Why is it that radio stations tend to have atrocious websites? While I understand that they’re not in a visual field, you’d think they’d know enough to delegate to someone appropriate. Though I love their radio station, I’ll mostly be handling the review of 94.9 FM Star Country’s website as a lesson in what not to do.

Style
The style of bright, bold, and animated. That’s not a compliment.

The color palette is mostly yellow and blue as you can see from the screen shot above. While I can see a lot of potential with this palette, this isn’t quite working. Too much going on with the color. This will be an ongoing theme in this review. A simplification of the color palette would go along way here. Simplification would help unify the content, making it one page, and one layout, rather than the current series of disjointed and unrelated boxes.

Using blue and red text on a yellow background, as is done below the fold, isn’t helping this overly colorful and overly cluttered layout. Using a little quieter color combination would significantly improve readability.

By animated I didn’t mean lively. I mean there are a lot of things moving on this page. Very annoying. That white box that seems to have the only bit of real content on the home page… that’s animated too. It switches ever 30 seconds or so between three different blocks of content. Limiting the animation used here would also be an improvement.

One of the animated elements used on most if not all of the pages on the site has aspects that I like. The blue banner-like element just below the header. While I don’t think it’s currently working well as one of several moving elements, I like it’s purpose. It lets a viewer know what’s currently playing on the air. It’s a nice touch. I’d either simplify it into a less dynamic, and more text-like element, or change the page layout so that this element works better.

The layout is the biggest problem for me. Essentially this home page is laid out as four column page with a fixed width above the fold. Below the fold it switches to two column. Fixed width might be appropriate here, that’s arguable, but I’ll let it slide. The four column however really isn’t working here. It’s limiting the content to about 320 x 360 pixels above the fold (that’s the animated white box I mentioned above). That’s a lot of wasted screen real estate. Unlike the home page, most of the pages appear to be in a slightly better three column layout. Definitely an improvement.

Structure
I’ll start the structure section by admitting that I am a bit of a snob when it comes to site construction. Let me count the ways.

1. I don’t like unnecessarily invalid code
2. I don’t like ASP, ASP.net, or Microsoft products in general (see #1)
3. I don’t like table layout
4. I don’t like Font tags
5. I don’t like unnecessary use of inline CSS
6. I don’t like overuse of scripts

Taking that into account, there are a number of things I don’t like about this site’s structure. Fortunately, table layout isn’t one of them. The all CSS layout might be overly complex for my taste, but there are no tables to be seen. The other five items listed above do come into play though.

There is what I consider a unacceptable level of invalid code. While most of it is minor, that doesn’t really let the site off the hook. Sure they’re minor errors, but they’d also be easy to fix. Why not do that?

Microsoft and ASP.net rear their ugly heads. This is likely the source of a lot of the invalid code. It’s quite possible that there are very nice sites put together by Microsoft products, but every one I know of is filled with excessive amounts of invalid and extraneous code. From the looks of it, some of this content was also cut and pasted in from MS Word, which doesn’t improve my opinion of the site. In my experience, Word creates it’s own little validation hell. Some versions seem to add more extraneous code than content when you paste directly into an HTML editor.

Font tags are interspersed throughout the site for no reason that I can see. A few simple lines of CSS would allow use of the class elements to do the same thing. Much less labor intensive to change.

There are a lot of instances of inline CSS that I don’t see the purpose of. Using one of the linked style sheets would have been a better choice in most instances. Much easier to maintain, and much easier to change in the future. Eliminating the use of inline CSS and font tags would significant factor in creating a unified appearance site wide. It would also make it significantly easier to update this unified appearance over time.

There are nine scripts running when I tested the page. This seems a bit excessive to me. While I think this is a mistake, they have somewhat improved my opinion of this by using scripts local to their site. Remote scripts are, in my experience, much more likely to cause site problems and loading issues.

Content
The content is what you’d expect from a radio station. Events, calendars, bios of the on-air personalities. A lot of potential for a community radio station. A community the size of Roanoke can really benefit from a resource like this. That being said, I don’t think the site is living up to its potential.

There is also a blog for one of the personalities, which came as a surprise to me when I heard about it. It’s actually a nice addition to the site, though from a structure point of view it needs some work.

