Week 13 Hierarchy | Berk

My web site is the site for the greatest sports franchise in the world, the 27-time World Series champion New York Yankees.

1) There are many different pieces of this site. The first thing I am drawn to is the main stories in the upper left. My eye is drawn by the large picture, which rotates between 4-5 different stories. These are the main, most newsworthy stories at a given time. From there, I move right through the upcoming schedule, to the video that plays automatically (on default) of highlights or news conferences. After that, I drop down to the lower sections which are smaller and have no real distinguishing features. The hierarchy is seen in the size of the sections. The first one is the largest, and the video is second largest. After that, there are numerous smaller sections that don't really differentiate from each other.

2) As I said before, the hierarchy on the site is fairly simple. The largest thing is the most emphasized, and that is the rotating set of newest stories. This is the most useful item because it is what most fans, especially the casual fans come to the site for: the most recent news on the team. It is not necessarily the most visually pleasing as it depends on the photo, but the fact that it has a photo at all when many of the containers on the site have no photo, just text.

3) Unlike the team, I do not like the web site that much. One good thing it does is give you a strong toolbar across the top with all relevant info: stats, roster, schedule, scoreboard, etc. This is important because many visitors come to sport sites to find a particular stat, (ie Derek Jeter's career number of hits, which happens to be 2,766) or the Yankees opponent on a certain date.

4) Like I said, there are a few things I do not like about the site. First, it is very cluttered. There are at least 7 different sections you can identify, and possibly more. And outside of the main two (top stories and video) there is no real distinguishing factors between the rest. I would try to establish more of a visual hierarchy by changing up some of the sizes. For instance, I would try to shrink some of the ads (if they can spare the money) and use the extra space for some of the features.