clinton and Gingrich. The sources are all NBC and the BBC. The link to the BBC states that Clinton will "likely" be impeached, but the article itself does not draw any such conclusion. (Sergio would love to skydive -- should he meet Joe Corallo?)
Ewa Szreniawska
Web page
| In a nutshell: good content and style -- well integrated too.
Nicely integrated personal welcome page, color, font (Comic Sans), picture, and text. The navigation and content frames are smoothly connected, but something (179k) almost never finishes downloading, probably some preloading gifs.
The "IC report" item on the navigation bar is targeted back to the navigation frame from which it came. Perhaps there's a submenu below, but it's not possible to scroll down to it. The "Web search" items suddenly use type size that seems inappropriately big, as is the "best and worst" page. The Form example cleverly uses multiple tables to get more than one background image.
The JavaScript examples are customized with interesting results. The timed report is linked to an image. (The banner/layers spends a long time downloading but didn't work for me.) Daisies are added to the opened window, etc. The Vincent Van Gogh page could benefit from a top menu of some sort.
On the first frame of the Photo Table: the timed date applet disappears so quickly it can't be grasped before the content is refreshed to the next page. Probably the tickertake there isn't necessary since the principle of click-the-thumbnail is pretty well established (and a simple announcment would siffice) but it does show another use of JavaScript. I looked at only two or three of the photos.
By the way, yt's not clear why there still are links to the 465 page, Yahoo, and NYTimes on the navigation bar.
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Good:
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Joe Corallo:
Web page
| In a nutshell: little progress lately.
How about cleaning up the FrontPage-generated double-spacing and monospaced type, which has been around for weeks?
Chiu-Yun Chang:
Web page
| In a nutshell: a Java programmer might have web pages that are more sophisticated -- or contain more course assignment material.
Two of the links on the navigation bar are dead.
Mariola Chrostowska:
Web page
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In a nutshell: Some interesting content at another home page (index.html) but there's no obvious link to there.
Main page (index5.html) has thin content. Sudden appearance of maroon backgrounds does not enhance legibility.
Dalia Darwish:
Web page
| In a nutshell: little recent evolution or development.
Initial tickertape does not wear well, but nice drop down select box. Writing in class assignments could go deeper. Project not developed beyond splash page.
Anna Skinner:
Web page
| In a nutshell: first page has not evolved much during the course.
The td valign=top link under Personal Statement - Web Site evaluation is dead. So is the Gallup link under the Starr report.
The use of mauve backgrounds and large type without whitespace does not make pages very legible. The frame navigation if used circularly adds extra navigation columns instead of taking over the whole page as it should. Some of the links are redundant connections to the same pages as other links. The navigation frame does not change color to show the visited links. After finding the Alternate Home Page, and looking at class assignments, I could not readily get back to it.
Koon Wong
Web page
| In a nutshell: A profressional programmer at Temel, Koon uses many interesting and strong effects, but his content does not go deep and needs revision.
Are Ari & Koon the same person? Then who are sengir and nujin? The top page requires scrolling to the right to get the entire graphic. The rollovers are nice. It's not clear what the school pictures are doing there. The HTML page takes a very long time to download (on a dialup), and the last gif did not download automatically for some reason. The menu items on this page are too large for one screen, requiring scrolling downward. The title "Table of Content" is not idiomatic English. "Intro/resume" is just a resume. The writing generally needs revision to make it acceptable as standard English. But the Select drop-down box is nice, and so is the JavaScript function which gets it to execute on one click.
The text in "best/worst" and "IC issues" text is weak, seems based on limited reading, and also requires revision. The use of large blocks of monospaced font is an unsual decision. "Library Research" actually leads to an early project proposal.
The Work link to Temel requires some hunting to discover that Koon is one of two programmers and fourteen staff members employed there. Some description of his contribution would be welcome.
The ATT page has many dead links. Puzzlingly, the NJIT page is missing most of its graphics.
