| Dear Madeleine, Kim and Katie:
Congratulations on your entry
into the 2000 national Thinkquest Junior competition. It's very exciting
that kids your age are busy creating such dynamic Web sites. You
will certainly be poised to compete with professionals, such as our members
in the International Interactive Communications Society. I admire
your creativity and your pluck in contacting Internet professionals to
showcase your work.
Since you asked for someone
from our organization, IICS, to review your entry, I will be happy to do
so. I will also be frank about what I liked and didn't like-for that is
the best way for you to learn and improve. Please don't be discouraged
by any criticism, it is only by getting honest feedback that anyone can
properly evaluate their own work and make improvements.
Design:
I like the high energy and use
of color that dominates your site. The original artwork (the illustrations)
have a particular charm and show personality and originality. What I most
didn't like is the way you used tables in your page layout. They call too
much attention to themselves. Tables are best used with the border tags
set to 0, so that the table is only a means of producing an interesting
page layout but doesn't call attention to itself. In your case, the tables
contrast too much with the background on the page. Also, the background
is sized so that you can't read the entire "Arts Rights and Wrongs," and
I think it would have been more effective if they text was smaller and
designed to more smoothly match the content in the foreground.
Content:
You cover a very important topic.
Did you think of the topic yourself? It is good that you took the effort
to put in copyright notices on the site, where appropriate, and that you
used the Registered mark, where it was appropriate. I like the information
architecture and the use of easy navigation. You might try to keep your
pages shorter so there is more linkage to other pages and less scrolling.
You did a good job of giving credit where credit is due, to both students
and teachers. I'm also impressed by how you included copies of letters
you received from our political leaders. It is nicely balanced by the dialogue
about Copyright and the Internet that was created by you and your fellow
students.
Keep up the good work.
KK
Karen Kreps,
Director of Electronic Communications for
IICS
The International Interactive Communications
Society
http://iics.org |