National Concert Hall - a good performance?

— Published March 1st, 2005  |  by David Moore

'See one, do one, teach one' runs the saying from medical school, and it's much the same with conducting site audits. If you're following our series on carrying out audits, this will give an example of a light audit (complete with completed template) to allow you to examine one before embarking on your own analysis. Alternatively, you might just want a closer look at a site which won an award at the recent E-Government Awards event.

Unlike other recent award winners (we're not sure how the hit and miss content from the Dublin Tourism site gained a Digital Media Awards gong), the National Concert Hall site represents a well planned and well executed presence that shows the advantages of building to web standards.

On the content front, the site offers up to date and web-friendly material, with a helpful disclaimer and sparing use of PDFs to offer an alternative version of existing material. Some event listings could contain more information, but the content over all is accurate and extensive.

Looking at functionality, the ability to book online is the major feature, and there's also an email newsletter feature. However, the booking system is slightly awkward to use. You're given the prices of the available seats, but only see where in the auditorium those seats are located after you've already chosen a price level.

Choosing to book online also launches a new window, which can create problems for some users (and the booking customer service information launches a second new window). Additional usability problems could be caused in some browsers which display the sublevel navigation options in very small type. The search feature could also be enhanced.

Design issues are largely handled competently, with solid colour-coded navigation, and a construction that uses CSS for layout and formatting. This standards-compliant approach ensures consistency of appearance across different browsers, and also helps with accessibility, where the site performs reasonably well - showing that good accessibility does not have to be at the expense of attractive design.

The information architecture is reasonably clear, but the lack of a clear booking option on the homepage might be confusing to some users. In addition, the order of the main navigation could perhaps be improved - the About Us and News Room sections will probably get more traffic than the Friends and Corporate Support sections which are arranged before them - the current order perhaps more closely reflects the organisation's objectives than the users' needs. User orientation is a little weak, however, with no breadcrumb trail and some inconsistencies in showing location in sublevel pages.

There are issues where improvement would bring benefits, but over all the site is solidly built and offers a positive user experience. It well deserves its award.

Content: 74%
Functionality: 53%
Design: 67%
Weighted Total: 70%