Week 5 - ESPN.com

With all the sports fans on campus, and probably in this class, I felt it would be appropriate to discuss ESPN.com's layout and interfaces for their various tools (GameCast, ESPN 360, etc.). The website itself, given all the information there is to disperse, is fairly well organized. Those sports that are most active at the time have more "presence" (more links to their main pages and major stories, etc.) than sports that are not currently playing. The more popular sports also appear more than those that are not as widely followed. From the main page, it is easy to find your way to any major or minor sport (even "sports" like poker) in case you are looking for a more focused look at a particular sport. Within each "main page", either the main page itself or each specific sports' main page, the layout is intuitive and does not require much searching to find what you are most likely looking for. Obviously, not everything can be laid out on the main page, but those things that are hardest to find are usually the least often used. Additionally, when features or events are on the rise (either in usage or interest), ESPN is usually good about modifying their design or layout to fulfill the change in interest level even going to extents such as making an entirely new section devoted to a large event like the Super Bowl or playoffs or so on.

Their additional features and tools such as GameCast and ESPN360 are not as well made or laid out in comparison to their actual website. GameCast, besides updating sporadically (which has nothing to do with interface design), is actually kind of buggy and are to use. When a drive is in progress, each play is denoted with its own "bar" (showing positive, or negative yardage or no gain) and when hovered over, displays the details of the play. However, most likely for older users, the bars are close together and trying to hover over a specific one can be difficult. Even for a spritely youth such as myself, it can be hard to use and just plain annoying. Additionally, besides the field view, the other sub-windows, such as stats, last play, etc., are not easy to decipher between and poorly designed. ESPN360 is an improvement in design and layout over GameCast, but still can take strides in making things easier to understand and, while not as important, "shinier." The layout is usable, but the look is very basic and at times, maybe too much so. All in all, ESPN does a great job with their website and while I suppose I should be thankful for tools such as GameCast and ESPN360, they could definitely be improved (especially in frequency of updates).