Snowmass in Aspen, Colorad brings us to the number four spot on the top groomed trails.  While their resort may rate high on Ski Magazine’s list I’m finding it extremely difficult to find my way around their site.  One of the most disconcerting issues is the functionality of their web sites’ menus.  Once a menu is expanded the only way to get it to leave is to click on an item or expand another item.  It gives you an aweful sense of stickyness that is very frustrating.  I found on further examination that the menu’s do work just like Windows menus in that they stay expanded until you select another option or click off the menu.  I think the thing that causes the fingernails on the chalkboard for me is that typically a menu collapses once an item looses focus on the web.  One would think these more advanced menus would be more usable but I found them more frustrating and I just wanted to leave the site.  They just contribute to the already cluttered feeling of all the widgets in the main area.

Moving on let’s look at how easy it is to find the top three items on their website.  First off if I try to find a place to stay I do find an option in the first menu for a place to stay.  If I click on the lodging link I’m presented with a page of text and links that take me somewhere else.  This seems to be a common problem amongst some resort towns.  The lodging is so scattered that it’s difficult to present a unified interface to the public.  If I go thee levels deep all I find is contact information and no way to find what the lodgings look like and what it would cost me.

So while Snowmass seems to fail the first two tests of finding lodging it then makes up for it in their media area.  They have an extensive library of photos and videos of the mountain.  It’s fairly easy to find from the main page and they’ve gone to the work to have YouTube host their videos for them.  I think this is a great move on their part as YouTube foots the bill for the hosting and bandwidth of the movies.  It also gets their product out to the masses more by partnering with YouTube.

While I give them kudos for exporting their data to YouTube on the front-page they’ve added an iframe to do their work.  I noticed right off when I first went to the site that it took quite a while to load.  Not only are iframes bad for speed but they reak havic with usability issues as well.  A quick look at their validation will prove this.

- 25 Errors, 10 warning(s)
-1 CSS error.
-Failed accessibility test

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

One addendum I’ll write for the site is both a redemption and another strike.  I did notice that while I browsed to other secondary pages the menu started working as I expected.  I think the issue is that the front page is so big and slow that the javascript doesn’t have a chance to fully load before I would interact with the menu.  You can begin to see what an issue it is though from my first reaction to the site, it does become a usability issue.  In order to dig a bit deeper into their issue I ran YSlow on their main page and I see that there is a 774 Kb Flash file that takes about 24 seconds (around 16 coming from cache) to fully load on my high-speed connection.

In short, their site definatly needs some attention and to put their site on a diet to reduce the load time and improve the user experience.

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.

Coming in at number two on Ski Magazines best groomed runs is Mount Sunapee Resort in New Hampshire.  You can tell from spending just a few minutes on their web site that they’ve been around the block a time or two.  This is both good and bad.  It’s good because they’ve made it easy to find the information your looking for.  Within 10 seconds I was able to find lodging, photos of the lodging and how much it would cost me to stay there.  They have a nice selection of Bed & Breakfasts, Country Inn’s,  Hotels & Motels as well as Houses and Cottages.

The bad part about being around for so long is that the page looks dated.  There isn’t a freshness or attention payed to the detail of layout and branding.  Another dead givaway is looking into their code.  One of the first things that pops up is the Adboe Photoshop generated code for pre-loading images.  Then we start seeing the old and depricated table-based layout.  I must say though that I’ve seen much worse.  While they are using table-based layout it isn’t tortured by overbearing attributes, font tags and needless markup.  It is generally pretty clean code on the front-page.

There’s a lot of potential for this site as there are some beautiful surroundings but they are just not featured prominently enough.  There’s a lot of data on this site and it could be helped by giving it a good grooming just like they did for their ski trails.

- 61 HTML errors
-0 CSS errors.
-Failed accessibility test

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

Deer Valley was ranked by Ski Magazine as the number one resort for grooming.  Their site was created by Humaniz Interactive Inc. who has done a great job with the site.  The site looks very clean and appealing to the eye. You can easily see that they’ve put a lot of work into the web site and it wasn’t merely an afterthought.  They display some nice information for skiers like a countdown to opening day (Dec. 6th) as well as the current weather at the resort (59 ° and partly cloudy).  There are a few items they can improve on however.

My top three areas to look at for hotel/lodging web sites are:

1. How quickly can I see the rooms?
2. How quickly can I find the rates?
3. How quickly can I find a photo gallery of the resort?

There is a beautiful single picture when  you click on accommodation and lodging of a downy soft bed.  My hope would be that all the rooms look like this, but I’m really not sure.  It would be helpful to know what types of rooms are available.

The second part of this is what is the price or at least the price range so I know how many bones it’s going to cost me to reserve a room for the night.

Lastly is the photo gallery.  I couldn’t easily find a photo gallery to show me the property or things to do there.  One thing that may compensate for this is the Deer Valley TV.  This area looks a bit sparse but it does seem to show you video of the resort.

If we take a look inside the code they do have very modern semantic markup with tableless design.  There appear to be a few errors and they fail the accessibility tests.  These seem like fairly simple bugs that they could clear up rather quickly.  I’d say not only does this rate very high for grooming of their trails but the grooming of their web site as well.  This makes the Deer Valley Resort web site stand out from the others. Good job all around!

Lastly I’d just like to thank Emily and the staff at Deer Valley for being so accommodating in providing images for use here on the Half Nutlog.

