Karimmetwaly.com
is an artistic website that presents the acting portfolio of an actor named
Karim Metwaly. The primary audiences of this website are the fans of the named
actor. The website presents a biography of the actor that explains about the
start of his acting career and the achievements he has gained so far. This
information is only relevant to people who are interested in knowing more about
his life, acting collections, and his entire history in his career. The people
with such interests would be definitely his fans.
The
website has several features which makes its design to be poor. First, the
homepage contains many pictures without involving adequate descriptive information
concerning its content. Suffer (2011) argues that good website design should
focus majorly on developing meaning of its content rather than being obsessed
with inducing attractiveness. Therefore, the developers of this website should
have awarded attention towards including various sections which would depict
the sense of creating it. They were obsessed with portraying the attractive
pictures of the actor without explaining to the audiences the reason behind
displaying them.
The
greatest portion of the homepage has been occupied by pictures hence making it to
seem more of a photo gallery than an advertisement website. The audiences will
be forced to spend much of their time viewing attractive photos of the actor
before discovering the necessity of seeing them. The content within the
homepage does not support the website’s subject statement. The subject
statement indicates “acting portfolio” while the content within the homepage is
general photo gallery of the actor without providing a relation between the photos
and his acting events. The developers should have included sections indicating
when and where the pictures were taken in order to explain to the audiences the
reason behind publishing them on the website. The viewers are forced to compare
them in order to discover that they might have been taken on different occasions
hence associating them to the different series of events he has been
participating in. This is an ineffective quality of a website design according
to Luppa (2001). He explains that a good website design should be the one that
is able to rely on certain pieces of information to the audiences without being
too demanding in terms of mental activity. The audiences should be able to
understand the content being displayed without thinking too much.
The
homepage of this website also contains large blank space which makes it to look
empty. This aspect discourages viewers from continuing to examine its content
since they develop a feeling of securing low benefit from the content being
displayed. The homepage should be rich in meaningful information which is of
interest to the audiences in order to motivate them to spend adequate time
viewing it. Kolko (2011) insists that the homepage should be developed with
comprehensive information which is displayed in an organized manner in order to
winning user confidence in accessing the content. However, websites that
contain rather empty homepages discourage audiences from exploring their
content due to the feeling that they are underdeveloped.
On
the bottom part of the homepage there is a section that contains excessively large
graphic that cannot be loaded by a normal browser. This graphic makes the
browser to display a timeout message which indicates that “the connection was
reset”. A good website design involves graphics with medium size thumbnails
that can easily be loaded by a normal browser. This feature indicates that the
website content is only limited to some audiences since the ones using normal
browser are not able to view its content fully. The developers of karimmetwaly.com
should have emphasized on ensuring that all links and graphics within the homepage
are responsive. They should all contain labels are be able to load in order to
display the required content to the users.
The
website also experiences poor arrangement of content within the homepage.
Although the greatest portion is comprised of photos, they are not arranged in
a good manner that would make it to be presentable. The photos have not been
aligned in a continuous form although the developers attempted to copy the
function of a photo grid. There is a space left on the second row which can fit
two of the photos placed within the successive rows. This makes the content to
seem disorganized hence triggering the audiences to develop doubts concerning
the website’s credibility. According to Pedersen (2001), an effective website
design should be the one that proves credibility of the website right from the
homepage. The Internet users are aware that most qualified web designer put
emphases on developing a presentable website that contains attractive
arrangement of content right from its homepage.
However,
the website design cannot be claimed to be entirely poor since it encompasses
several good features. For instance, the developers observed a continuous
styling which is necessary for developing effective websites. The same font
type has been used for all major sections of the website hence making it
appealing. A good color scheme has also been observed throughout all sections
of the website which makes able to display all contents to the viewers without
straining. The developers avoided leaving excessive white space on the homepage
which would have aggravated the sense of low quality by its audiences. The
white background was substituted with a black one hence reducing the ability of
most audiences to notice that the homepage contains little content.
Moreover,
all its content has been written in a medium size font that is able to be
easily read by the audiences. This feature enables them to easily spot the
major sections of interest and obtain the necessary information without
straining. According to Perker (2004), websites that contain too small font sized
letter discourage the audiences from exploring their contents. The Internet
community is prone to harm from malicious software or unfriendly terms of
service. Therefore, the users are keen to monitor any suspicious content that
might be a potential threat to their welfare hence avoiding it. The small font
sized letters are associated with contents that are not aimed at being
discovered by the audiences hence making them discouraged from continuing
exploring them.
The
website is free from unnecessary advertisements that might be drawing
references to external sources irrelevant to the website’s content. All the
links which are involved within the website direct users to meaningful sites
that contain information about Karim Matwaly. It is also free from dead links.
These are non-functioning links which reference themselves or unrelated to any
particular webpage. The developers made sure that all links within the website are
functioning hence winning user confidence to some extent.
Never
the less, karimmetwaly.com has used a formal tone unlike most artistic
websites. The language used to explain about the biography of the actor and the
various events in which he has participated in is respectful. Although some
sections have employed used on informal tone, it is not offensive but aimed at
inducing fun.
Conclusion
The
difference between a good and a bad website design is its effectiveness in passing
the intended message to the viewers. A good website design involves effective
features such as responsive graphics, functional links, proper color scheme,
and a good arrangement of its content. On the other hand, a bad website design
does not observe such features hence most of its content might be disarranged, texts
written in too small font sizes, unresponsive graphics, excessive
advertisements, and dead or blue links.
Karimmetwaly.com
contains some good features in its web design although there are several
aspects that make it poor. The developers paid attention towards involving functional
links and eliminated irrelevant contents from the website. They also maintained
continuous styling which makes the website rather appealing. However, its
homepage contains large percentage of blank space that generates the sense of
emptiness on its audiences. The developers also failed to include adequate
descriptive content within the homepage that explains about its purpose. The
content within the homepage is also disarranged. A grid system should have been
used in aligning the content in order to make it more appealing. These aspects
make its design not to be good enough to be described as being effective in
displaying the website content.
Website Journal
Karimmetwaly.com
was established in 2013 to present a biography of an actor named Karim Metwaly
also present a series of different events in which he was involved. The website
traces origin of Karim’s discovery on his acting talent to the age of 7. It
succeeds in explaining the driving forces that triggered the actor to venture
in his career; which is an interesting piece of information to his funs. The
website documents series of thrilling events which were made successful by his
contributions hence portraying his prominence in the acting industry.
Both
formal and informal tones have been used to present the biography of the actor and
historical occurrences which have been experienced in his career. Each piece of
information is presented to leave the reader in suspense hence aggravating the
urge to continuing reading the other successive pieces. The informal tone has basically
been associated with the amusing performance of the actor rather than being offensive
to the readers.
The
website has got several strengths which makes its audiences willing to explore
its content despite the ineffective features which have been included in its
design. It displays attractive images of the actor which creates the urge of
the audiences to read more about the occasions in which they were taken. They
are forced to follow the links directing them to the actor’s events in order to
obtain answers to their questions. However, it also contains some weaknesses in
that all important content about the life history of the actor is not presented.
It also fails to involve adequate links which would enable audiences to
navigate through its contents effectively.
References
Kolko, J. (2011). Thought on Interactive Design.
Massachusetts: John Wiley & Sons.
Luppa, N. (2001). Web Design. Boston: Focal Print.
Parker, L. (2004). Interactive Web Design. London: V
& A Publishers.
Pedersen, M. (2010). Graphis Interactive Design 1. New
York: Graphis Inc.
Suffer, D. (2011). Designing for Interaction.
Berkeley: New Riders Press.