Author: cmust814

Thesoupkitchen.com is a website for a small franchise of restaurants in Tennessee who seek to break away from the typical fast food market by focusing their menu on Soup, Salad, and Sandwiches (but mostly soup). Their website is simple and straightforward: A grey textured background resembling stone borders a white rectangle where the menu and the information for one of the few pages sit, giving it a hearty and homemade feel. Fixed above, and right aligned with the box sits several links to several of their locations, which when hovered over changes text color from white to red and creates a drop down menu where one can find out pretty much anything they’d wish to know, such as what’s on the menu, directions, job applications, contact, and more. If you click direction on the city it underlines the text, which is the only really indication of where you are at in the site asides from the headers, and takes you to a summarized version of each section, along with some pop-up links to social media links where you can read tweets, like on Facebook, and see pictures of their locations on Flickr. While a majority of the text changes with each page, a search bar and list of soups always remains underneath a changing picture of a soup of some sorts. Though a little inconvenient and a little confusing (for such a small and focused site what would someone need to search for?) whenever used it brings up pretty much the same list of information as above, just in a vertical format.

 

While The Soup Kitchen may have an impressive menu of soups that show a lot of diversity, and a simple interface, the site for Soups of the Seven Seas is more fun and interesting to use. The main page features a table spread much like what you’ll find at our location: A big bowl of soup with floating noodles that take you to the menu page, a cell phone which vibrates when you hover over it to let you know how to get in touch with us, a loose polaroid picture to take you to the gallery (because who doesn’t enjoy staring at a nice hot bowl of soup), and much more to discover. When you venture to another page a row of bowls with the name of each page it directs to (and a little blow of steam coming from the one you’re currently on) sits above a white box which holds the information for the page, surrounded by an orange back ground which gives off a warm and appetizing appeal. Though after the main page soupsofthesevenseas.com gains a more simplistic appeal, it navigates efficiently making it easy to get around so anyone can find out whatever they need to know in just a few clicks!

Six Penn:

From the homepage the website features a single columned, multiple row layout centered beneath a directory banner which holds links to the key pages of the site, along with the name of the restaurant in the center, and their logo on the far left side, both of which function as links back to the homepage. The first link is for their “Menus”, which like all the links when clicked turns green in order to let the user know where they’re at on the site; beneath the banner is a list of their different menus (starting off on their more sought after, dinner) which like the banner above is centered on the page and remains highlighted to let one know what they’re looking at. Beneath the subdirectory are the hours that each menu is served, so there’s no confusion as to when the restaurant switches over to the next meal, and a stacked list of all the available options, organized by each course. The site continues to keep the same clean format of keeping each section neatly organized and centered beneath the top banner, subtlety keeping track of the location by highlighting the section, without any confusion of what each link will bring. It’s very straightforward, and easy to navigate, making it easy to find all the information you could want to know about the establishment in just a few clicks.

 

Butcher and the Rye:

The website for the Butcher And The Rye restaurant is a single paged site stylized in a very contemporary and rustic single column fashion. The top of the page reads as a billboard for the site, listing the different sections that the page will cover; however, when you scroll over the different listings they turn red, signaling a link which takes you down to that section to avoid the massive amount of scrolling it would take to reach the bottom, and engaging an overhead directory which will take the user to each section to continue to make the page faster and easier to navigate. Though if one did choose to scroll down the whole page they’d be treated to a variety of bold type treatments telling what the restaurant has to offer, such as the enormous variety of bourbon they have stocked, and an illustrated chart of all the different beefs one could have, all which act as a header for the section right below it. The site is simple and transitions well from one part to another, keeping itself contained amongst each frame. Though there isn’t any color indicator in the header to keep one sure of where they’re at, each section is boldly labeled and accompanied by a complimenting image which easily tells where one’s at, unless they’re completely ignorant to the design.

