Different styles in web sites
Hello everybody, meinen Damen und Herren!
This time I am going to speak about the different styles with which web sites are built up. In particular, after having clicked on some of the links posted on del.icio.us by my university colleagues, I find now interesting to speak about how two particular sites of these are built up.
The first site that caught my attention was Urban dictionary , that then I ideally opposed to
English learning one because of their (quite) opposite way to welcome the surfer and put on-line information: in my opinion, the best way to explain the difference is to describe the second link to understand the first one.
English learning seems like the introductory page of an important organization and has a formal way to welcome surfers: it presents an exhaustive introduction paragraph at the top of the page and then the same page is organized as a sort of reception desk, with some Hypertextual links presented by images at the centre of the page and a lot of links introduced by explanatory words and divided in arguments by some main titles at the left and right side of the page, organized as to form to columns.
If we ideally divide the page in two parts, its second half is characterized by an explanation of what Efl is on the left side, and some photos on the right side. At the bottom of the page, we find sponsored links and information about the web page. This type of organizationis very formal and designed to be as user-friendly and exhaustive as possible to the surfer who is looking for information about English Club.
Links are introduced by a single nominalized word or by a short sentence and the language is quite formal standard English.
On the other hand, the home page of Urban dictionary seem to me to be organized in a very different way as respect to the first site I read: it is very (too much?) simple and welcomes surfers with some redirections to different parts of the site on the top followed by a single explanatory sentence about the content of the site. At the left side of the page there is then one of the definitions that are to be found in the dictionary and in the middle of the page a picture that refers to this definition. At the bottom of the page, other links introduced by small pictures.
So, in my opinion, the site of the Urban dictionary is much less informative than the home page of English club and in this way seem to be addressed more to expert users who know Urban dictionary yet than to surfers that come in this site for the first time.
That's all I have to say (or at least, all that comes in my mind) this time!
Have a nice day!
Marco
This time I am going to speak about the different styles with which web sites are built up. In particular, after having clicked on some of the links posted on del.icio.us by my university colleagues, I find now interesting to speak about how two particular sites of these are built up.
The first site that caught my attention was Urban dictionary , that then I ideally opposed to
English learning one because of their (quite) opposite way to welcome the surfer and put on-line information: in my opinion, the best way to explain the difference is to describe the second link to understand the first one.
English learning seems like the introductory page of an important organization and has a formal way to welcome surfers: it presents an exhaustive introduction paragraph at the top of the page and then the same page is organized as a sort of reception desk, with some Hypertextual links presented by images at the centre of the page and a lot of links introduced by explanatory words and divided in arguments by some main titles at the left and right side of the page, organized as to form to columns.
If we ideally divide the page in two parts, its second half is characterized by an explanation of what Efl is on the left side, and some photos on the right side. At the bottom of the page, we find sponsored links and information about the web page. This type of organizationis very formal and designed to be as user-friendly and exhaustive as possible to the surfer who is looking for information about English Club.
Links are introduced by a single nominalized word or by a short sentence and the language is quite formal standard English.
On the other hand, the home page of Urban dictionary seem to me to be organized in a very different way as respect to the first site I read: it is very (too much?) simple and welcomes surfers with some redirections to different parts of the site on the top followed by a single explanatory sentence about the content of the site. At the left side of the page there is then one of the definitions that are to be found in the dictionary and in the middle of the page a picture that refers to this definition. At the bottom of the page, other links introduced by small pictures.
So, in my opinion, the site of the Urban dictionary is much less informative than the home page of English club and in this way seem to be addressed more to expert users who know Urban dictionary yet than to surfers that come in this site for the first time.
That's all I have to say (or at least, all that comes in my mind) this time!
Have a nice day!
Marco
posted by marco @ 2:10 AM
2 Comments:
At 6:36 AM,
Sve said…
Hi Marco,
I've already read your analysis of the genre of websites. Good job!
We have analysed quite the same kind of websites. I decided to analyse a site that helps you to learn English (BBC English Learning) and Urban Dictionary, just like you.
If you look at my post you can see that I agree with you on many things. In fact, there is a big gap between these two websites: one is very formal while the other is too colloquial and informal. I think that the reason of this difference is because they have different purposes.
There is only one thing of disagreement. I don't think that Urban Dictionary was created just for expert users, on contrary, I think it is very poor in contents and easy to use, therefore for avybody. Perhaps you want to say that it's audience is restricted to the young people eventhough everybody can use it.
Bye, bye.
At 4:44 AM,
francesca said…
Hi Marco,
Your analysis on websites’ genre is interesting and very clear. I agree with you about the fact that the websites that you have chosen are different. The homepage of English learning is well organized, it is aimed at English learners or whoever wants to practice a little English; as you have written it is as user-friendly and exhaustive as possible.
As regards Urban Dictionary I think that this it is aimed at teenagers or young people, they use most often slang words or colloquialisms and this explains the fact that it is simpler to use and the level of formality is low.
Have a nice day
See you tomorrow :)
Bye bye
Francesca
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