First, here is a link to the site: Lonely Planet
The review:
Description: This web site supports The Lonely Planet, a web site with all types of travel information for independent world-wide travelers.
Form: The site is consistent througout, uncluttered looking and uncomplicated. While it does make use of graphic images, they are not extremely large and slow loading and there is an option on the home page to use a text only version of the site. The pages then remain plain text to guide you to various parts of the site until you reach the end of the branch of the subject you are working towards. At that point you are then presented with the information you seek in the same form you would have been shown had you not navigated to it through the text-only path of pages. There is also a distinctly noticeable lack of the use of frames, almost completely. At first I thought frames were not used anywhere in the site, leading me to believe this was an intentional design choice, for simplicity and ease of access. I eventually found one page that did use frames though. This leads me to believe that the web masters may just be slow and careful about implementing them. I have encountered plenty of sites on the web now that have options for both framed and unframed versions of their pages. For web masters to be going out of their way to do double duty and maintain two sets of pages, it's got to be saying that while frames have positve benefits, there are still drawbacks or other issues that they raise that make them unfavorable enough to people viewing the site to give them an option to avoid them.
Content: I think the content of this site is extremely useful if you are an independent traveler, especially internationally. In fact, this site is a good example of what the web can do best. It provides a place for random individuals throughout the world, regardless of who they are or their relative prominence or obscurity among the entire population, to instantly post time sensitive information in a forum that can be easily found and read by anyone else on the planet with access to the web. On this site you can find a history of recent reports voluntarily submitted by random world travelers about current travel conditions and tourist destinations all over the world. You can also find reference information about traveling to all of the seven continents. You can find links to related web sites and you can find out how to purchase hardcopy guides and information published by The Lonely Planet. You can find information about maintaining your good health in a variety of ways while traveling to places on the planet where health and hygiene are nothing at all like what we are accustomed to in the 'civilized' world. You can find pictures taken by travelers of places throughout the world and submitted for posting on the site. It's a great way to get information about where you might be interested in traveling from people with the same objectives as you. Have a good time and see and learn new things about new people and their cultures.
Tools: This web site uses simple HTML, tables, forms, animated .GIF's, Javascript and *very* limited use of frames.
Appeal: For it's intended viewing
audience I think this site is very interesting and packed with a lot of
useful information and features.