First off I have to comment on the beautiful photos on their front page.  These images alone make me want to take a weekend trip to this resort.  The colors are so clean and crisp I can imagine myself on top of the mountain breathing in the cool air.

Beaver Creek Resort in Colorado ranks third in the grooming of their trails  I think the photo to the left shows some of the beauty you’d see while skiing their slopes.

The page looks very well put together on the outside with a nice layout and use of their branding.  Let’s see how well they rank on my top three qualifiers.

Number one, how quickly can I see what the rooms look like.  This has got to be a top priority for any type of resort.  How quickly can I as a consumer rent a room or get time on a golf course or a pass for skiing at the resort.  This has got to be the main money maker for a site and it’s surprising how many sites don’t make this the main focus.

This one I’ll have to mark the site down on because it was a bit of a hunt and peck to find any information on the resort but ended with a surprise.   I couldn’t see right off anything that said lodging or something to that effect.  I started hunting along the main menu and finally found under Travel Plans and option for Lodging.  Then I was presented with still more options to pick from different locations.  This is difficult for someone who’s never been to any of the resort villages.  How do I know the difference?  After I made my way around I then noticed that if I scrolled all the way to the bottom there was a little area that blended into the background where I could search for a room.  While this functionality was there it’s hidden at the bottom and beyond the fold of my viewable area even though I have a large monitor and my browser was open 978px high.  I must say that this was a nice search feature when I did find it.  I was quickly able to see the properties and a price or price range for the property.

As for the ability to see a photo gallery, I think they’ve got this covered well as there is a great image that draws you into the photo gallery that includes videos, photos and web cameras.

If we review their site’s internal code it seems to be a hodge-podge of old and new styles.  They make use of CSS layout for some divs but then switch back to table-based layout with internal tag attributes.  This causes a number of errors both in the the HTML and the CSS which of course in turn have no option to be accessible and fails the accessibility test.

- 131 HTML errors
-4 CSS errors.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an B for form and a C function.

Today I found Sooke Harbout House, a little gem from the National Geographic Stay List. It’s beautifully situated near a jutting peninsula that I dear you to not walk once you’ve seen in lovely Victoria, Vancouver Island. This continues my recent infatuation with the many beauties all around Canada as of late.

The property and location look awe inspiring as do some of the enormous photos on the main page. I understand they want to convey the beauty of this site, but the image sizes are way overboard. This is especially important as the main site navigation is only visible below this image once you scroll to find it.

If we look a bit at the usability of the site to review the accomodations, rates and photo gallery, we’ll find that Sooke Harbour makes you work a bit to see the beauty of the property. The site is dated and a little scattered in it’s navigation. There’s also an annoying JavaScript alert that shows up each time I go to the main page to tell me that I need to update my Flash Player, even though I already did that.

First if we look at accomodations, there is a link for guest rooms. These rooms really do appear tranquil and each room has a magnificent view of the ocean harbor. When I click on this menu item I’m greeted by a high quality, but too large image of one of the rooms. The rest of the page has the booking engine and information sprinkled around rather haphazardly.

One item I noticed that must be a misguided attempt at search engine optimization is that not only on the accomodations page is the title “Ocean view accommodations, fine dining seafood restaurant, art gallery and spa on Vancouver Island, located 45 minutes from Victoria”, but
the rest of the site shares the same title as well. As I go throughout the site I would expect this to change and be varied for my bookmarks.
Rate information is the next item that I don’t seem to be able to find. It must be only available when you search for a room.

Last but in no way least important is the photo gallery. While there are breathtaking images in the photo gallery it’s not readily accessible from the main page and navigating through it is somewhat of a chore. First, we loose all the main navigation and links to the rest of the site (if you hunt and peck you’ll find a home link). Next it’s difficult to know how to scroll through the thumbnails as there are now forward and back directional arrows. A better layout would be for smaller thumbnails in a side by side view.

The menu for the different room types could use an overhaul as well as it’s not very usable to have to keep going to the various sections and hover over an area and then select a room. I’m just so eager to see the superbly decorated rooms I don’t want to have to work so hard to see them.

This site like the property has some amazing views, they just need to be put together better. If we next look at the code we’ll see it is out of date and needs to be updated. The code is deprecated and filled with errors.

- 140 HTML errors
-CSS passed.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an C- for form and a C function.

Last year my family and friends went on a trip to our family cabin in Idaho and we took a day trip into Yellowstone. It was a beautiful day and we stopped at many of the sites on the way to see Old Faithful.

It’s a rather nice drive as we go through three different states in a matter of half an hour to get there. We start out in Idaho, go through Montana and into Wyoming.

I got a few good shots, take a look.