Friday, April 20, 2007

Interaction Design: Ugh!

"The Largest Barbed Wire Historic Museum in the World."

This is the claim to fame for the curators of the Devil's Rope Museum in McLean, Texas.

But it would seem the museum would greatly benefit from a better designed Web site --- from an information architecture point of view.

For starters, the top navigation bar housing the links are not grouped in a clear and logical format. I mean does my mother need to know all sorts of information on the artist Al Napoletano? What is the connection of Route 66 to the barbed wire museum?

The site is based on a one-column design with numerous rows requiring constant scrolling in order to locate information. If the visitor is impatient then he or she may not find a second navigation box at the bottom containing even more links.

The museum's interactive design doesn't allow me to find any accessibility information for my grandmother and the Web site fails to offer any detailed information on parking and restaurant options.

The Web site's style is also as inconsistent as the information architecture. The Web developer has adopted a folksy language (“Howdy There Pardner”) that may confuse foreign visitors or those not familiar with Texas slang. The term “Web site” is written in two different ways and some phrases including “BEST LITTLE WEBSITE IN TEXAS” are capitalized.

My trust in this Web site is on life support.

1 comment:

Leslie Wilkinson said...

Barbed Wire Museum? This I gotta see... How did you ever find this one, Boris? I know you've got a pop culture thing going, so how does "Devil's Rope" fit into that scheme?

but, how fun!