Born with Potential
April 9, 2008
The Exploration Place
entrance and first impressions
- it's clear what the Exploration Place is. this sounds obvious, but prominent logo, clear tagline, and easy to read navigation lays the museum out more clearly than many sites
- easy to see where you can go
navigation
- clearly laid out navigation with logical main and sub-nav sections. nice, shallow structure
- nav takes up a lot of real estate - not necessarily bad
content
- generally appropriate length. easy to read.
- some grammar and style issues with change of voice (eg. Nature Exchange)
- timeliness! now showing under "Via Virtual Voyages" all look like they are from last year (or the year before? no way of knowing). the wally west exhibit that is also promoted ended in 2006. these are the first 2 links into the site and set the tone for the rest of it. I found myself questioning every other date on the site as a result
- good idea to include years when talking about date ranges, as it then eliminates all doubt as to whether the site is up to date or not
- also good to avoid talking about things happening "last year", or "recently". best to refer to specific years, as the content will not need to be constantly rewritten.
- collection database impressive feature with incredible number of digitized records. may be difficult for people unfamiliar with the holdings of the partner museums to have a meaningful interaction. could consider improving browsing capacities, with thumbnail image results.
- several clear and prominent pictures of kids. assuming releases were obtained, but should note that these releases are necessary.
overall graphic
- clean design doesn't compete with content, but design also doesn't enhance it. most pages could use more graphical interest.
- overall floorplan of the museum would have been welcome. I have visited the Exploration Place, and the images of the permanent galleries only begin to get across the experience, and tend to let it down a bit.
Recommendations
- make sure the content is up to date!
- "bones" are certainly in place, add a bit more sizzle