The first thoughts that spill from my mind as I enter yahoo's website. Where do I start? What am I looking for? This is complete and utter--oh wait. Picture. Portal. Riiight.
Burnett and Marshall explain how this very busy page came to be. Stemming from hypertext mark up languages on over to links, yahoo.com is a massive conglomerate of links abound. Taken from their standpoint, the web is nothing too extraordinary. It seemed as if it were an eventual child to birthed from all these different media sources. Yahoo gives the viewer the means to find whatever it is they want on the web, and they do so by organizing it accordingly. Links in the form of pictures and diagrams, moving images meant to capture and hold the user's attention sit with the intention of waving the user down. I find it interesting that they provide links to outside resources that then point back to them, creating a sort of web-clique.
This snapshot taken from yahoo.com as it stands today accurately depicts the web, in my eyes. The web came to around as a hodgepodge of items and links and technology, and so thus, we have an equally created hodgepodge to help us navigate through the spidery and sometimes difficult to navigate, web.
While this is super nice and seemingly useful, I find that having so many elements, so many pictures, despite how "organized" it is detracts away from my experience--if not once calmed peace. It is mentioned that sites such as these are helpful in steering the user to helpful items, but I believe yahoo.com does it at a price that I don't really want to give up. Sites such as google.com provide the same services while keeping a nice, clean, sleek appeal. Google is my go-to man for all my needs--my email, my email... my.. basic daily functions, driving directions, hits for news. Google is so successful at what it does, it has been incorporated outside the web in our daily language, "I don't know.. why don't you just Google that?"
And that, I will.
"Web Theory": Burnett, Robert; Marshall, P. David. "Web Theory: An Introduction". 2003. Routledge.
Nice contrast between the two sites. Now I wonder if you could say Google is better for users beginning to surf. Maybe google could be a good way to introduce people to the web. Whatcha think?
ReplyDeleteI would definitely have to agree. Google keeps it simple and straightforward, thereby diminishing any outside web noise that may distract new users.
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