PROFILING THE UNEXPLAINED: REVIEW 073

Stepping away from Investigation groups for a bit now we have PROFILING THE UNEXPLAINED. Its going to be hard for me to find fault with this site as there has obviously a fair bit of thought put into it. The stories and content are great and not just a copy and paste of what you see on so many other site. The logo and color scheme really sets the mood.

Now I'll try to point out some issues:

• The fonts need to be consistant. When you look at the Poe article its in times when the previous is in helvetica.
• The Gallery is listed under the Forums top button and that seems a bit strange?
• "Investigation at Haunted Lexington Mansion" on the right is misaligned with the box behind it.

Basically some little bits are just being let go and while most wont notice (or care) they are simple fixes and worth doing.

The multimedia section is very good and has loads of content - not surprising for a 3 year old site. Maybe if they videos could be catagorized it would help those who dont have as broad an interest as t his site caters for?

THE PARANORMALIZERS REVIEW: 8/10

Hawaiian Island Ghost Hunters: REVIEW 072

Hawaiian Island Ghost Hunters, I'll try to remain fair but the fact they get to live in Hawaii and I don't might swing against them!

Anyway, straight into it. Well first off I love the name (HiGH) and the main logo (see below). The site itself has some good qualitys but needs a bit of attention to bring it up to the standard I believe the team is at when it comes to investigations. Here are some things that need fixing:

• On some pages the links are on the left hand side and then at the bottom on others - keep the left side buttons. Consistancy of design/layout is VERY important.
• The top banner is 717x509 - some websites are that size and its a pain to have to either scroll a lot or drag out the screen.
• Once you go to the members page none of the buttons on the left work.
• The equipment page seems a bit messy?
• Get rid of that background image on the forums - its only at the edge but its distracting!



On the plus side there are things I really like:

• The color scheme is cool, easy to read.
• I particularly like the Case Log section - its very well done.
• The copy/content of the site is well written and puts the "feel" of the group across well.

THE PARANORMALIZERS REVIEW: 6/10

PRAB: REVIEW 071

The Paranormal Research Association of Boston, I'm glad I held of doing this review as the group has grown considerably in the last month of so. Obviously Boston has been crying out for a group of this sort as they have picked up 5 or 6 new members in that time.

Like its sister site PRAI it is a clean, no nonsense site with only a few minor tweaks needing some attention:

• The team images on the front page are on the large size and scaled, this is causing a slow load.
• On the News page some of the text is running off the edges of the template.
• Something is missing, I'm not sure what but maybe a podcast or similar would bring in the human element that this site lacks.

The imagery on the site isn't the best by any means but at least they arent over doing it and the well written content makes up for it. They avoid the gawdy and cliched that so many other groups rely on to draw people in.

THE PARANORMALIZERS REVIEW: 7/10

QVP: REVIEW 070

Quabbin Valley Paranormal, I learn so many new place names doing this blog!

There is a lot on this website, possibly too much? It took a while to load any of the pages and my connection is far from slow. So much of it is animated gifs and poor quality images that I'd like to see these guys strip it down to nothing but text and really look at what is needed. By all means bring some personality into it but in this case "less is more".

I suppose some of it might stem from the fact its one of the biggest groups I've ever come across. It might be a case of everyone having a little input but its spoiling what could be a good site.

The pages they have are good but surely 18 pages can be condensed a bit? You see a couple of pages for requesting an investigation so there is unnessecery overlap. The equipment pages really says it all when you look at the fact that this guys have every piece of kit you'll ever need (and not need!). If all that is used on a typical investigation them they must spend most of the night setting up and most of their cash on batteries. It wouldnt be so bad if the images of the equipment were good but its all bitty and jagged edges.

The team appears to be made up of folks from emergency services, its hard to criticized great people like that but this site requires some attention ... stat!

THE PARANORMALIZERS REVIEW: 4/10