From the very start I found surfing this site extremely frustrating. I arrived to a find a standard three column design in black and green, which is fair enough except the background and font color of the navigation columns are both dark, in fact the only way I could make out what was in the side menu’s was if I moved the cursor all the day down highlighting each link. I could not find any real introduction to the site or its author, and so went in search of the archives, which I finally discovered to be half way down the left hand column.
From my endeavours searching for the archives I managed to discover that this blog goes back to May, and so finally I headed off in search of the blogs first post. The site is in every essence of the word a personal blog, a conglomeration of everyday occurrences in the life of someone still in school – references to examinations, classes and other events likely to feature in the life of a teen. As far as teen blogs are concerned the writing style wasn’t bad, it was simple and easy to follow, and didn’t isolate its appeal by adopting ‘teen’ speak. Its content however is another matter, issues to do with school and exams, and the daily occurrences in the life of a teen is likely only to appeal to others within their age group and / or social circle.
Although the design and colour scheme in theory are not all that bad I found this site extremely frustrating to navigate. The side menu’s are made up of dark text on a dark background, and the only way I could find the archives and associate links was to hover my mouse cursor down either side waiting for each link to appear. The centre column in the archives is far too narrow, while this may work with short posts, anything longer is made difficult and frustrating to read. I didn’t find any broken links however, and I imagine if the background or font colors of the side menu were adjusted this site may well be easy to navigate around.
Overall I believe the blog was what I would generally expect from a teen, references to school, exams and usual teenage activities lack appeal to anyone outside that age range but may well appeal to people within it, especially if they are within the readers own social circle. I found the site extremely frustrating to navigate however, and this was mostly due to the author’s chosen color scheme – in my browser the links were the same color as the background, which made finding the archives and external links extremely difficult. I award this site a 2 even though I experienced difficulties navigating the site I do believe with minor adjustments it has the potential to really appeal to a teen audience.