I guess I never realized how much I use hypermedia in my daily life. I have not really ever judged whether the sites I use are good or bad uses of hypermedia, just if I liked their layouts or not.
One popular site that I think does a poor job of integrating hypermedia is Craigslist. This site is hugely popular, with a large number of people interacting on it daily. With all of the usage it gets, one would think that it would be a little more appealing to the eye. The text-heavy design of the pages can be off-putting. Through the use of images and redistribution of text (formatting), the site could become more user-friendly and even more popular. I know that if I have had a long day, this is not a web site I want to peruse in the evening. My tired eyes are often discouraged by its format.
One site that I believe does a great job integrating hypertext and media is the Scholastic Books web site. I use this site a lot at work. It has a lot of colorful graphics, images and text that help to inform and entertain the viewer and videos. My students order books from the site often, so the layout is something I am familiar with. The site also has a lot of teacher resources that integrate text and visuals. Their reproducible worksheets and teacher resources are very helpful. There is an abundance of information and support on this site.
I completely agree in regards to Craigslist. I'm currently looking for an apartment in San Francisco and have spend days sifting through the site. Often the same link is posted multiple times and when you move to the next page, many of the previous page posts follow. I've resulted to using an iPhone application for Craigslist that sorts posts for the seeker. :-)
ReplyDeleteI also frequent Craigslist and agree that the layout is not always easy on the eye. I think the use of photos and better organization of the pages would be a great help.When I have tried to use their search feature, I get stuff that simply doesn't fall under what I filtered.
ReplyDeleteI think part of my issue with the organization of Craigslist is also the way people use it--I'm also looking for an apartment right now (in NYC, though), and often see the same apartment listed the same way 20 or more times over the course of the day--often for different prices. Although I used it successfully to find my last two apartments, I'm a bit jaded at this point and not sure it'll be effective in finding this one.
ReplyDeleteScholastic is a very clean website--I never used it much with my high school students, but it does have a very clean flow.
I think that since hypermedia as a construct is all about the organization, the layout is really the key question for me in whether the hypermedia of a website is good or not. I can think about whether a specific piece of media or multimedia within a site functions well, but in terms of analyzing how well it works as hypermedia, that's all about structure for me.
Thanks for sharing!
I totally agree with you on Craigslist! It almost makes you wonder why such a popular site isn't designed as user-friendly. Thanks for sharing!
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