The Black World Today website review
Review Ranking: poor | fair | good | great | excellent
by Court Evans
Disappointing. :(
The Black World Today (TBWT) gets an F for design and its content pulls in a mere C grade. The only reason it did not receive a "poor" rating is because there is lots of valuable content. The problem is that those news stories, commentaries, and resources are hampered by poor design, slow load time, and a hodge podge of unnecessary content.
TBWT has the makings of a great website. There are lots of areas from which to choose news, forums, community, etc. BUT! There is no uniformity when it comes to the site's look. Click on one link, like the Radio Center, and it is likely that the entire navigation will change. Not to mention, the site's color scheme and layout changes to much.
Also, the load time for the main page of the site and some of its sub pages is way too long. Some of the site's sections, like The Black Family Network - an area devoted to the computers and Black people -, are created in a frame set. But, every time someone clicks a link on the left-hand navigation, the entire frame set loads instead of just targeting the new content to the main frame. C'mon this is basic HTML. TBWT desperately needs to be redesigned.
Oh, and please, KILL the AP photos. Nine times out of 10, it seems, the site highlights wire photos that aren't even focused on Black news or people. One time, I actually saw an AP photo on the former Yugoslavia. I mean, I know all the world's people can trace their ultimate great, great (to the umpteenth power) grand to an African woman. But, puhleez, this is much too much of a stretch and a waste of valuable content space. Grrrrrrrr!
I want this site to be the premiere Black news and information site, for Pete's sake. But, the web developers are going to have to do a complete re-haul before someone else comes along and does it better.
http://www.tbwt.com/
Do you agree or disagree with this review? Talk about this story in ventureForums.
