http://www.cinemaconsultantsinternational.com/
For this website review I have decided to go slightly further a field to a website which is for a company based in America, Pittsburgh to be precise. However, this not an issue for the content of the site.
Cinema Consultants & Services International site is for a company who claim that they can custom design and build bespoke cinemas right across the world (they list America, Asia, Europe and Middle East as clients).
The site is easy to navigate, although it uses the rather old fashion web design technique of using frames, which these days has almost completely stopped. However, it is straightforward to find the relevant section which you are after. The home page looks like it is a site map, but it is slightly confusing because not all the sections headings are the same as on the main lefthand menu. It is a shame that the headings don’t direct link to the relevent sections either as this would make life easier. At the bottom of every page is a link to all the pages, which is another form of good navigation and means that if the browser is unable to view the frames.
In reality there is very little content on the site, apart from the ‘About Us’ section, most pages are made up of a couple of photographs, headings and some links. But it is these links which is one of the main reasons for picking this site for this months ‘Web Watch’. For instance under the ‘Projection & Sound’ section there are headings for ‘Film Projection Equipment’, ‘Sound’, ‘Lenses’, ‘Dimmers & Automations’, ‘Racks & Speaker Mounts’, ‘Projection Booth Supplies’. Under each heading there is a list of different manufacturers for the section, with a link to a site. Most manufactures have links. This acts as a very good directory for finding information.
Under the main heading of each page is an option to request more information which links to the ‘contact us’ page. This is a very professional looking webform which you fill in with details.
The site makes good use of metadata.
Download Times:
| Connection Rate | Download Time |
|---|---|
| 14.4K | 43.31 seconds |
| 28.8K | 21.65 seconds |
| 33.6K | 18.56 seconds |
| 56K | 11.14 seconds |
| ISDN 128K | 3.41 seconds |
| T1 1.44Mbps | 0.30 seconds |
Navigation: ****
Good Design: *****
Updates: **
Overall: ****
Overall: At it’s heart this is a simplyt website which like many other sites has the simple job of adverrtising a company. However, what I really like about the site are the links to the manufactures and easy navigation so that you can easily find your way around and get to the section and topics you require.
Testing Information: This site is tested using a laptop at 1024 x 768 resolution running Windows XP, Firefox Version 1.0.7 and Internet Explorer 6 over a 512K Broadband connection. For the text only test Lynx on a Linux Server is used. A website entitled WebSiteOptimization.com is used to test the web site to calculate the download speeds.