2. INTRODUCTION
Uefa.com is official website of European football association. UEFA is union of European
football association and football‟s governing body. UEFA organises prestigious and famous
competitions which include UEFS cup, champion league, European football championship
and many more. The website is controlled and managed by UEFA and is known as heaven
for football fans. It represents international community of sports where football content is
placed in a very usable and useful style. For supporting users from different regions, the
content is provided into 12 different languages.
The website is under sports genre. It is a place offered by UEFA for sports fans for
community conference and news mosaic. The goal of website is to provide news, videos and
information about all football events conducted by UEFA. The website provides a place for
all football lovers where they can access all top news about football matches, records etc.
along with this the website also support community blog where users are given a chance to
share their views and discussion with other members. The website aims to popularise
football all over world. The website supports large numbers of videos of UEFA
competitions. The website also covers corporate activities which are carried at UEFA. The
management also help budding players to enhance their skills by providing learning modules
and other football initiatives through training section on website.
The URL for this website is http://www.uefa.com/. The protocol working for website is
hyper text transfer protocol i.e. HTTP. UEFA.com in its domain name system consist of two
records of name server, one record of address, two records of mail exchanger and I TXT i.e.
text record. The IP address for UEFA.com is 82.231.158.51 and location of which is United
Kingdom. The hosting company for website is RIPE Network Coordination Centre,
Amsterdam, Netherlands.
3. Body
Today every business is integrating its business processes with the information technology in
order to gain more business information and also to stay ahead and upgraded about the
current business trends. This integration also allows them to reach the customers and increase
the business. The field of sports is also not untouched from same and following these steps,
UEFA i.e. union of European football association gone online through their official website
uefa.com.
The website is created as per needs of football fans as they are primary users in this case.
Maximum number of fans cone in age group of 15 to 25 and so the website theme, colour and
layout is designed in order to please this group. The website due to features and services
provided to its users got honoured in 14th annual Webby awards under sports category. It
provides an access to more than 1800 matches played per year, over 12000 pages of players
and video and photos.
The home page is linked to 275 web pages out of which 6 are external links. When it comes
to raking in terms of traffic, UEFS stands on 11,142 ranks.
The chart above shows popularity of website in recent years.
Sitetrail states “On average, uefa.com is ranked #11,142 across major traffic ranking services
such as Alexa and Compete” [2012]
4. The important factors that are needed to be discussed for analysing this website are listed
below
Navigation & Shortcuts: navigations and shortcuts are provided in a website for
making navigation and access easy for users of website. The interface used in this
website if web interface which is no doubt a complex interface of all available types
of interface but for fulfilling requirement of website this interface suits the
requirement of users in best way. the navigation shortcuts provided to users are
o Search box: Search box is given on every page which helps users to search
content of website for example, searching content about a specific player.
o Pull down menu: The website headers consist of pull down menus where each
menu provides related options to each category.
o Hyperlinks: Hyperlinks are given as page footers to favourite and most
accessed pages. User can directly click on these links for navigating though
website.
Lynch, Horton (1999) states “A rich set of graphic navigation and interactivity links within
your web pages will pull users‟ attention down the page, weaning them from the general
purpose browser links and drawing further into your account”
The website is made easy by providing these navigational shortcuts to users. Site is
developed in accordance to fact that most of users can be from a non technical
background so navigation is made easier by these options.
Where am I?: The website uses a login and registration approach for authenticating
users. The website uses an ISP tracking system for collecting and remembering user
location for providing him services as per his taste. For example, user is given a
5. facility to select his favourite language which is remembered on his next visit which is
done by using „Who am I‟ feature.
Page headers & Page footers: Website headers and footers are arranged in a nice way.
An important point about website headers and footers is that they must be consistent
throughout the website i.e. each web page must have same setting of header and
footers.
Virtual Angel states “Each page in the website should look as if it belongs to the same
website” (2002:12)
In header section consists of search options and organization identity along with menu
options provided to user for easy navigation to other pages and sections. The footer
section consists of privacy policy, legal terms and copyright statement. Headers and
footers are very well arranged and are consistent on every page.
Lynch, Horton (1999) states “Headers are the most visible component of site
identity”.
Typesetting: As per other features, typesetting is also very important. The website
uses a hierarchical typesetting in which different heading styles are used. An excellent
way for organising text in used by developers. Typesetting used by website helps in
showing the content in a clear and attractive way.
Graphics & Colour: The colour combinations and graphics used are excellent. The
website uses a formal outline of colour scheme. The website uses a combination of
Blue and White. This combination is attractive and very efficiently links various
subjects and groups to each other. The website uses different colours which separate
the web pages on site into a columnar view with each column displaying different
content. A very relaxed and contemporary colour contrast is used.
6. Spritz web solution states “Don't overdo the color, as it can distract from the written
content”
IMPROVEMENTS
AS per my observations there is requirement of few updates/ changes on the website.
The navigation options provided in website must be extended. It must also include site
map which will help the users to easily locate and navigate.
The website also needs to have good spacing among the links. The website is too
congested with the inner spacing between the links is too less.
CONCLUSION
Uefa.com is official website of European football association and football‟s governing body.
The website is developed and provided in a good way so that it could suits to taste of football
fans. The website targets football lovers and all provide all services as per their taste and
needs. The colour combination is excellent and uses a formal outline, various navigational
shortcuts options are provided to user for helping them for easy navigation. The website is
developed excellently and can be given 9 out of 10 for features and services provided.
REFERENCES
SiteTrail, 2012. uefa.com. Available at http://www.sitetrail.com/uefa.com [accessed at 8 May
2012]
UEFA,2012. Uefa.com. Available at http://www.uefa.com/ [accessed at 8 May 2012]
Lynch, Horton, 1999. Web Style Guide. 3. Hyderabad. University Press Limited.
Virtual angel (2002:12).Top 10 features of top website design. Available at
http://www.virtualangel.biz/top_ten.html [accessed at 9 May 2012]
7. Spritz web solution, Does your website have what it takes. Available at
http://www.spritzweb.com/resources/good-website-characteristics.html [accessed at 9 May
2012]