Assignment 5, Part 2
Summary of the discussion with my partner, Joanne Yoon

First, my partner and I looked at the two sites that we liked, Buybuybaby and Violin World. In our comparison we noticed these features of good web design in both sites.

1. Clarity of the Purpose
   
   Both sites clearly show its purpose by using adequate graphics on their home pages.
   
   
   1. Buybuybaby site is selling baby goods for mothers or mother-to-be. Its name already reveals that it's something related to babies. The cute baby logo also tells you right way it's a baby shop. Plus, the cute baby toy images on the menu bar give a full impression of the site to the viewers.
   2. Violin World site provides extensive information about violins: Sheet Music, Instrument List, Music Jokes, etc. Content organization and a delicate violin image on the top contribute to showing its purpose.
   
   
2. Simple Design and Organization
   
   Both sites display simple and clear design and organization. But overall, Buybuybaby site gets more points in organization since it's more clearly organized.
   
   
   1. Buybuybaby is easy to navigate since the menu bars and the links are same on every page. I also found the design and the color combination in blue tones very neat and simple. It loades real fast!
   2. Violin World site's black background matches well with the content. Ivory or white-colored letters also give a delicate feeling to the site. Its categories are quite well organized on the left side. Images are not too flashy or colorful, but it does blend with the background and its content.
   
   
3. Useful Content
   
   Both sites provide a good quality of information.
   
   
   1. Buybuybaby contains lots of cute and useful baby items that mothers would definitely want to get for their babies.
      
   2. Violin World gives a background information and basic knowledge about classic violins, which could be useful for the beginners. Some in-depth information is also available.

Secondly, we looked at the two sites that we did not like, The Baby outlet and The Violin And its History.

1. Difficulty in Navigation
   
   Both give some difficulties in navigating pages.
   
   
   1. The Baby Outlet site has too many links and subtitles that can easily confuse the viewers. One must scroll further down to see the rest of the information. Because of too many images on each page, it takes forever to load.
   2. The Violin And its History site does not have links on every page, so one need to go back and forth, thus making harder to navigate well.
   
   
2. Poor Graphics and Organization
   
   Both sites are in poor graphics and organization when compared to other similar sites.
   
   
   1. The Baby Outlet is too flashy and disorderly. The front page, especially, looks distracted with using too many colors and images. You can see pictures flashing here and there, making your eyes get tired. Its organization is messy and confusing.
      
   2. The Violin And its History site does have a violin image, but it's nothing grace or artistic, and located at the bottom of the page so that it looks rather irrelevant. Its background is consistent on every page, but the word,"Music" seems a bit distracting. Plus, it's not consistently organized on every page.

In summary, this web searching and evaluating work gave me a new perspective in assessing various web sites. I got to find some good essential qualities for making a good site!
    First, it's simple graphics. Before I learned about web design, I thought using as many graphics and animations as possible is just good, like the Baby Outlet site. But I realize now that too many images take much time to be loaded, thus preventing the viewers to navigate easily; web users are very impatient, like us, after all.
    Secondly, the content should be in a good quality. A good site has a good start page with an indication of its purpose and contents they are providing. Since everything is rapidly changing in today's society, updating the content frequently is a very important step. If a site is full of out-of-date information, that site is same as dead. The content should be interesting as well, with using adequate images not to bore the viewers.
    Last but not least, a good site is user-friendly in its organization. It should minimize scrolling up and down and put links properly on everty page. Otherwise, it would fail to attract the viewers and to get enough hits on the page!

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