 

Most Effective:

While each site is simple and straightforward to use, it’s felt that the website for Six Penn Kitchen is more effective. Though it features more pages, and less graphic elements which embellish the atmosphere of the restaurant it has a better sense of contrast and placement that keeps the user sure of where they’re at and where they’re going. The color scheme for the Butcher And The Rye is consisted of a nearly black background with gray type over, which though sets a mood, is also difficult to read in some places. Though it’s easy to discover, it’s not obvious that the listings in the top header are actually links to the different sections, and they aren’t organized in the same way that they are on the rest of the page, or the header that appears after it’s out of sight. Even though it’s a simple graphic organizer meant for quick navigation for the site, it’s a tad peeving that things aren’t listed in the right order. The site for Six Penn is right to the point, what you click is what you get without the feeling that you’re skipping over something that you might have wanted to see first. All of the headings and important information are highlighted in green and bolded if not bigger than the accompanying text, which helps pops out for the dark gray background for quick and painless navigation through each page.

Winnersplaylist.com/grammys is a magazine styled site listing the winners of the2015 awards show. The design is very simple, but in it’s minimalistic approach holds a touch of elegance and class. The top of the page holds the logo for the site, which holds the boldest color for the site, along with the winner for the “#RecordOfTheYear”. From there it splits into 3 columns which continue down until all of the awards have been filled; it seems that with each row the awards progress from the most notable (or the ones people would care the most about) to the ones that were more than likely not aired during the ceremony. As there’s no real functionality to the site other than the option to play an audio link to the winner of each listed category it’s easy to use, but the seemingly unorganized positioning of the listings makes it a bit annoying to search through. The images are dull, and tend to blend into the pure black background, which adds to the sort of mystery to them before their reveal, but when scrolled over only the text beneath them brightens to the same gold as the header to give evidence to the fact it’s a playable link. The objects are fluid with the dimensions of the page, and as you expand it they get wider, distorting the images within them, and contorting them to nearly unrecognizable shapes if gone too far. In terms of simplicity and purpose the site is well put together and accomplishes it’s purpose, but in terms of handling and navigation is a hassle and annoyance, as it remains flat and not dynamic throughout the time on it. If it wasn’t for the fact that part of it was somewhat interactive it’d be the more interesting just to Google who won what.

Much like Etsy, but for musicians, Reverb.com is an online marketplace that allows individuals to buy and sell new, used, and even homemade musical instruments and accessories for just about anything one might want to (or can) play.

From the start, the webpage is well organized and easy to navigate: In the header of the page next to their logo is the search bar and links for their blog, login, and if I’d like to sell something; the header stays at the top of the page as you scroll, making it easy to search for something if you remember what you want at a time when it’s not convenient to click on another link. The top of the home page is dusted with a few ads for different parts of the site such as deals, sales, and interesting products they have to offer. Scrolling down a bit, one finds a grid of various products that they have to offer, lined to the side with a category box narrowing down the types of items they carry (guitars, amps, drums, folk instruments, etc…); followed by a list of brands throughout the site for those looking for something more specific, and another which filters the year the product(s) were made, for the more enthusiast types.

I’m in the market for a delay pedal, but aren’t too sure of any brand or type, so I scroll down to the categories box and select “Effects & Pedals” knowing that’s where I want to start looking. I’m then redirected to page similar to that of the home page, but with the grid to the side focusing solely on pedals, and the different kinds listed beneath my initial selection in the categories panel. I click on “Delay” and am taken to another gridded page showing the different delay pedals they offer; I click on a Boss DD-7 as it’s one of the first on the page (and one I’ve been looking into), and am taken to a page that shows me pictures of the product the seller has posted, details about it that I might be interested in knowing, and options to buy, make an offer, contact seller, and so on. I click “Add to Cart” and am redirected to a page that gives me the option to either finalize my purchase, or continue on shopping; I click on the logo in the header and return to the home screen.

As described in the reading for a functional and well-designed site, navigating Reverb.com was effortless and near thoughtless. Everything was organized in such a way that getting to where I wanted to go was literally just a few clicks away. There weren’t any confusing hard to understand headings, series of listings that had nothing to do with what I wanted, just straightforward and to the point navigation.