Scoring Rubric:
Scale of 1 to 10 – 1 is the highest, 10 is the lowest
Usability – Being able to navigate a site easily is important to finding valuable information.
Aesthetics – Looks can also fall under usability/readability with a color scheme, but this is for overall attractiveness.
Usefulness – Are the items found on the site useful for the field?
Frequency of Updates – Is the information current? Does the site get “dated” after a few months pass by?
Ability to Contribute – Is the site open for writers?
Discussion – Does the site have open discussion?
Figure 1.1: Scoring Rubric
INTRODUCTION:
Analysis of three websites/listservs in our profession: Web Design and Development.
These services are either ran by renowned professionals in the field, or diligently monitored by most of the IT world.
I’ve graded each site based on a scale that contains the vital components for any web resource.
The sites/listservs I’ve chosen:
- A List Apart: Web Magazine for Designers and Developers
- CSS-D: Mailing List for all things CSS
- Slashdot: News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
A List Apart
| A List Apart – Score Breakdown | |
| Category | Score |
| Usability | 2 |
| Aesthetics | 3 |
| Usefulness | 1 |
| Frequency of Updates | 4 |
| Ability to Contribute | 4 |
| Discussion | 6 |
Figure 1.2: A List Apart’s Score Breakdown
“A List Apart (ALA), for people who make websites”
From About A List Apart:
“A List Apart Magazine (ISSN: 1534-0295) explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on techniques and benefits of designing with web standards.”
A List Apart is an extremely well done site in all aspects. With ALA, I can read articles categorically, by author, or by issue. ALA publishes at least once a month and has been operating since 2002. Frequently publishing allows the ALA contributors and staff to address emerging issues or ones of the past. Each article is also discussable in their comments area. The magazine is privately owned and operated by Jeffrey Zeldman of Happy Cog Studios.
ALA offers useful articles on what matters to the web developing community to a broad audience. The articles usually have a prerequisite of sorts or links to any technical knowledge you would need before undertaking an ALA article.
ALA is one of the most user-friendly websites I’ve seen except for the lack of a search feature. Until then, you’ll have to search ALA via Google’s Site Search
Figure 1.3: A List Apart Screenshot
One of the advantages of A List Apart’s new redesign (which premiered this month) is the XML feeds. XML Syndication enables A List Apart’s articles to be syndicated across any platform.
A List Apart also practices what they preach: accessible coding to standards with the audience in mind. Since the site is efficiently and properly coded, the loadtimes are quick and ALA can easily be displayed on old software and mobile devices. A List Apart is only lacking in one thing from a usability standpoint: a search feature.
I strongly recommend A List Apart because it is the best resource chosen that is pertinent to our field. Although it’s not updated daily, I find myself surfing to it at least three times a day.
Overall Score: 4 out of 10
CSS-Discuss
From About css-discuss
| CSS-D Score Breakdown | |
| Category | Score |
| Usability | 1 |
| Aesthetics | N/A |
| Usefulness | 1 |
| Frequency of Updates | 1 |
| Ability to Contribute | 1 |
| Discussion | 1 |
Figure 1.4: CSS-Discuss Score Breakdown
“css-discuss (CSS-D) is primarily intended to be a place for authors to discuss real-world uses of CSS. (Cascading Style Sheets)”
css-discuss is a high volume mailing list (50+ mailings a day) that is related to helping participants find answers to problems, get constructive criticism, or discuss new techniques with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The list is moderated by Eric Meyer of Complex Spiral Consulting.
CSS-D can help you on your way to learning CSS or can loan a helping hand to the expert with small intricacies. Since CSS is relatively new, CSS-D is one of the few trusted places to take your problems.
Not everyone wants to receive the barrage of e-mails that CSS-D sends out. Luckily, there are public archives that are searchable to see if list members have already answered your problem for someone else.
Figure 1.5: CSS-D Screenshot
CSS-D also features a Wiki. The purpose the Wiki serves is similar to a FAQ section, but it can be contributed to by anyone. The Wiki is something to read first before asking a question because the most commonly occurring questions have already been answered in great detail with the Wiki.
CSS-D takes privacy very seriously. They will not sell your e-mail address to third parties, and they are strong combatants of spam. CSS-D is a listserv that is taken very seriously. “People who violate the goodwill of the list community will be unsubscribed with extreme prejudice. Not to mention haste.” [from CSS-D policies]
CSS-D sends all messages via plaintext which means it can be read by any device that can output text. This also allows code to be easily placed in messages without having the e-mail clients render the code.
If you have any questions about configuring Eudora or Outlook to Filter CSS-D messages to a certain folder, feel free to ask me.
I also give a strong recommendation to CSS-D, but this is a conditional recommendation. If you’re learning CSS and you run into problems you cannot find fixes for, CSS-D is a wonderful place to ask questions.
Overall Rating: 1 out of 10
Slashdot
| Slashdot Score Breakdown | |
| Category | Score |
| Usability | 5 |
| Aesthetics | 4 |
| Usefulness | 1 |
| Frequency of Updates | 1 |
| Ability to Contribute | 3 |
| Discussion | 1 |
Figure 1.6: Slashdot Score Breakdown
“Slashdot: News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters.”
From About Slashdot:
“Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997 by Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda. Today it is owned by OSDN,
which, in turn is owned by VA Software.”
Slashdot is a bleeding edge news site that is updated several times a day with news related to information technology.
Slashdot is updated several times a day and caters to a “geek” audience with stories about Science, Technology, and Lord of the Rings.
Figure 1.7: Slashdot Customziation Thumbnail
Slashdot gets littered with lots of “junk” if you’re going to use it for business-only purposes. If you don’t care about the latest court transcript of a high-profile hacker, you can set your Slashdot user settings to only show stories from categories and authors you specify.
Slashdot also has an innovative commenting system. The way it works: posting useful comments raises your “karma” while posting useless comments gives you “bad karma”. I love reading the discussions on Slashdot because there are usually some great follow-up links posted or differing perspectives posted. In your user settings you can specify “Show me comments that have a Rating of 3 or above” – using this feature will ensure you see comments that have been recommended by Slashdot’s team of moderators.
Slashdot receives 50 million hits a month – having such a large audience gives them the resources to report stories as they happen. If a Windows vulnerability is found, most people will read about it on Slashdot and then head to Windows Update for the patch.
I recommend Slashdot, but only after a lot of customization. Since /. covers such a large amount of material it’s a good idea to go into your preferences and weed out what you’re definitely not going to read.