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Need more work:
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Eddie Garcia
Web page
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In a nutshell:Interesting multimedia but weak editorial content and HTML.
The top banner graphic seems to run off the screen, which doesn't offer a way to scroll horizontally. After allotting the top to the banner and the left to a navigation bar, the space left for the working frame is pretty stingy. This site specializes in AV and multimedia, and there should be some explanation or help for the user, especially with plugins which are not universally available.
The RealPlayer plugin was on the machine I was using, but active speakers weren't, so I didn't stay for for the entire 7 minute NJIT interview. What did I miss? Why is that under personal Profile, anyway?
The IC report usefully links to the coverage of three other students in the class and to external AV sources, but there's apparently none of Eddie's own editorial work here. The NY Club bar section has just has one item -- not clear what it's doing here.
"Deconstructing Sites" has just links to some best and worst URLs without explanation or discussion.
Kevin Lavin:
Web page
| In a nutshell: Lavinator? (What about Kelvinator -- a fridge)?
The navigation bar is so narrow it is necessary to scroll down to read it. (Get rid of the bullets and indents and shorten the text.)
The first main frame has almost no content. The first link is redundantly leads to the default text. Some of the color changes in background are hard on the eyes.
Having a noframes version is a good idea but you have to hunt for the link (and then as I recall it didn't work). Why is the navigation bar divided halfway down? After all the uses of the excuse of working on your class page, I really expected something more. The loops to go back to the home page or menu could be more convenient.
Some of the postings of class work contain just the assignment announcements or unfinished noodlings.
Barbara Lopez
Web page
| In a nutshell: Work seems unfinished.
The introductory statement seems commonplace and without much focus. Why is "Children Come First" still the title of this page? The vertical organization seems poor -- the reader has to scroll down to find whatever else is on the page.
The underline for "About HTML and Me" on the first screen is confusing since a hyperlink is expected. After "HTML and "me" in the above expression, then why "Carlos and I" in a screen soon after? The HTML class link doesn't introduce Barbara's own work but rather the common 465 class page. The first two links of Musical Web are dead or empty -- I did not try the others. Perhaps www.nbc.com once featured the Starr report, but in late November 1998 it doesn't. The "Kids on the Internet" heading promises local information but is just a link to an external site.
Manish Patel:
Web page
| In a nutshell: Thin content and little development.
Needed: a color adviser. The bottom links were lost on my monitor.
Sean Seeley:
Web page
| In a nutshell: Very thin content.
The navigation bar has dead links and some links to class discussion web postings. Why are there frames? I'm still puzzled by the lightning storm graphic, before which the link texts are still very hard to read.
Wayne Sempiti:
Web page
| In a nutshell: needs much more work.
The Welcome link on the navbar redundantly refers to the already open graphic, which has no apparent content. "Meet Wayne" has self-pitying content that seems a waste of bandwidth. The next two navbar links, to the New York Times and Yahoo, are familiar fillers. The final navbar link to HTML classwork brings up a sub-menu which replaces itself. Shouldn't this submenu replace the original navbar contents? The navigation afterwards is poorly planned. The coursework offered is not acceptable.
Steve Wheeler
Web page
| In a nutshell: Cool, but --
Somebody please explain the top graphic. To start off with a link to the general 465 class page doesn't promise much originality.
Should "INDEPENDANT[sic] COUNSEL" link to Word.Com with its banner ad for 4000 best sex sites? (Monica's inside story?) Midday Construction, Steve's zine at NJIT, starts with a textless welcome page. Ctheory is an interesting site. Peter Giles has is another textless welcome page. The IC link only promises "this is where all the stuff for the class is" -- noting there. The main Resume suffers from centeritis. The photos of Steve's the iheart band evoke Daguerrean mystery. The Turnverein (?) shirt company project shows promise but there's little content. Elsewhere external links get framed in more than once -- they should be targetted so they get the whole page.
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