Category: ARTM2210 Intro to Web

For my last review, I chose Épicerie Boulud which is located on Manhattan’s Upper West Side at Broadway and 64th Street. This catering business/restaurant would definitely become competition with my group’s bistro, The Eurobean, because we serve similar foods and desserts. Our restaurant only serves breakfast and lunch while Épicerie Boulud breakfast, lunch, dinner, as well as alcohol. I definitely believe that The Eurobean would still do very well even though we just serve breakfast and lunch. When I first went to Épicerie Boulud, it was beautifully designed from the menus and display cases to the tissue paper used for the baked goods. Therefore, I was expecting the same setup for their website. That was not the case. Their website completely focuses on their catering business than their restaurant business. The homepage is clean, sharp, and modern but I was looking for more. On their navigation bar, they only show “Catering, Gift Boxes, Giftcards, Cookbooks & More, Corporate Gifts, and Locations.” I was expecting them to have at least an in-store menu which was disappointing. The dropdown menu for their catering section is kind of confusing since there is “Passover Catering” and “Corporate Catering.” Once you choose an option, it lists each food by breakfast, lunch, receptions, etc. One nice thing is that each different food has it’s own picture. In our website, we decided to have one picture as the background to simply showcase the food as well as keeping the navigation simple. Épicerie Boulud‘s color scheme is nice but I feel that The Eurobean’s is more eye catching and pops. Our website is simply and straight to the point while giving potential customers a fulling experience. Overall, I believe that our bistro will not have a problem with Épicerie Boulud in sales and customer competition. With our different assortment of foods from multiple countries and our fast “in & out” service, I feel that we, The Eurobean, will stand out and become a great place for customers to feel at home and eat delicious soups, sandwiches, and desserts while drinking our fresh coffee and iced beverages. By the words of Julia Childs, “People who love to eat are always the best people.“

La Gourmandine is an authentic French bakery with locations in Lawrenceville and also Mt. Lebanon, PA.  I believe that this bakery could be considered competition for our fusion restaurant, The Eurobean.  La Gourmandine has a sleek and clean website, with a very limited palette when it comes to color scheme.  However, the colors and fonts used on the site give the appearance of a modern and an upscale type of bakery.  The navigation and layout on the page is very similar to ours and also easy to use, with an about us page and also hours of the bakery located on the site as well as social media information.  Additionally, the site features a drop down menu with rollovers that make it very easy to know when you are able to click on something.  Similar to our website, La Gourmandine has up close photographs that make the viewer’s mouth water.  Compared to La Gourmandine, The Eurobean is a fusion bakery, showcasing all of the essential breads, soups, sandwiches, and pastries that different countries have to offer.  Our website uses an inviting blue color, as well as a sleek and simple logo that is also playful with the coffee bean illustration.  The more relaxed font and color scheme make the customers and viewers on the site feel that it isn’t expected to be high end or top notch, that they can come stop by for a quick drink or snack on their casual stroll through the neighborhood.  I think that the way our site is laid out is very user friendly and the navigation through the pages is simple enough for any user to understand.  The Eurobean homepage displays a carousel of photographs of items you may find in this fusion bistro.  These user friendly features and eye appealing layout and photos on the site will make The Eurobean stand out over the rest as a fusion bistro.

Piccolo Forno

The restaurant Piccolo Forno would be competition for our restaurant, as it is both located in Pittsburgh and is a higher class Italian eatery. The website has a good layout to it, the images and text fit nicely on the screen, with the image sitting the full width of the screen. On the home page it has a quick snippet of background information and scrolls down through links to the menu and finally ending with their hours. The color scheme works very well for their restaurant, with a deeper red, a green, and a cream. With the Italian cuisine and the typical Italian colors it works well, they are also very clean with adds to the classier feel. The navigation for the site makes the view flow from page to page. They have a navigation bar at the top with their logo to the far left that returns you to the homepage. The menu page is laid out very nicely with even spacing and it is easy to follow. The descriptions beneath the entree name is short but gives good information. With each individual heading only containing one page it makes it easy to navigate throughout the site, without drop down menus or a stack of pages to go through to find information. Compared to this site, I would say that ours is just as easy to follow. Though our menu does have a drop down in the navigation bar for individual menus such as wines/drinks/entrees/desserts. I would say that theirs seems a little bit more colorful and bright which would help keep the viewers attention, so that is something that we can change on our site. But something that will make our site stand out is that we do have a good amount of images to go with our site, with photos of our food, drink and location that run across the top of every page.

