Critiquing Web Pages

This assignment was part of a technical writing class taught at Georgia Tech during 1996-96. I no longer update it but thought the assignment might be useful to some.

If you want to develop a sense of design--of color, layout, texture, etc.--the best thing you can do is to view carefully a lot of WWW pages. The goal is not so much to look at their content as to examine critically the techniques that the authors have used to convey their information in a clear and appealing manner. In evaluating any page, you will, of course, need to consider the unique context of that particular document.

As the Web develops as a commercial tool, standards of Web design are rising rapidly. Increasingly, the talented individual with some time to learn HTML cannot keep up with the professionals designing commercial pages. That doesn't mean, however, that there is no role for "amateur" pages or that an amateur can't design attractive and functional pages. Just keep in mind when you are evaluating the following pages that the authors had wildly different resources at their fingertips. Evaluate the page in the context of others of its class.

With your group members, evaluate the pages listed below, using the following criteria (and any others that you think are important). Prepare an assessment of each page to share with us. When you criticize a page, be prepared to say what you would have done differently.

How clearly is the information presented?

Can you tell from the initial page what is at this site?
How easily are you able to retrieve key information?
Does the author place key information in structurally significant places? What are the structurally significant parts of a Web page?
Does the background interfere with the text?
Can you easily navigate this site?
Are there any large chunks of text that have not been broken up with images or horizontal rules or lists?
Are there careless mistakes (speeling, grammar, etc.) that detract from the document's professionalism?

Is the design appealing?

Does the page have an interesting look and feel?
Is there an effective text/image ratio given the subject matter?
Does the background add texture and/or color without overwhelming the document's content?
Is there a noticeable and attractive color scheme?
Does the author use color to attract the user to important information?
Do images and icons reinforce the document's content or are they merely peripheral?

Last modified February 13, 1996