Critique of Bluejays.com

The Toronto Blue Jays Official Team Web site

Welcome to the Blue Jays Nest

The official Toronto Blue Jays Web site is one of the 30 official team sites operated by Major League Baseball. Thus, the each site follows the same design template and look asproscribed by the sports organization. The site’s obvious goal is to serve as a marketing tool for the team (season ticket packages and promotions are readily found throughout the site) while offering a smorgasbord of information for the fans.

Keep Them Coming Back: Content

Content is truly king. Just as the team operates in an off-season and on-season mode, the Web site content is updated in a similar fashion.

During a scheduled game, the dominant visual piece is a rectangular box featuring a box score and viewing options. News articles and features rotate every few seconds. The off-season content caters to player profiles, free-agent acquisitions and season highlights.

The main page manages to fill about 80 percent of a 600 x 350 pixel screen with the main visual elements placed at the top of the page. The content is divided into 14 boxes that display information that range from probable pitching matchups to ticket offers.

The masthead showcases the team logo and its marketable stars including pitcher Roy Halladay, closerB.J. Ryan and outfielderVernon Wells immediately catch the visitor’s attention. An expansive navigation bar offering numerous site links can be found below.

The site’s writing is just as compelling as the photos and graphics. The text is crisp and follows good writing conventions such as using short sentences and direct statements. The teams news and game reports are written obviously from a Blue Jays perspective, but avoid the use of “marketingese.”

The archives are robust and offer detailed information for all ardent Blue Jays fans including World Series video highlights to a list of all first-round draft picks.

Recommended Improvements

As Steve Krug, a usability expert said, navigation is not a feature of the Web site, it is the Web site. The Blue Jays home page is really a dense forest sprinkled with hard-to-find markers. The content —the news briefs, photos, charts, icons — are seemingly tightly packed together, thus, creating a cluttered feel. The Web site also suffers from what is seemingly a plethora of ads sprinkled on the more popular pages of the site.

It is not uncommon to find four advertisements from the team sponsors on a post-game story. The team report “Blue Jays roll it up on Red Sox” has four ads from Major League Baseball partners including Century 21 and Holiday Inn.

The goal is now to introduce white space in an effort to lessen the chance of the site visitor feeling overwhelmed. One possible step would be to work with theadvertisers to create a box that would rotate promotional items. Some of the remaining filler content, the polls and some of the team offers, would move to the inside pages.

The changes would also help to improve the look and feel of the navigation bar found across the top of the screen. Currently, the links remain hidden. I would convert the links into navigation tabs and move the search function, found on the bottom of the screen, to the top. Furthermore, I would create a tab to linking MLB.com headlines from the home page and move the Sights and Sounds feature to the multimedia page. For a site with more than 150 pages, the search engine could be expanded at its current location.

Another major concern I have is the download times for visitors using dial-up service. In testing the site, I spent seconds staring at the team logo waiting for the elements to load on my computer. Futhermore, the right-hand Flash video takes too long to appear. I would advocate offering the video, highlighting the team’s memorable plays from the pervious game, as a download.

Despite these criticisms, new content is added daily making the official site of my favorite baseball team since 1987 a daily destination for me.

Online Communication: Get the Message? ;)

“The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”—Joseph Priestley, English chemist, philosopher, dissenting clergyman and educator.

It was late March and my friend Julie checked her e-mail on the social online network site www.myspace.com and opened her inbox to find this line from an admirer. “how are yo u doing just drop by to let you know have a fabulous smile drop me a line sometime and lets chat if you like,” wrote Marcus, a 26-year-old bachelor from Chapel Hill.

Julie, a journalism doctorate candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, forwarded the message to me before she clicked the deletion key. “Sigh,“ she wrote. “Whatever happened to the days of sitting down and writing a letter––one with proper spelling, capitalization and punctuation?”

Julie should have accepted that Marcus’ e-mail strengthens the argument that online communication standards from e-mail to instant messenger have done more to degrade good writing standards than any misused tool since spray paint.

The World Wide Web has simply shaped many people into an instant gratification society with poor writing habits. Just check the comments posted on myspace.com: discussion boards that read “I luv yer paarely whitte teetth.” instant message chats chock-full of responses like “LOL J” and “OMG. OTFLMHO!,” and, of course, emoticons.

