iVillage Community Conference Website

www.iVillage.com

An example of a community conference website is iVillage.com. This site seems to be primarily for women and it offers a great number of resources on many different topics. For some reason, the logo for iVillage reminds me of Chick-fil-A.

Other than that, iVillage's website reminds me of a women's magazine: clean, organized, and easy to read and use, with a bit of personality and flair. By signing in, you have access to message boards, newsletters and community toolbars. Prompting you to sign in or join now is an excited looking woman at the top left of the page. The iVillage logo is in the center and a large search bar is on the right. My thoughts about the large search bar: either they want to emphasize that you can search the website and it's convenient and quick or they just slapped it on there and didn't think about it and it's a bit dominant. To end the header is a navigation bar featuring links to the main categories of: "Pregnancy & Parenting," "Beauty & Style," "Home & Garden," "Entertainment," "Go Green," "Food," "Health & Diet," and a drop down menu of "More iVillage." The "More iVillage" menu features things such as "Love," "Wedding," "Newsletters," "Free Stuff," "Coupons," "Astrology," "Momtourage," "NeverSayDiet," "iVillage UK," and "GardenWeb." As you can see, this is an extensive website made for people to communicate and learn about various and diverse subjects.

Much like a news mosaic site, iVillage features a section beneath the header with "Today's Big Story" and "Six More Not to Miss," articles related to the main story. Right beneath the blurb on the big story is a question and a place to vote. The next section down on iVillage's home page (on the left) is called "Daily Clicks" and it's supposedly what is most popular on the website. Featured are various items such as a video, a link to purchase something online, several popular articles, and a section of "today's free advice." To the right of the "Daily Clicks" section is a section called "What's New With You" that features community photos and several different discussions on different topics (with links and comments). At the bottom of iVillage's home page is a list of "iVillage Shortcuts" that includes links to "iVillage Makeovers," "Pregnancy Calendar," "Message Boards," "Small Business Stories," and "Baby Name Finder." I'm not really sure why they picked some of those in particular. I would've assumed that they would repeat the main links from the top to be featured in their shortcuts section. Beneath that are links to several different topics on iVillage that are featured in a column list format. Next to that list is a list of links under the category of "NBC Universal." It features things such as NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC New York, Universal Studios, Access Hollywood, Bravo, Oxygen, USA Network and SyFy. Finally, at the bottom of the page are links to websites that are part of the iVillage network.

Clicking on one of the main links at the top, such as "Food," brings you to a page similar to the home page. The top section is a refreshing taste of consistency because it is exactly the same as it was on the home page with the sign in area and the links and ferocious search bar. There are links for the food section on the left. Today there are four featured articles that automatically play on a loop, though you can pause them or go back to one you wanted to see. There is a different blurb and a fixed set of links with each featured article. There are food videos and message boards and even a section for live message board conversations. The ad space on the right features ads mostly relating to food and even contains some of the websites or companies iVillage networks with. In the food section, there is an iVillage shopping link with food and kitchen related products featured. Near the bottom of the page are links to things "you might also like" as well as "seasonal spotlight" articles. After sponsored links and another ad, you see the same links at the bottom as were on the home page, minus the short cuts.

All-in-all, I think the iVillage website is a useful community conference website because it is clean and organized, yet manages to hold a lot of information on many different topics that are important to average people. It has a user-friendly layout, much like reading a magazine, but without the often pesky and difficult-to-interpret table of contents.