Your Name

Gregory Motes

Site Name

Rural Heritage

URL

http://www.ruralheritage.com/

Purpose of Site

"a bimonthly journal in support of small farmers and loggers who use draft horse, mule and ox power"

How successful is the site in achieving this purpose?

Very successful

What questions would users bring to this site?

Can you provide me with information on Draft Horses?  This would include information on raising, caring, medicating, and selling draft horses.

Does this site use a metaphor?  If so, what it is?

The structural metaphor used in this site is the farm community.  On the index page, the display of the farm/ranch provides the visual gateway through which visitors can navigate.  I particularly like the use of the outhouse as the reading room and the mailbox for contact information.

Who is the primary audience?

Small farm farmers who have draft horses, mules or oxen.

Who is the secondary audience?

Loggers

List three positive elements of a visit to this site.

1.  Massive Content

2.  Site Search feature and index of back issues

3.  Page load time (the site is not bogged down with pictures)

List three negative elements of a visit to this site.

1.  Navigation - to get around in the site, I kept having to go back to the home page, even though much of the content is intertwined.

2.  Page template not consistent - there were several times I thought I left the site because the page colors completely changed.

3.  Color - The color of the site (somewhere between bisque and salmon) was warm at first, but after spending time navigating through the depth of the site, my eyes tired quicker than they normally do on a black text on white background site.

List five site features (from the features list provided in WebCT).

1. Image Maps

2. Search

3. Buyer's Guide

4. Copyright Notice

5. Revision Date

How "deep" is the site?  (How many sub-levels are there to each option on the Main Menu?)

Moderately deep (4-8 levels deep)

Most of the links go at least 3 deep.  Some go past 12.  Most are in the middle (4-6 range)

How "wide" is the breadth of the site?  (How many parallel options are there at the Main Menu?)

Very wide (9+ levels wide)

Just on the main page, there are 19 headers, each with a few links (54 separate text links and 18 image map links).

Other comments

It is apparent that a site like this has been around for a long time; the amount of content attests to that fact.  I really liked the image on the main page, which linked to the various areas of the site, but I found that when I began to navigate through the site to learn more about what information was available, I almost exclusively used the text links from the main page.

I was particularly pleased to learn that "[Chris Gregory] realized his dream of passing the American Farrier's Association Certified Journeyman Farrier exam," http://www.ruralheritage.com/horseshoes/staff.htm#chris  since I neither knew of the association, the dream or the career which followed it.  I always find it interesting the paths that other people take to realize their dreams and wish for a bit that I could know more about their livelihoods.  At least now I have access to a "Virtual Blacksmith."