Layout

The overall design and layout of the site is not good. Most of the pages have a lot of buttons and text that appears to have been placed anywhere making the page look very cluttered and unprofessional. The curtain background on the theatre home page portrays a feeling of actually being at the theatre. However, other things that are on this page spoil the effect and the metaphor of being at the theatre is lost. There are four buttons on the left-hand corner of the page and the colours on these buttons do not compliment the background. There is a lot of text in the centre of the page with a frame on the right hand side. The background colour for the frame is baby pink and the curtain background is maroon. The use of contrasting colours for this page is quite bad, as these too do not compliment each other.

Information Retrieval

The frame on the theatre home page has a list of all the names of theatres in London with their location but does not indicate what show is playing at the particular theatre. Therefore, for example if the user wants to see Miss Saigon they must also know where it is showing in order to find out more information about that play. Information retrieval on this site is not very good, as it is difficult to find the right information quickly. The list of theatres in London has hyperlinks to information about what show is playing at that theatre.

Colour

Once the user has decided what theatre they wish to view more information about they simply select the theatre and are taken to the home page for the particular show. All the pages for the shows are quite boring, as the background colour for the pages is either sky blue or baby pink, which I think, are dull and lifeless. There is only one image in the centre of the page, which is a photograph of the theatre - the quality of which is poor as is blurred. There are buttons on the right-hand side and again the use of colours for these buttons is very poor as they do not match with the rest of the page. These buttons are hyperlinks to succeeding pages for more information about the play, price and times, seating plans and booking tickets.

Consistency

All pages about the different shows and theatres are consistent in terms of font style, size, and layout of common buttons and images. The content is very good and the site provides a lot of useful information. However this information is displayed in a very boring manor and the designer has not experimented with the different fonts available and has used the standard font style - Times New Roman, although this is consistent on all pages

Hypermedia

There is no balance in terms of the different hypermedia that could be used. There is a lot of textual information which makes the whole site boring to look at and it makes no use of graphics, sound, animation or movie clips.

Navigation and Interactivity

In terms of navigating this site there is only the back button, which makes it hard to known where you are within the whole site - in order to go back the home page you have to repeatedly use the back button. This positioning of this button seems as if it is out of place also, and the image for the button does is very boring and again does not fit in with the rest of the pages. There is no form of interaction between the end user and the information on the screen.

Overall

Overall the whole site looks very tacky, unprofessional and very magazine like. Better thought into design issues could have been made. The best part of this site was the main home page as it was nicely designed and looked appealing, however, the theatre sections that have been looked at are the opposite.

http://www.londontheatre.co.uk

When entering the site the user is presented with a page with two choices to view the frames version or the non-frame version and it is up to the user to decide. This site does not have a metaphor behind it but tries to incorporate an entry tunnel with the options page for the type of version. Once the user makes the decision as to which version he or she wants to see, the user is taken to the home page of their particular choice. This site has been optimised for Netscape 4 and Internet Explorer 4, on the PC.

Frames

The frame version has a frame on the left-hand side with various hyperlinks to succeeding pages such as, news, listings, reviews, seating plans, tickets, tour walks, maps and surveys in the form of a list. The site without the frame has the same information and links but represented in the form of a table with two columns in the centre of the page. The only difference between the two versions is simply that one uses frames and the other doesn't, however the content, background colour, text etc. are same.

Information Retrieval

When clicking on the 'listing' hyperlink, the user is taken to the next page with a listing index. On this page the shows are categorised according too musical, drama and comedy, a-f, g-o and p-z. The site has been well organised in systematic and structured way making it simple for the user to retrieve information about the play and where is showing, easily and quickly.

When clicking in 'musicals' this takes you to a page with a long list of all musicals shown in the West End. When a particular show is selected, information such as show, location, genre, time, performers, tickets, length of play and reviews is displayed. This is good, as all the information is exactly what you would want to know about however, it involves a lot of scrolling to view all the information.

Colour & Layout

This guide provides a reliable source of information pertaining to London Theatre on the Internet. However this site is boring in terms of the colours used. In fact the only colour used is pale yellow for the background and a black for the text. The font style for the text is also very common, Times New Roman. There are no graphics, photos, sound, animation on this site. There is only one image of the map of London and seating plans for the different theatres. The layout of all the pages is simple and effective but then again all the content is text.

Consistency and Navigation

The whole site is consistent and with the use of the frame and back button makes it easy to navigate around the site. The site does not have images or graphics and therefore is not very appealing or attractive. However, there is a lot of textual information and looks very professional.

Overall

This site has been designed to be a reference source, is very informative and gets straight to the point. The simplicity of the layout of this site, shows that is has been well structured, without incorporating features that technology has to offer. I would recommend this site to people that are interested in finding out information about the latest shows on in London as it is a good information source. I think this site is good overall and meets the objective of being a London theatre guide but would be made much more effective if enhanced with more colour and hypermedia.