Mess Hall-Chicago's website is a mess! I admit to reading Jess Kaz's blog prior to even going on the site, so maybe her post tainted my experience of the site. But, really, is it necessary to have every single link POSSIBLE on the homepage? I'm known for disliking the scrolly, text-heavy homepage, so as you can imagine, I'm not a fan of this one. I like their simple color scheme and blocky format, but how about some separate tabs for "links" and "Rogers Park resources"?
I like their calendar, how everything is there and color-coded and how each event is a link that - when clicked on - leads to more information. I've been frustrated by the lack of info on other websites, so this is great...only thing is the only way I could get back out once I was in was by pressing my browser's "back" button, which is slightly irritating. This is unfortunately true on not just the calendar page...
The Love Letter to Chicago is great (however, the links at the bottom don't always work....oops). The links that do work bring you out of the site rather than opening a new window or tab, which would be preferable. This is another great Chicago community art resource (and, wow, they're not even a non-profit!) but they could use a "shower," as Kaz suggests...
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sigh..poor mess hall. getting lots of flak for the site, but the funny thing is that everyone does come back to the fact that they do what sounds to be lots of cool stuff, and most of this has been built through word-of-mouth/grassroots approaches. now if they could just get their site together to reflect this!
ReplyDeletei'm sure there are a lot of websites out in the world that are "shallow" (i.e., that have a lot of links on the homepage instead of links that take you deeper and deeper on each subsequent page) and work better. if that's the site structure mess hall wants to use, then they need a design that makes that structure more usable/cohesive. right now, as you've pointed out, it's just a mess.
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