- 3 HTML errors
-10 CSS errors.
-Failed accessibility test

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

This morning while I was sitting in the waiting room for my dentist I picked up a copy of Ski Magazine.  They had a great article with spectacular pictures of the Top 50 Ski Resorts for 2008-2009.  If you’re a ski buff or a photography buff I’d recommend going out to your favorite book store and picking up a copy.  They have the same rankings on their web site and some of the pictures, but the articles that go in-depth about each resort are well worth the price of the magazine.

Since we’ve already had the first snow fall I thought it would be a good idea to review the resorts web pages and see if their web sites match up to the ranking of their resorts.  Just seeing some of these resorts wrapped in a blanket of snow makes me want to check some of these places out.  Even if your not a big skier, you can’t help but be drawn in by some of these resorts.

Top Grooming

1. Deer Valley, Utah
2. Mount Sunapee, New Hampshire
3. Beaver Creek, Colorado
4. Snowmass, Colorado
5. Vail, Colorado
6. Okemo, Vermont
7. Sun Valley, Idaho
8. Bretton Woods, New hampshire
9. Mammoth Mountain, California
10. Sunday River, Main

Top Terrain Variety

1. Whistler Blackcomb, British Columbia
2. Mammoth mountain, California
3. Vail, Colorado
4. Jackson Hole, Wyoming
5. Squaw Valley, California
6. Alta, Utah
7. Big Sky, Montana
8. Snowbird, Utah
9. Sugarbush, Vermont
10. Sugarloaf, Maine

Top Challenging Terrain

1. Jackson Hole, Wyoming
2. Taos Ski Valley, new Mexico
3. Snowbird, Utah
4. Alta, Utah
5. Whistler Blackcomb, British Columbia
6. Squaw Valley, California
7. Mammoth mountain, California
8. Aspen Highlands, Colorado
9. Big Sky, Montana
10. Arapahoe Basin, Colorado

Top Lifts

1. Snowbasin, Utah
2. Mammoth mountain, California
3. Whistler Blackcomb, British Columbia
4. Deer Valley, Utah
5. Vail, Colorado
6. Snowmass, Colorado
7. Sun Valley, Idaho
8. Beaver Creek, Colorado
9. Squaw Valley, California
10. Schweitzer Mountain, Idaho

Top Resorts for Families

1. Smugglers’ Notch, Vermont
2. Steamboat, Colorado
3. Snowmass, Colorado
4. Tremblant, Quebec
5. Okemo, Vermont
6. Seven Springs, Pennsylvania
7. Deer Valley, Utah
8. Northstar-at-Tahoe, California
9. Bretton Woods, New Hampshire
10. Beaver Creek, Colorado

Top Resorts for Scenery

1. Wildcat, New Hampshire
2. Heavenly, California
3. Lake Louise, Alberta
4. Telluride, Colorado
5. Jackson Hole, Wyoming
6. Cannon Mountain, New Hampshire
7. Whistler Blackcomb, British Columbia
8. Aspen Highlands, Colorado
9. Bretton Woods, New Hampshire
10. Whitefish, Montana

Google has just unveiled it’s own web browser called Chrome.  It’s lightening fast and packs a punch from the novice user to the web developer.  It’s based on the same rendering engine that Safari is so if your site is working in Safari then you should be good to go.  If you need help checking though or would like to update your code for any reason just give us a call at 801-560-8812 or email us at sales@halfnutdevelopment.com.

Download the new Chrome web browser today to see if your site works and looks good!

Today I found The Wilderness Outpost at Bedwell River. The lodgings are in Tofino, B.C. and yet another stop on our trail through the great white north of Canada.

Just like Rockwater Secret Cover Resort the main lodgings are tents, but the tents are as immaculate on the inside as the outsides are common. What appears to be a common canvas tent on the outside is a lavishily adorned room on the inside.

What overshadows the beauty within the tent is the area around the tent. One look out the tent flap and you have a front-row to all the beauty that nature affords. The glass-like lake surrounded by wondrous mountains and the evergreen sentinels of trees make you feel as if your on the edge of civilization in some undiscovered territory. Red flannel shirts are optional.

- 174 HTML errors
-19 errors.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an C- 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.

The other day I had an email pop into my Yahoo account about a hotel called Viking. My first thoughts were of the old Norse sailors and a rough and tumble meager lodging. On discovering the Hotel Viking all my thoughts were changed.

According to the hotels web site, “The award-winning Hotel Viking situated atop Newport’s Historic Hill neighborhood with breathtaking views of Bellevue Avenue mix in your mind’s eye with sightings of notable guests gone-by. There have been a few, since 1926, Will Rogers, Ella Fitzgerald, John and Jackie Kennedy.”

“The Hotel Viking opened to an awestruck public in May 1926. As a member of the prestigious Historic Hotels of America, the hotel holds a special place in history. From the clock above the Front Desk depicting ancient Nordic Runes to the original 1926 brass letter box in the Lobby, the hotel offers a wonderful combination of style, comfort and modern amenities.”

This is a beautiful property with wonderful colors, patterns and textures. If we take a look at their web site we can see that someone has not only updated their lodgings, but their web site as well. They have moved to a more modern web development using semantic markup. While they’ve gone to this effort, they still have a number of errors to overcome to validate.

If we look a bit at the usability of the site (accomodations, rates and photo gallery) it was easy right off to find their link for rooms and suites, rates weren’t readily available, but they had a nice photo gallery of images.

- 58 HTML errors
- 203 CSS errors.
-Failed accessibility test

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