ENGL3160 > Site Critque Index > Country Living Critique

A Critique of Country Living On-Line

by Amber Berg

Working on a project at home and want to add a little country charm? Country Living on-line has information and advice on decorating, entertaining, collecting, and gardening for the do-it-yourself-er who is looking for a country accent.

Country Living's web site has how-to tips, resources, and recipes for anyone.

Audience

This on-line magazine is marketed toward people who are interested in doing household projects themselves or are looking for ideas to do so. The audience it’s looking for would be primarily women, possibly domestic, stay-at-home moms, and also readers of the magazine. This is apparent because on all pages there is a side bar with an advertisement to subscribe to the magazine and links to get to grocery coupons.

The advertisement for the magazine also creates credibility for this page because the user can see that there is a publication that it is based on. In addition to this, in the footer there is a copyright and the page’s terms of service link.

Clarity

This site has a home page that introduces the user to the site. This page also has four categories in a header to choose from: decorating, collecting, entertaining, and gardening. Each of these four options also has an introductory or home page. The home pages and those linking to it are all similar in layout.

The home page has two columns while all other pages in the site have three columns:

a side bar with navigational links
a side bar with advertising and outside links
a larger, middle column which presents the article.

These pages are all clear and easy to understand.

The navigational sidebar is a subtle color with a dark font so it is easy to read. To stand out more, the side bar with the advertisement for the magazine is in a darker blue color but doesn’t totally distract the user. Finally, the column with the articles has a white background and black lettering with colored headings, and it is the least difficult to read.

Order/Organization

The homepage for this site has sweepstakes, to get the user involved, and then has featured articles from the four different categories. Further down, it also has a description of what the user will find in these categories. It also has links to miscellaneous related sites. Overall, the homepage is spaced out nicely and doesn’t attack the user with information.

Going to the decorating section, the user comes to another homepage for that category, which looks similar to the original. However, this page gets right into the articles and features about decorating. It is very clear, having lines between the different topics, colored headings, and pictures when appropriate.

Content

The content of the articles is all well written, descriptive and entices the reader to want to produce work of their own. Also, there are lots of personal stories to make the magazine more appealing to the user.

*Confusion for the Reader...
In the decorating pages there are articles about interior decorating. One particular article is titled ‘With all the Trimmings’. Throughout this artlicle the user can navigate through the rooms of a house by using previous and next buttons. The problem I found with the article is that the heading changes from room to room.

It becomes: "With all the Trimmings? Living Room".

The new header makes it easy to realize what room the user is in but each one has a question mark after the word trimmings. By reading the introduction to the article it seems like a tour through someone’s house decorated for Christmas. However, the oddly placed question mark made me, as a reader, wonder if the magazine was making fun of this woman’s decorating technique because she used too many trimmings.

Note: A week after reviewing this site I went back to get another look. The question mark I wrote about has since been changed into a hyphen on all pages.

ENGL3160 > Site Critque Index > Country Living Critique