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Blog Post #8: More Website Feedback!

This week I’m visiting two more of my classmates websites for feedback.

First, I’m looking at UMW’s site comparing national trends of the 1980s with the trends on their campus.

The overall aesthetic of the site looks great, and it is easy to navigate. I look forward to reading an introduction to the project on the homepage of the siteĀ  once it has been written. The slideshows and timelines are a great way to give an overview of the information that you are presenting. However, in the national women’s trends timeline, I would’ve liked to see images that corresponded to the event better. For instance, show an image of Olivia Newton-John in the “Physical’ video, Jane Fonda in one of her fitness videos, Janet Jackson in the 80s. These are all about videos, so could you use a still image from the videos? It would probably make your point more clear. Also for the national trends, it would be nice to have images of average people embracing these trends. The part about androgynous fashion was really interesting, and the excerpt from the interview with McCluskey made a really great point when he said that the closest thing that we really have to androgynous fashion is jeans and a t-shirt. I like that you are acknowledging that this is a complicated topic. It seems like this page is focused on more overt instances of androgyny, but the interview gave you a way to analyze androgyny in everyday fashion. What trends do we see both men and women embracing equally (perms, oversized glasses, oversized clothing in general)? Also, the oversized clothing could work with his point about how androgyny is not entirely possible because the person’s body is always visible underneath–oversized clothing makes it harder to see the shape of people’s bodies. Sorry for that long, stream-of-consciousness mess, but this is a really interesting topic, and there is a lot that you all can do to fully explore androgyny as a concept.

Next, Montevallo’s project comparing 1980s campus fashion with today.

Looking at your home page, I can tell that you intend to look at trends that are shared between now and the 1980s. It looks like plaid will be one of those trends, but are there others? You mention androgyny on the home page, which would be an interesting idea to explore, but keep in mind that this is a very complicated topic, as UMW has made clear on their site. I’m excited to see which trends you will be exploring! My other comments are nit-picky things–hyperlink the source for history of Montevallo, give some context to the photos on the 80s page. Also, are you planning on writing more about the present day? I’m unsure if this page is finished or not. Currently, this section needs more analysis, and relies too heavily on the writing in the newspaper.

For both sites, it is clear what you are hoping to accomplish, and you’ve chosen really interesting topics!

3 Comments

  1. bbrown

    Great feedback. Detailed and clear. Dr. Brown

  2. whittington

    Thank you so much for the feedback! I agree with you that our website’s timelines need more accurate pictures to go with the events in the timeline. However, I was looking at images only labeled for reuse on Google. Do you know if we are allowed to use any image so long as we credit the source? Because if so, I will definitely be adding better pictures. I’ll try to ask Dr. Kent and Dr. Brown about this in class on Wednesday. Thank you again for your feedback! I appreciate it!

  3. pearce

    Hi!

    Thanks for your comments on our website. I am totally okay with nit-picky comments! Those help with the small details. We are still working on much of the analysis for our website. I need to go read UMW’s section androgyny, as the reason we included it was we saw pictures where it was much more about the person’s fashion than their gender.

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