As this blog is titled Extra Sensory Perceptions, it seems fitting that this post would be about perceptions--of good and bad content, architecture and design. My perceptions of these blogs have developed for over a year and these are both sites that I check somewhat regularly.

Instructables
I really don't know anymore how I found this site, but I love it. Just as GeekDad would appeal to the Star Wars-loving, child bearing man, Instructables' content appeals to the do it yourself, make fun and random things you never knew how to part of me. Its content is a mix of a DIY magazine and youtube. Many users submit how-to guides for basic projects like food recipes, all the way to advanced tutorials on building, and even strange things you never knew you could do. Want to make delicious-looking chocolate covered strawberries? There's an instructable for that. Want to be the next big superhero who fights crime with a trusty net gun? They've got that covered too. The instruction pages do vary, but are typically easy to follow. Project steps are individually available and often contain pictures and/or videos that help. Browsing projects can be accomplished through categories at the top, and searching for a specific instructable is also easy. Some visitors might not particularly enjoy the color scheme (orange! whoa...), but I liken this critique to the Perez Hilton discussion where I personally don't like his pink as it clashes for me. I really don't see a stylistic problem with Instructables though. At times a viewer might be overwhelmed because there are many parts to pages--particularly the home page. But it's all easily understood. With its unique content, easily navigated archictecture, and a design I enjoy, Instructables earns a big thumbs up from me.

Guster
Perhaps it occurred to you that the topic of this post is to review both a good and bad site, yet I said that I visit both of my choices regularly. This would seem confusing, unless it's an official source of information, as is the case with the band Guster's website. I love these guys. They're poppy enough to hold my attention, but they maintain an air of "other-ness" that keeps them from being so popular that I'd have to pay $50 just to go to a concert. If only their website had a fraction of appeal that the band does. About once every few weeks, I visit Guster's site to check out how their new album is going, or to hear about their tour through their road journal, or to check for new tour dates. The site itself does in fact offer all of these things, but in a very poorly executed way. A trip to the site first presents a visitor with a nice picture of the band recording in the studio, with the option of checking out the studio journal, entering the site, or "appearances" which is presumably tour dates. Clicking on the studio journal link takes you to some blogging apparatus called Tumblr, which functions well enough. But clicking the other links takes you to their "real website" which is confusing, busy, and not always full of the information you might want. At the top is a Flash...thing. I don't know what to call it. You can play with little people and a lizard, and make something grow out of a mountain, all by clicking, but there's not much of an experience here. Hidden on the right of the Flash area in the "bonus" area is a music player. This is nice and expected for a band's website these days, but I would prefer it be more central. This is a band after all.

There are links in the Flash area that will take you to important areas...or they are at least potentially important. Tour and Events are two seperate links, and the difference cannot be surmised from looking at them, and the "Links" area is a mess of mostly useless, often no longer functioning, many times irrelevant website links.

There is a daily poll that has never changed from "Guster vs. Sun" (an allusion to their most recent album).

There are also links on the left, below the Flash area, which allow you access too "road journal," "guslog 2.0," and "studio journal."

Basically, there's a lot going on here. The content is decent. As a fan of the band I do return, because there is no other source for some of this information and I know it to be regularly updated when news is available. But the architecture and style of the site leave much to be designed.
A resounding "what's going on here" for guster.com.