Londondance.com
Performance Reviews || Tuesday, 11 April, 2006
Londondance.com has been online now for more than 5 years and this week has seen the first overhaul of its antiquated design in all that time. The site is one of, if not the only, rivals to Article19 in the world of online dance coverage outside of the slowly burgeoning blog scene.
Essentially it looks pretty much the same. Gone are the ugly section headers however that once adorned the home page in favour of a much smarter layout that uses text headers and a brief outline of current 'news' stories. The text size has been reduced and is more pleasant to read than previously.
The top line navigation has been enlarged to make it easier to read and more distinctive. The side image, which appears to be selected at random, now provides a small note pertaining to its relevance (ie: why are they showing you the image). The majority of the info, sans the news, is just replicating the top line links however
New feature wise they have added a couple of things. Commenting on news stories has been popular for years on blogs and news sites. We have it on some of our sections here on Article19. If you wish to comment on an LD.com story there is a link provided at the base of the entry. This is where the problems begin.
First of all you must be a registered member to comment. Registering is free but it's also a hassle and there is a revolt running throughout web-land against unnecessary registration to websites just so you can participate. Article19 is a member however and when we left a comment on a story about their re-design it turns out that nobody else can see it. Perhaps the comment is awaiting moderation but there was no indication that this was happening and several hours later the comment still had not appeared. Our online profile indicated that the comment was submitted and we can edit it, but nobody else can see it, so what's the point?
You can also submit your own auditions, notices and jobs to the member section of the site. We don't have any auditions or jobs but we did submit a notice promoting Article19 (naughty we know but this is a test, Ed!). You simply fill in relevant details on the form and hit submit to add it to LD.com's system. Trouble is that didn't work either and produced an obscure VBscript error (the language that controls the websites interactive 'features'). So no points there. We didn't check the auditions and jobs systems.
Audition listings, perhaps the most often accessed part of any dance related website, because dancers want jobs, has also been overhauled. All jobs are now presented in a single, searchable, screen so positions for administrators and all other dance related employment are now mixed together. You can see just a listing of auditions by selecting 'type of work' from the drop box and hitting search without entering anything in the search text area but this is obscure and goes against the principles of simplicity and usability that should be the cornerstone of any website.
Overall the re-working (a re-design is perhaps stretching credibility here) makes the presentation of LD.com a little bit slicker but the fundamental problems remain. The site does not produce one single bit of original content unless they are directly promoting a show at Sadler's Wells theatre (or the Peacock).
A recent Blog about BDE 06 was the last time we noted anything approaching original writing on the site. Parroting news stories from news papers, which are often dire reading in themselves, is not 'news'. Verbatim reproduction of press releases is also not news, that's hi-tech photocopying.
The video material is still short, badly encoded and presented within a blank browser window with no branding or indication about what or where they came from.
Couple all of that with the technical problems and LD.com comes across as a website designed by people who know nothing about design (Winona E Solutions) and written by people that could care less about dance. Still lacking is an overall identity that can only come from the writers (who are non existent) and as a publication it still lacks a voice and position relating to anything in dance.
[Update: It appears that although the site reports a VBscript error upon submission the entry is actually posted to the site within the noticeboard. It does work but the site reports that it doesn't. Website URL's are mangled however and do not work.]
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