Monday, January 22, 2007

The American History

This is going to be the final entry for this semester and on this blog. In this last lab activity(Week 13), we were to do...well, yet another website evaluation. But a tougher one this time. We can't get to choose sites as the lab sheet insists that we had to evaluate on a selected website. And the website is not other than the American Musuem site(http://www.si.edu).

When I first got into the website, I was like "WOW, Cool". The site is heavy and has a lot contents to show. Even on the main page, they want and need to show a lot of things. Maybe just a little bit of each things they want to show but they are just too many of them. However, they managed to arrange and sort the many items which they want to show in a very neat manner. The interface of the website is also nicely designed in such a way that it allows the many items to be presented in a very neat and easy-to-read layout. The colour combination on the site is also very considerate to our eyes. The website also does not have heavy advertisements that may cause the visitor's surfing experience on the site unpleasant.

One of the toughest thing to evaluate this site is when it comes to the criteria of coverage. The site simply covers too much; their coverage is too wide. It is almost possible to identify everyone of them and the only general word I could think for what they cover, American History, is too vague to be mentioned. The site also do not have a sitemap probably because of this. A sitemap may prove too useless since the site is so huge and only a good search facility can help the visitors to search for what they want on the site. This makes things slightly more complicated.

Fortunately, the site has a very easy navigation. The navigation has somewhat branched the contents into their sections. From these sections, we can manage to understand their coverage in a more systematic manner.

As I compile my portfolio for the final submission and reminisce the past lessons since the start of the semester, there is this particular lab which I had the most impression for. This particular lab is no other than the one on week 5 and 6. During these labs, it was the time when I got to know that these search engines work differently after using them for years! I haven't known that they have different purposes and could have helped me to do a more precise search for what I needed. I know after many years down the road, even when I have forgotten about this subject that I had taken, I will never forget how I could make use of different search engines to help me to enhance my search experience on the internet. Throughout the whole UIR course, I have had done so many searches in the lab activities that such good practises of using the right search engines have become a habit. It has already become part of my way of living on the internet world. That's why these 2 labs etched a mark on my memory for this subject.

As this is the last lab activity for the subject, I still enjoyed it very much. Maybe a little nostalgic as well. Nevertheless, the whole subject was still an enriching and fun one. Cheers! :)

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