If you plan to build your own website and want to know how not to do it, pay the Harrow Drug Action Team's website a visit. If it serves a purpose, it is that of a bad example.

When viewed in the Macintosh edition of Explorer 5, the site looks terrible. Nothing is in place, and text is displayed on top of each other. In Netscape, things look slightly better, but still primitive. The best view of it I got on a PC with Explorer. Although cross-platform issues are then sorted out, the site remains weak.

Blue font has been used extensively where there are no links. Instead, the links are red. Sometimes. But at other times, they are blue and underlined, as they should be. Go on, you figure it out.

The font on the home page and some other pages is, even on my 17" screen, barely legible (marginally better on a PC). And of course it had to be a serif font, making things just a little harder.

The menu below the Harrow Drug Action Team logo is acceptable, although colours could have been used in a better way. When you click on the "Who we are" link, another dismal piece of web design is displayed. On a photograph about the size of a large postage stamp, you see a group picture of no fewer than eight people - the members of the Harrow Drug Action Team, we are told. Their names are there, but despite the blue font they are written in, there are no links that could take you to pages with more information or provide an e-mail address.

There are lots of PDF files with research reports on drugs in Harrow to download, if you're into that kind of thing.

The site has grammatical mistakes, such as apostrophe abuse, and at times it is difficult to determine what is meant.

The telephone numbers and opening times of the different offices providing services offered by the Team are online. Because the site is so basic, you will probably find what you need here. Pages load quickly.

The code reveals that the site was built using Microsoft Frontpage, by a person who diplays little knowledge of web design - nothing wrong with that as such.

But that is no excuse for not updating the site - in July 2002, the last news release was posted in February 2001. Quite ironic that a page reached via the Annual Plan/Communication link tells us that one of the Drug Action's goals is to "Maintain Web Site and update content on a monthly basis".

PdB

July 17, 2002 09:30