Lost in Translation

This is a problem brewing for years thanks, in part, to society’s emphasis on communicating in the shortest way possible. Think of contractions and the mistakes that can be easily made with their use – ask a copy editor how often they find “its” and “it’s” used incorrectly.

Since people write for the sake of speed, they often overlook the few moments they need to self edit. As a result, the message is often lost in translation since more time is needed for deciphering. Clear and concise writing reads quickly and cleanly.

And these online tools may have improved the way we communicate, but at a great expense. We have simply become lazy writers with no impetus to change. Word processing software and e-mail programs are equipped with a spell-check function, but they often go unused since “Want 2 go out 2nite” is all too common. Here is an example.

Lack of Accountability

Popular Web search engines such as Google and Yahoo! forgive user typos and misspellings during searches. Ultimately the problem stems from a lack of accountability. English teachers and editors demand error-free papers. Employers will be quick to fire employees who fail to realize the difference between “Pubic Relations” and “Public Relations” (I have seen this mistake.)

As for online communication, what punishment could there be for writing sloppy messages? Ridicule? Written admonishment?

All writing, just like a first introduction, is all about making first and lasting impressions. If an employer receives a resume weighed down with misspelled words, broken phrases, inappropriate abbreviations, then the applicant will, at best, receive scant consideration.

Yet, friends overlook sentence faux pas from friends and co-workers and family members unconsciously forgive typos and missteps mentioned in the previous paragraph.

But why?

Shouldn’t all writers uphold the standards of good writing? For my part, I will decide whether to read an e-mail or read a biog. I am not expecting a Jack Kerouac short story when reading some e-mail from a friend. I just want the writer to effectively communicate his or her message. It is a matter of respect for the reader.

In the end writing electronically comes down to a matter of control for the author. As rapper/actor Ice-Cube extolled the virtues of his high school typing class to Men’s Health magazine: “It helped me respect words and how they’re put together. The more you command the language, the better you are.”

It is a lesson Marcus should learn by rewriting his e-mail. Maybe then Julie will respond. LOL.

The demise of online communication. ;)

Newspaper editorial readers would be the readers of this blog.

 

“The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”—Joseph Priestley.

It was late March and my friend Julie visited the social online network site myspace.com to find a message from an admirer. “how are yo u doing just drop by to let you know have a fabulous smile drop me a line sometime and lets chat if you like,” wrote Marcus, a 26-year-old bachelor from Chapel Hill. Julie, a journalism doctorate candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, forwarded the message to me before she clicked the deletion key. “Sigh,“ she wrote. “Whatever happened to the days of sitting down and writing a letter that is full of proper spelling, capitalization and punctuation?”

Julie should have accepted Marcus’ e-mail strengthens the argument that online communication standards from e-mail to instant messenger have done more to disrupt good writing standards than any tool since the spray can enhanced graffiti. The World Wide Web has simply shaped us into an instant gratification society with poor writing habits. Just check the comments posted on myspace.com. Discussion boards that read “I luv yer peerrly whitte teetth.” Instant message chats chockfull of responses like “LOL J” and “OMG. OTFLMHO!” Emoticons.

This is a problem that has festered for years thanks to society’s emphasis to communicate in the shortest way possible. For instance, the introduction of contractions and the mistakes they induce (ask a copy editor how often they find “its” and “it’s” used incorrectly) have pushed the good writing habits aside for convenience. Typing skills readily need improvement since messages with “whuts” and “ur right” are common. Rapper/actor Ice-Cube extolled the virtues of his high school typing class to Men’s Health magazine: “It helped me respect how words and how they are put together. The more you command the language, the better you are.”

And these online tools of communication may have improved communication, but at a great expense. We have simply become lazy writers with no impetus to change. Word processing software and e-mail programs are equipped with a spell-check function, but they often go unused since “Want 2 go out 2nite” is all too common. Popular Web search engines such as Google and Yahoo! forgive user typos and misspellings during searches. Ultimately the problem stems from a lack of accountability. English teachers and editors demand error-free papers.

 Employers will be quick to fire employees who fail to realize the difference between “Pubic Relations” and “Public Relations” (I have seen this mistake.) Yet, friends overlook sentence missteps from friends and co-workers and family members unconsciously forgive typos. But why? Shouldn’t all writers uphold the standards of good writing? For my part, I will decide whether to read an e-mail or continue to participate in an online chat. I am not expecting a Jack Kerouac short story when reading a blog or opening an e-mail from a friend. I just want the writer to communicate his or her message effectively.