I truly didn’t know what to expect when I saw the name “Truly Obscure.” I thought I had come across another blog, but when I visited the website, it was truly much more. According to their description, Truly Obscure is, “Hawaii’s best (and only) print and online magazine focused on news and reviews of the latest, greatest, and strangest.”
From the description, I expected to read a lot about Hawaii and things happening in Hawaii, but this is just one section of what is available at this zine/blog. And that is a good thing. There are sections about all things cinematic, literary, music, games and gaming, web stuff, gadgets, and food, as well as things about Hawaii. But all this information and interesting articles seem buried by only being available by the links at the top, and way at the bottom, below the long description, and the full length latest article. The description of what ‘Truly Obscure’ is about takes up too much space. New visitors want to get to the content as fast as possible and repeat visitors don’t want to see that long intro over and over again. Another benefit of reducing that long intro is that you can get to more of the content faster.
The design integrates well with the function. The menu in particular was very eye catching, with a combination of a picture, the link title, and a nice color change when the mouse hovers over the link. I would change the layout of the content so that I could see more of the articles from the other sections sooner, rather than have to scroll to the bottom. The sidebar really doesn’t have much useful information other than the bios and the ‘about’, and this space could be utilized better. In addition, I would have liked to see more color. The design, although very functional, was a little plain for an online magazine.
Overall, I liked this website so much that I bookmarked it, (and spent a lot of time giving what I hope was a very detailed, helpful review). Definitely a 5 for content, but the layout and presentation of the content needs some improvement.
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