I visited the
Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN)
website to explore its use of hyperlinks. SWAN is a civil-rights organization
that educates on issues relevant to women in the armed services and advocates
for its members through partnerships with legal organizations.
The site
links to recent high-profile news stories with SWAN pundits on C-Span, CNN, Fox
News, MSNBC, and PBS; and articles referencing SWAN-related issues posted on ACLU,
Stars and Stripes, and Huffington Post websites. Newsworthy tweets and retweets
by SWAN staff are also linked. The site also links to two blogs, one written by
SWAN staff, and the other composed of re-posts from blog sites outside of the
organization. In all, the links provide instant access into the wide-ranging, high-profile
activity of the organization, and lend it credibility in terms of fulfilling
its mission and representing its members.
A slider just
below the nav bar is positioned prominently in the header, about 300px high X
600px wide, with links to the above-mentioned stories. A scrolling box just right
of the slider links to the tweets. I’d say the design is pretty effective in putting
viewers in touch with the organization’s issues as reported in the national
media, and letting them select the stories and tweets they want to follow up on.
What might be less effective is the link to Front
and Center, the SWAN blog, which is found under the Blog menu on the nav
bar – i.e., if the number of blog comments is any indicator: of the five
current blogs posted, only one has been commented on, by one commenter.
A quick
survey of similar organizations’ sites — or any other informational website
for that matter — suggests there’s nothing innovative about SWAN’s web design
and use of hyperlinks, but its familiar layout is probably just what makes it so
effective: even viewers unfamiliar with the organization's site pretty much know exactly where
to go for the information they’re looking for.
I mentioned this a bit in my response to Chelsi's post, but I think it is interesting that there is a value connection between a site and the sites it is liked to. I guess Manovich provides for this type of situation in the principle of transcoding. In other words, in our daily lives we shape our opinions about a person based on those who they associate with. Likewise, I believe this principle of associative value has been carried over and is manifest in our opinions of websites. However, I could be completely wrong. Do you think that people see websites the way I described, or as self-contained entities, or am I overlooking some other view entirely?
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