Sitecritic.net Website Reviews – How can your website be improved?

Form

When I first visited the site, I had a hard time trying to understand what the website is all about. The website header is the best place to describe the purpose of the site because people tends to look at the header first when they read from top to bottom. The header in AMWS is somewhat confusing with too many links. I had Google and Alexa toolbars installed and the header with advertisements already took up half of my screen.

The header could definitely be simpler. The author might consider using just a phrase or a sentence to replace all the text in the header. I believe the advertisements could also be arranged in such a way that the header appears less bulky. I do not like the idea of using animated advertisements because as I feel that it tends to distract your visitor’s attention (just my opinion).

The design is very simple and nothing fancy to discuss about. This is perfectly alright if the content can capture the reader’s interest. However, this is not the case. The logo gives me an impression that the site should be fun and interesting but the content tells me otherwise. I would really want to see more details on the movies or music, rather than just links to external sites. I think there are too many annoying links at the moment and some of them are not even working.

Sites like this should have stronger visuals to create more lasting impressions. It is not difficult for a movie or music site to impress their audience. The key is to use quality images of actors, actresses, bands…etc. When people feel related to their heroes and that they have something to read, they will stay longer.

Function

The top menu is pretty easy to use and straight forward. The database displayed on each categories are also well organized. However, some of the lists are very long. I would suggest the webmaster to break the list down into different pages or sections to help the eye to digest the information better. Portals like this should have a search function. It is very inconvenient for the users if they want to look up certain information quickly.

There are 4 main categories in the website: music, movies, kids and sports. The layout of each category is different. For example, in the movie section, there are images, description and links. For the kids section, there are only images. The 3 images on the right show the layout for the 3 different categories. It is a good idea to standardize the way information is being displayed so as not to confuse the reader.

I also think that they need to talk more about themselves. I have no idea who they are and where they come from. They also need to have at least a section on their legal policy or something similar.

I had a look at the music dvd section and spotted duplicate entries for the dvds. Upon further examining, I found that the 2 entries for “Kylie Minogue Music Concert” for example, consist of the DVD and VHS format. Since both the records share the same image and information, I would suggest combining them into one, with just extra links to the DVD and VHS detail page. Alot of space could be recovered if this technique is being implementation.

The website does not seem to be running from a database which I think it should. Managing vast amount of information on website like this is a tedious task without using database technology.

Conclusion

I expected abit more resource from a portal like this. AMWS needs more real content and not just links to other sites. Alot more work could also be done on the visuals.