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PEER CRITIQUE OF "WORKERCENTERS" Site Author: Sam Concept I think your website has the potential to become a great resource for communities all over the US, and I personally am very interested to check on your website in the future and learn more about day workers. By positioning yourself as a resource for a lay audience that at the same time may be very affected by day workers and worker centers in their community, you provide a useful tool and fill a very real need that government agencies and community organizations will likely support. I think it would help capture an initial user’s interest if you could make your target audience and website purpose clear right at the beginning of the website. As I was reading your intro paragraph starting “Each day there are…” (nice writing, by the way!) I felt unsure whether the website would be suited to my knowledge level and expectations, and what the website would offer me. Site Content I like your clear breakdown of the topics that you will be addressing, and I look forward to reading more of your content as your website grows. It might be nice to also have a section giving readers information on what they can do, and links to other general information and governmental websites, or even information about specific communities that may be relevant to users. A wiki could be an effective implementation of the latter. Your website has potential for significant expansion in the future, depending on how big you want to make it. For example, you could add more user interaction by letting communities post updates and information about how to get involved that are specific to their community, or forums to enable dialogue between day workers and other members of their community, which I think would be very interesting! However, I don’t know too much about day workers or the issues their communities face, so these specific ideas may or may not be applicable. Site Layout / Design The information is clearly laid out by topic. I also like the strong and descriptive language in the intro paragraph, and the bolding and coloring scheme – it’s a great call to action, and really catches a reader’s attention! My main suggestion would be to present the purpose of the website and what it offers at the beginning, before the descriptive intro paragraph, so users can quickly know what to expect. You currently place the information on the right side, and it could be more effective to move it to the left column. I think American readers, at least, tend to read the left first and expect the more important information there. Also, as you further develop your website, pictures would be nice! Business Plan As you stated in your business plan, I think government organizations can be very helpful in promoting your website. You could go even further and collaborate with government organizations or worker centers, who should be very supportive of your website. Your magic quadrant was visually very helpful. I would be interested to learn why you placed the other websites in their respective quadrants, and how exactly your website is similar or different to existing ones. Some of the other websites seem like they could be quite complementary, and you might be able to collaborate with them as well.
Page last updated 06.08.08 by Serena Yeung |