Web Critique #2: Hyde Park Art Center

The Hyde Park Art Center is graphically pleasing and very easy to navigate. I like the color/photo choices throughout, and I don't feel overloaded with information. It feels alive and dynamic.  I like that each section has a different color.  Everything that I might need to know quickly is right there on the first page...Calendar, Contact, Getting Here, Get Involved...and remains on the side-bar throughout the rest of the site

The visuals are well-chosen and images do not compete with one another, as they sometimes do on a site like the NAEA.

It is nice, on the one hand, to have all of the current exhibitions on the first page with visuals and the option to click on the link for more details. On the other hand, it makes for a very long, scroll-intensive first page. I prefer a clean, to-the-point homepage from which I can enter into the parts of the site which interest me. I think a nice, highly visible "current exhibitions" link would be preferable. Maybe one exhibit could be featured on the home page (and rotated), or something like that. Then the scrolling list could just appear on a separate page, as it already does when you click on "Exhibitions."

I like how, rather than simple links on the right-hand side bar and throughout the site, there is a heading and then a little blurb about the topic and then the "more details" link to click.  The section on classes is particularly well set up.  I've often found on community art center websites that course info is buried in a PDF catalog; an effort is not made to make the course catalog web-friendly.  I really appreciated that each class had its own page, with details clearly laid out.  Some neat classes - hope to try one out some time!