Way Back Machine

Way Back

The site I choose for my analysis of an historical website was the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute located in Birmingham, Alabama. The museum is one of the only museum in the South dedicated to the preservation and promotion of African American History and struggle during the Civil Rights era.  I have toured this museum  in 2002 and 2007.  According to the Wayback Machine the earliest capture data of  Birmingham Civil Rights Institute  website is 2004.   The website design is very static like many of the websites during this time period. The  earth brown color scheme tends to throw me off.  I would have use more lively colors for my homepage design. As person who wears eyeglasses, I find the font to be rather small. I noticed the title of the museum is similar to the font size of  other links within this site.  The cover page and most of the formatting remain the same from 2004-2009.  I was generally surprised to see that. However, in 2010 the site made some radical changes which reflects its current look.

The new site address many of my criticisms  of the  earlier productions of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute  webpage.  Immediately you notice the color scheme is more vibrant and the font is slightly larger.  I think the web designers could make the website  title larger.  Also a noticeable change you will see  is the use of flash technology within the website. The flash technology creates movement within the site which is appealing and captures your attention.  The exhibition section has dramatically improved since 2004. This section now has more of a visual appeal because more emphasis is place own showing  the categorizations of exhibits through images verses a lot of wording which appeared in 2004-2009.

Overall, the improvements  reflect more of what you actually see when you visit the museum. If you like southern history, then  visiting this museum should be on your to do list.