At first I was very surprised that Redish's example of a horribly constructed website was one of the US government's. I would think that the government, especially a government sector as important as the Health and Human Services, would be a very well done Website. But, as is obvious, it was definitely poorly constructed. The thing that struck me the most was how unprofessional it originally looked. With all the dazzling logos on the bottom, it looked like some amateur website from the 90's. I would not have trusted the site as a place to get information about my deadly disease I have. The rainbow of colors is the one of the more off putting things about the logos. These colors distract from any color scheme that the website may have, and without a good color scheme, the website seems chaotic and slapdash, definitely not informative and trustworthy.
One site that has always aggravated me is the website of Democracy Now. It has angered me so much that I have completely given up on it. For this blog entry I was looking at some of my old bookmarked sites and stumbled upon this long forgotten site. After reading these chapters in Redish, I can now pinpoint two main features about the website that make me hate it. the first one is of course the massive essay that you are greeted with on the homepage. I don't think I have ever gotten past the first paragraph of it, and I really don't care too. as Redish points out, homepages should be based on providing links and short descriptions (37). this brings me to the second problem I have with the website, the links that it does provide are completely useless. I originally came to the site to receive the podcasts that they were apparently sending out. Upon looking at the site, you will see that none of the links even remotely help you with that quandary. Even the links that are available lead to very basic pages that don't really give you much information or much to do. I may have had higher hopes for the website when I first attempted surfing it. I may have assumed there would be plenty of information about civil liberties and news on the website, but there was none of it to be found. I still, to this day, am looking for those podcasts.
Democracy now is an interesting site. Is it a blog? If so, that would explain its narrative style. It took me a while to figure out what the purpose of the site is. Actually, I'm still not sure I know what the purpose is. There are many links on the site, but I agree with you that they are somewhat useless. You do a nice job beginning to analyze this site here in your blog. Are you thinking about this site for the class project?