For the extra credit review, I looked at the website for Identity X which is a local band in Pittsburgh. Identity X’s home page is very simple, with only a large graphic of their CD cover covering most of the page with links to download or buy the CD at the bottom of the page. Above the picture is a simple navigation bar where you can choose from home, news, shows, media, band, contact, and store (the link leads outside the website) with links to their facebook, twitter, myspace, and youtube accounts in the top right corner. The navigation buttons change color as you hover over them

From the home page, the home button is a clickable link which refreshes the page. When clicking any button other than home, the layout changes completely. They added a graphics banner and a graphical sidebar, where you can enter your email to join their mailing list, listen to a song or look at their upcoming tour dates, as you click on different links the song in the sidebar player shuffles so the visitor is able to hear the music. The media page is a gallery with thumbnails of pictures lined up that enlarge when clicked. The shows page has a simple table send up that would show the tour date, time and venue but there are no tour dates. The band page is about the band, which is similar to what my group did on the home page. The contact page has booking information and another link to join the mailing list.

I liked that off of the home page of the website, the user had the option to join the mailing list at any time but I would have taken the link for the mailing list out of the contact page because two links for the same thing that literally fell right next to each other on my computer bothered me. One thing I would have changed about the site overall would the the layout, which changes after navigating out of the home page. I would have had the sidebar and banner throughout, because it was a bit overwhelming to go from a very simple layout to a more complex one. I also would have fixed the home link on the homepage so it was not clickable.

Overall, I feel out website was just as good at Identity X’s website. The pages were somewhat similar though I think our use of JQuery for the picture page versus a gallery of thumbnails works better for a band website.