Award-068

Comments
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Dear Kim,

After carefully reviewing your site, you have been awarded the Client Success Award of Excellence for your beautiful artworks as well as your insightful historical resources on Korea. Congratulations!

With each review request, the candidate receives a free site critique from a group of trained web development and interface design specialists. Here are the results of your critique:

I Site Design

The site is a little busy in parts due to the overuse of little banner graphics and buttons to denote various affiliations.

In instances where affiliations are this numerous, either a separate page for your affiliations, or less distracting text links would be better suited and would compete less with your site content.

Also, while "this site best viewed with" information was once particularly important when browsers were in their early stages and less standards compliant, this information is somewhat overkill in more modern site design, where almost all site visitors are using browsers that render standards compliant html correctly, and those who don't should not be kept uneducated about alternatives when browsers like Opera and Mozilla will run easily on older hardware and render websites according to html standards. For this reason it is suggested that you post this information at the bottom of the page, perhaps where your copyright information has already formed a bar. Currently it competes a bit with your three navigational links. If you are interested in defining how your site is best viewed for the convenience of non-mainstream viewers, consider offering information on newer browsers like Opera and Mozilla for users with older hardware for users who legitimately cannot use newer versions of Netscape or Internet Explorer.

Your "about korea" section is well organized, clean, and effective.
While your links to the "top" of the page at the bottom of each page are a nice idea, this may also be overkill considering the latest statistics on average web use suggests that almost all web users now understand the concept of the scroll bar and are able to use it effectively. Outdated research suggested a "top" link be used for exceptionally long pages, but this was mainly due to the fact that the research was held on computers with only keyboards, where the up and down arrows were the only means of scroll movement. Needless to say, if your page must be exceptionally long, it is a nice feature, but definitely not a necessity, and such links may distract from the overall site design on shorter pages.

Your "gallery index" section is equally well organized, relevant, and interesting. One small suggestion would be to remove the bevel effect on the button behind the title, as it is mildly distracting to the lettering. The artworks themselves are both beautiful and thought-provoking, and are what ultimately won your site this award, along with the fascinating cultural references in the "about korea" section. Good job!

II Technical

It's excellent that you have followed the w3c standards and made your pages standards compliant. This shows that you have a pride in your craftsmanship and an eye for detail that will serve you quite well as both an awards judge and a site developer. While not particularly adventuresome (or risky) your technical site structure is both clean and easily rendered. A job well done!

III Overall Comments

You have given a lot of time and effort to your site, and it is nice to see a community spirit among developers as you have shown under your awards section. It was very sad to learn that Bill Darling passed away this year, but it was nice to see someone has formed a community resource to let others know what is happening in this particular section of the web community.

Thank you for submitting your site. We have enjoyed reviewing and offering suggestions that we hope may prove useful. Your award graphic is attached.

If you have any suggestions or would like more information on the points made in this message, please feel free to contact us and ask questions for the benefit of everyone.

Enjoy your award.

Sincerely,
The Client Success Awards Team

Received: Nov. 26, 2003.