CCCA+Site+Analysis

=CCCA Site Analysis= A place to analyze / critique the current website of CCCA.

Current System according to Bill Kirby PACT Analysis

Verbs

 * searching
 * learning
 * exploring
 * organizing
 * uploading content
 * tagging
 * teaching
 * curating
 * comparing
 * cross-referencing
 * participating
 * conversing
 * debating
 * writing papers

Critical view of current CCCA web site

 * **What's working?** || **What's not working?** (room for improvement) || **What could work?** (potentials and possibilities) ||
 * * timeline to timeline comparison (has potential)
 * the various ways the viewer can structure the artist's oeuvre || Visual
 * too wordy (poor typography, line length too long, sometimes lacking in hierarchy)
 * lacks visual impact (3 images on a page is not enough)
 * poor website structure
 * it's not charming (not visually inviting)
 * it is very gray (black text on gray is hard to read)
 * the logo is not memorable
 * poor legibility, especially for older audiences
 * no visual cues to indicate that the viewer is on a different part of the site (i.e., colour code by type of artist)
 * there are way too much text links on one page and it is hard for the user to focus on which link to click on

Functional
 * navigation (not intuitive, confusing; should look into icons perhaps)
 * the database, text, and external link search can be amalgamated on one page
 * notice that when you try to search for something, there is a million queries and subcategories that one must go through before getting to what you want (i.e. search within categories, search within parameters)
 * timeline view involves a lot of horizontal scrolling and is repeated on artist pages in a vertical format except without images (could combine them)

Content Functional Content
 * articles are long, dense and need more white space
 * no sense of hierarchy/focus (with text formatting, pull quotes, supporting images etc.)
 * content does not provide sense of historical, political, or social context
 * artist profile pages are very dry and do not provide much information (i.e., artist groups/organizations they belong to, more engaging biography, etc.)
 * the site includes artists that have made significant contributions/effects on Canadian art but does not state how or what they have contributed and why they are the 'elite' (thus the many application requests)
 * "introduction to printmaking" link is located under "artists" when it should be under a separate category
 * the types of categories are limited to type or artist and medium (ie. there are no categories for artistic style) || Visual
 * image annotations (to point out points of interest of the artwork and make it more engaging)
 * relationships between categories can be looser, especially in related links (ie. similarities based on mood, atmosphere)
 * ability to subscribe to individual artists to follow new artworks and/or exhibitions involving their work/incorporating rss tool
 * incorporate third party widgets/sites (ie. linkedin social networking)
 * tabs! the faulty drop-down menus can easily be converted to tabs
 * incorporating user-publishing software for curators or researchers or artists to make the overall site more conversational and lively as opposed to this static "database"
 * involve audiences in occasions/exhibitions by reminding them of upcoming events rather then just presenting documentation of past ones
 * include an overview of Canadian art history since the 1960s to help introduce audience to site content (also reinforces the site's scope of 1960s to present) ||

media type="custom" key="3462344" //* You can add to this image pool. Here's the link to our [|Flickr group: YSDN 3005 - w09]//