Muse webpage analysis

Like for the kings of leon webpage, i will start from the top and work my way down. However there are some things which move when you scroll downwards or sidewards so I will first analyse these moving parts.

The first one of these moving parts is the banner which is not only at the top of the site under the muse logo but is also copied at the bottom of the page aswell. This is the part which moves as you scroll down or up or side to side, it is always visable at the bottom of the screen. It is also slightly see transparent (see through) so underneath the white you can see what is behind it. The other moving part is the background image of a city skyline, with two very tall buildings in the foreground, with features in the background hard to make out. The moving background is very unconventional of websites as a whole, I cannot think of another website with a moving background.

Right the first thing at the top which I have already mentioned and alluded to is the bands logo. Not only does it tell people the name of the band, it has become synonymous with the band. It appears on all of their albums, i know this as I have them and also appears on most of their singles. Underneath this is the top banner (news, tour dates, media player, discography, images, members, forum and shop) which is just a simple white text on a grey box background. These are pretty common banner titles, as like the Kings Of Leon website. It also has a become a member and a sign in link to the right. This is also very conventional.

Under this to the left is a image of part of their cover from their most recent album. The purpose of this is for the top image, similar to our band photo on our webpage or the Kings Of Leons' band photo. Over the top of the image at the bottom of it there is a transparent text box over the top with the top news story inside it. The main body of this is in red so it stands out. Underneath is a link to view 'more info'. To the right of this is what appears to be a video player, but in fact it is not, it is just a link to the media player page. They purposely make it look like a video player with the play logo over the top of the image.

Following this the layout becomes apparent with the use of 3 banners, a big one in the middle which covers latest news, twitter and news from the web. Its interesting to see that they keep twitter news seperate even though they cover the same topics as the normal news section does. It also appears that the band do not embrace web 2.0 as they spend minimal amount of time on social networking sites as the dates for the twitter bit are quite old and there is no mention of other social networking and digital technology sites. However having links to other third party websites suggests the opposite. It is just a surprise there is no mention of facebook, youtube et al.

In the left column there is a section to register for the mailing list and to become a website member. Also there is a section headed 'latest tour dates' which features the next five gigs and whether they have been sold out or not. In the right banner there is the media player link which I have already talked about and underneath this there is a images section, with a continuous looped rolling flash video showing a few of the best images. Each one of these images is clickable which then takes you to a dedicated page for that photo. Following this is a comment section showing the three most recent comments by website members. Under this is a sort of rolling fact section which tells you how many photos are on the site, total number of comments and how many users, which in my opinion is a very cool feature. Finally in the bottom right hand corner there is a shop section with a link to the shop as a whole. Again, like the media player link which looks like an actual embedded video player, this looks like it has the top merchandise and a link to each of them, but not so.

Overall I think this website is a bit different. In a way it is the wrong way round, they have managed to carry off some very tricky and detailed features like the moving banner and background but then have not included some simple things like a embedded video player and seperate links for the seperate items shown in the shop section. It is still easy to navigate and is very pleasant to look at.