Forbes Traveler ranks Temple Square the 16th most visited tourist attraction in the United States. The original Forbes Traveler write-up says the following (with credit given to the LDS Newsroom): “The Mormon church’s headquarters are here, but Temple Square is more than just a destination for Latter Day Saints. In 2008, visitation to the square, which is festooned with lights for the holiday season, numbered around five million, making it Utah’s top tourist destination.”
The Visit Temple Square Web site (visittemplesquare.com) provides information for both individuals and group tours, explaining all the free things you can do on the 35 acres of Temple Square. It has a walking map of Temple Square with links and information on events, attractions, food, news, services and tours for your visit to Temple Square.
I love the idea … but find the execution horribly sophomoric: the lovely Dowdle picture is a bad, high-contrast scan; there’s no real invitation to mouse over the picture — but when you do, the hover states are uninformative and unattractive; the ad/banner in the upper right corner sports illegible, 80s-era Relief Society script; and the bib ( the central content space ) is just floating there — like the page didn’t properly load. To add insult to injury, the navigation is heavy (how many options do we need?!) and doesn’t appear to be well conceived … is “contact us” really as important as “tours”? And where’s the twitter link — and why isn’t “news” an RSS-enabled blog?
I’m sorry … but this is not ready for prime time. LDS.org set the standard — and this site is several drafts away from even being close.
I guess I should have stated above that this site was built by the Temple Square Hospitality Corporation, a Church entity, but is not an officially-run Church site (built by the Church).
I would agree with Silus. An OK site but not up to the standards we normally see. It is tough to read the typeface and difficult to navigate.
Isn’t that an older site? I could be wrong, but I think the design (or something like it) has been around for quite some time.