This will page will give links to a variety of pages with information on basses or with basses for sale. The best site was 'The Contrabass Shop'. It had all pertinent information on basses available and also included other bass related information that proved to be a good read. The worst site had to be 'Chesapeake Bass'. I believe a business website reflects on the character of the business. Their site was ugly, messy, and obviously didn't have much effort put into it.

The Acoustic Bass Shop	Site contains contact information and an overview of services/products offered. Pictures of a selection of basses are also available.Load time is efficient. Although no scrolling is needed on most pages, the links are buried within long paragraphs. It would be easy to miss the links unless the entire paragraph is read. Graphics are adequate but nothing is oustanding. - C
AES Bass	Site contains a wealth of information about AES fine instruments, services offered, links, etc. Load time is efficient. The site is easy to navigate with no scrolling needed except on pages where content merits it. The site contains many pictures of basses for sale, the shop where repairs are done, etc. The links and banners are well thought out and clean. -A
Animato	Site contains contact information and a brief overview of services and products offered. Load time was a bit slow even high speed connections. The page required lots of scrolling on the first page. There were no other separate sections. The graphics show promise if only the page had more content. - D
The Bass Church	Site contains contact information, an overview of services offered, a history of the business, links, and a calendar of events. Load speed is very fast given the number of images. The site uses frames with easy to read buttons for links. Navagating is quick and simple. The page contains high quality pictures of basses so a potential buyer can get a good idea of what they are looking at. Buttons and banner images are clean and unobstrusive. - A
The Bass Garden	Site contains a wealth of information. Inventory, links, contact information, etc. is provided and easy to find. The page loads quickly. The site uses frames so it is easy to navigate. Scrolling is rarely needed and is usually only on pages with large pictures of basses. The site's graphics are very clean and unobtrusive. Very large pictures of the basses are given. - A
The Bass House	Site contains contact info, current inventory, biographical data, etc. The page loads quickly. While the site contains a lot of information the navigation is either confusing or broken in many places. Most pages contain easy to use links at the bottom of the page but, seemingly at random, some pages do not have them. This makes navigating through the site quickly a real chore. Pictures of basses are not very big and are at such a low resolution not much can be determined about the condition of the instrument. All other images are useable but do not add to the page experience. - D
The Bass Place	Site contains contact information, inventory of new items, store history, etc. There are no listings for used items although they specify that they sell them. The page loads quickly. The site is fairly easy to navigate as long as the lefthand frame is used. It can become a bit confusing when looking through the inventory. Large pictures of new items for sale are given. The is not pretty but the graphics get the job done without being distracticing. - B
Basses by Joe	Site contains contact information and other information. The first page contains pictures and information on several basses but it is unclear if they are in stock or if they are just representative of the luthier's work. The only other thing the site has is a short list of "contruction points" from the lutheir. The page loads quickly, which can be expected by the lack of content. The page is easy to navigate given the lack of links. The image presentation is functional but does not add to the overall experience. - D
Bluett Brothers Violins	Site contains a plethora of information. Everything from pictures of instruments, to an faq, to a biography are shown. The page loads surprisingly fast considering the amount of content. The use of frames make the site easy to navigate. Images are very well done and clean throughout. Instrument images are very large. - A
Jeff Bollbach, luthier	Site contains contact information, pictures of the luthier's work, and some articles he has written. It would have been nice to have more in the way of pictures of his instruments but there are quite a few. The site loads quickly. Although the site doesn't use frames it is easy to navigate thanks to buttons provided on each page. The page has a very slick look with no distracting images. - B
Bryant Basses	Site contains contact information, biography, and pictures and information of the luthier's instruments. No prices are given on the site but it says to email or call. The site loads quickly and is easy to navigate. The page is fairly scant on images but what is there gets the job done. - B
Chesapeake Bass	Site contains contact information. There is basically one page of content and a page of links. The site loads very fast because there is nothing on it. Even though there are no the links the site still manages to require the user to scroll to get to the bottom of the page. What few images were used are repulsive. - F
Cincinnati Bass Cellar	Site contains all the normal areas including contact information, inventory, etc. The site does not have pictures for most of the instruments, only a few new ones. The site loads quickly. The site is easy to navigate with the use of frames. Only text links are provided. There are no real images other than the basses themselves. - C
Bobs House of Bass	Site contains mostly biographical data. It is a bit unclear whether anything is actually for sale or if this is just a personal site. The owner speaks of having over fourty five basses and gives contact information. The site loads quickly. There are only text links but there are several nice photos of basses. The page is rather ugly overall. - D
All Things Bass	The site contains biographical information, an inventory list, and biographical data. There is not a lot in way of the inventory. It is unclear if this is just a small store or that all of it isn't listed. The site loads quickly and is fairly easy to navigate with the text links. The page is rather ugly with very few graphics, although the bass pictures are quite large - C
The Contrabass Shop	Site contains a wealth of information ranging from contact information to very large pictures of instruments to a gallery of historic bass memorabilia. The site contains much more content than anyone would expect from a business site. The site loads quickly and is very easy to navigate with large buttons on each page. The large pictures of basses are very nice. A great site. - A
Cremona Asia	The site contains information on instruments available and contact information. Not many products are offered but what is offered has pages with a wealth of information and detailed pictures. The pages load quickly even with all the pictures. The site uses frames so it is easy to navigate and very little scrolling is required. There are quite a few images but they are not distracting and only help make the site look better. - B
Gallery Strings	Site contains all the usual information. There is not a whole lot of content because the store appears to be mostly sold out of instruments. The site loads quickly. Navigation is fairly simple with text links. There are a few images of the basses but none of them are at a high resolution. - C
Grahams String Shop	The site contains contact information and a short overview of the business. There is really nothing else on the page. There is a short listing of inventory but no condition or real information of the instruments is given. The site loads quickly because it is almost completely text. It is easy to navigate because there are only a few links. The site does manage to use buttons for links and the images are not distracting.-D
Guarneri House	The site contains a good deal of information about the business and instruments in stock. Unfortunately it has no pictures of the instruments. The site is easy to navigate with frames and loads quickly. It would have been nice to have pictures of the instruments. - B
Hammond Ashley Violins	Site contains a great deal of information on items available. It also contains the usual contact information and store info. The site layout is a bit confusing. It appears to halfway through a complete update. Some links lead to pages that look totally different than the main page. This is rather unprofessional. Also, only select instrument have low resolution pictures. The site does load fast though. - C

SITES EVALUATED ON CONTENT - LOAD SPEED - NAVAGABILITY - GRAPHICS
JASON STURGILL
25-Mar-2004