Blogging
As you can tell from my site, I’m in favor of it as a rule. It does however, need to be done right. A business should blog in a professional manner, or not at all. Robynn’s Corner is one of those aspects of this site that I think has a lot of potential. The potential for interaction between radio personalities and their listeners.

I think the content of this section of the site is perfectly reasonable, though there should possible be more. The layout needs cleaning in line with the rest of the site, though the header is a little clearer here. Like the main site, advertisers and site navigation need to be separated for clarity purposes. Having advertisers interspersed within site navigation and content is confusing at best.

Here’s what I think would really get this blog going.

1. Convert the blog to a more industry standard blogging platform. This would give you
   • RSS feeds so viewers can subscribe
   • Moderated commenting, registration of commentors is possible
   • RSS feeds for commenting, so fans can follow online conversations if they desire
   • The ability to easily post content in a timely fashion
2. Expand the use of blogging to other personalities who are interested. A group blog for the station rather than individual sub-domains for each personality might work better.
3. Give site authors access to post while on air, though I’d suggest the assistance of an editor
4. A dedicated support person for the blog. Someone with enough web and blogging experience to streamline the process for on-air personalities.

If they’re going to blog, they need to jump in completely. The current blog is more of an almost blog. No comments, not RSS feeds. Not much in the way of timely posting. They need to update the blogging platform with something like WordPress or Movable Type, or don’t blog at all. Bringing in a consultant to train the staff bloggers wouldn’t be a bad idea. A dedicated support person would be better if blogging was to be made a priority.

What I would change
It would be an interesting project. Unification would be my first big goal. One unified site structure, with clean lines and a simplified color palette.

I’d start this unification plan by making the whole site three column.The four column home page is too complex and confusing. I’d top the page with a clearly defined header, no ads. The current use of most of the header for ads space is confusing to the eye. I bump that advertising down to just below the header and above the primary content.

While I like the idea of the live update of what’s currently on-air, that needs to have a little less prominence, I’d suggest the top of the right sidebar. I’d also suggest making it a little less flashy and dynamic. It draws the eye too much currently.

I’d make the sidebars full length. Currently they end where their content ends. I personally find this distracting. Running them the full length of the content section would make for a much cleaner look for the site.

Pick one primary site color, personally I’d go with blue. Nothing wrong with the current yellow and blue, but one needs to take the lead, with one being the accent.

I like the idea of the white text section headers on the electric blue graphic element that is currently being used, but I’d change the execution of that idea. Rather than making the text part of the graphic element, I’d use CSS to make the electric blue element a background image behind white HTML text. Much more versatile to use, easier to maintain. Right the text, apply the style and you have your section marker. You don’t need an image editor to change the text.

I’d build on that blue on blue color scheme. Define the whole page with the navy blue currently being used n the site, and accent it with a combination of yellow and the brighter blue.

Make the primary paragraph text color black, on a white background. Define the headings in blue to coordinate with the basic site structure. Use of yellow wouldn’t be out of line, but not as text or behind text.

Clean the navigation. Currently the left nav bar is breaking in both IE and Firefox, though in different ways. That needs to be cleaned up, and standardized site wide. I’d put all of the site navigation and functionality, searching and so forth, on the left, while shifting all advertisers to the right. The viewer needs to know, intuitively, where to find things. By dividing between advertiser and site resources, we can clean up what is currently confusing.

remove all font tags, and most of the inline CSS. Maintaining a site like this is time consuming, and there’s not reason to shoot yourself in the foot by making it more difficult to maintain.

Summary
My first impression is that this site is cluttered, disorganized, and needs a lot of help. My second impression though, is that while it does miss the mark, maybe not by as much as it might first appear.

• The home page layout needs to be reworked.
• The content is good, though there could definitely be more of it.
• The site is functional for the most part, but there is definitely a lot of room for improvement.
• The color palette is too complex, and needs simplification.
• The site structure needs to be updated.
• The blog needs to be expanded and upgraded, or removed. No half measures

Overall the site has a lot of potential, especially in my opinion, the blog. it is not however, living up to that potential.

While the radio station is wonderful, and I’m a big fan, the site needs to be brought up to the standard that the station has set for its radio shows. If it is, it will become a big resource for the station, and in my opinion, for the community.

Trackposted to Perri Nelson’s Website, , third world county, A Blog For All, , Pirate’s Cove, Right Voices, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.