The biggest competition I see for our burger fusion restaurant is BRGR(brgrpgh.com), a burger restaurant located in 4 different areas in Pittsburgh. Their website is a combination of the colors orange and blue, which is a heavy contrast and makes the website pop in the viewer’s eyes. While the colors do make the website pop, i’m not sure if it’s the most pleasant-to-the-eye combination when on the site for an extended period of time.
BRGR uses a side navigation bar, which with certain buttons (specifically the EAT and DRINK buttons) will show text saying they are “handcrafted”. While the emphasis to their crafty food items is a plus, the pop-up text covers up part of the burger picture they display on their front page, which looks sloppy and at times hard to see. Besides the pop-up text, the overall navigation is clean and effectively stands out, as the buttons are blue circles against an orange background.
I enjoy the use of texture on BRGR’s website, it is mainly in an orange background image, which uses a speckled look, which makes the feel of the page more rustic.
Compared to our burger fusion restaurant page, we may stand out more because of our simple and serious layout that focuses on our end product (fusion burgers) and we also do away with any un-needed background music (unlike BRGR’s homepage page). It also goes without saying that our product with stand-out because we produce unique burgers with cultural combinations that do not exist in many places in Pittsburgh (and not at BRGR).
Our layout is straightforward with little guesses to where things are. We have a top navigation bar with drop-down menus for more detailed information and links, all without taking away from our images and product. Our website uses a more at-home color scheme that Pittsburgh knows (White, Dark Gray, soft Yellow) but also makes certain things pop-out to our customers that call for added attention, all this without added strain if on the page for a while.
The Burgh also has the chance to become part of a bigger community. The Burgh has a E-Club that supplies discounts as well as email exclusives to those that sign up. BRGR does not have this aspect on their website.

Our restaurant is called The Breakfast Swirl because it is a combination of all foods served on a breakfast menu. I found a restaurant that would compete with ours called The Funky Brunch Cafe. The Funky Brunch Cafe has a fun menu much like ours. They have an orange, green, and tan color scheme throughout the entire website. As it says in the reading, orange is a very active and energetic color which works perfectly in a breakfast restaurant setting. Green symbolizes growth, freshness, and hope, which is also a great color choice for the early birds. The Funky Brunch Cafe’s logo makes me feel sticky because of the words drawn in syrup but that too gives off a successful breakfast feel to the site. On the home page background lies a stack of pancakes. The home page is extremely simple yet gets the point across. The navigation is quite simple as well. The navigation is located at the top of the page and to the right of the logo. Once you click on a nav. button, the word lights up bright green. The Funky Brunch Cafe would be great competition for our restaurant because our main focus is offering customers a unique experience. I would like to see the prices of the menu items on their site. I also would like to see the greens that they use for the logo and the nav buttons be the same color green. The Breakfast Swirl will stand out because our buttons are a little different than most restaurants with the simple word as a button. Our site is just as simple layout wise. The Funky Brunch Cafe has a multi page menu and ours is only one page of everything our resaurant has to offer. I’d prefer to see everything on one page just to make it easier on the eyes. Our home page will definitely stand out because of the images that will be in constant rotation. Our navigation buttons look like actual round buttons which is rare. Both The Funky Brunch Cafe and The Breakfast Swirl are simple layouts but that’s what breakfast is all about. I think both websites are competitive and successful.

For my final review, I will be discussing Pizza Roma’s website (pizzaromamoon.net) and how it compares to my group’s restaurant, East Carson Bistro. First, Pizza Roma has their logo above a nav bar and has a photo slider. We plan on having a similar layout, but we are using a three column system in order to add space on the sides of each page for future information or advertisements. They also have a footer that contains business information, location, and legal statements. East Carson Bistro plans to have a footer with similar information. Pizza Roma appears to use a 2 column layout system with the left column being larger than the right column. An image is always at the top of the page showcasing the message or mood of the page. East Carson Bistro will be using a similar technique because we feel that this kind of layout quickly shows the viewer what information they will find on the current page.

They have persistent navigation, which is explained in Chapter 6 on page 66 in “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug. Persistent navigation is any navigation element that appears on every page such as Pizza Roma’s Home, Appetizers, Salads, Wings, Pizzas, etc. in the navigation bar. Some may even include drop down sections to allow the viewer to have a more direct search. On each page, they tell the viewer that they are on Pizza Roma’s website and that they can navigate to any page from any page. This is an important layout and navigation tactic that will be used on East Carson Bistro’s website.

Their use of warm reds bouncing against cool greys sets up a successful contrasting color scheme. Coincidentally, East Carson Bistro choose colors that are very close to the same tint of grey and pure tone of red. Their grey is more of a darker shade of grey whereas our grey tends to have more of a tint to it meaning that their grey has more black and our grey has more white in their tonal values (The Principles of Beautiful Web Design: Chapter 2: Color pages 50-51). It has been a persistent study in color psychology where warm colors such as reds, oranges, and yellows seem to stimulate hunger, anger, heat, and motion. These colors tend to be more stimulating and provide more engagement and interaction. We want our customers to be hungry, but in a controlled method, which seems to be what Pizza Roma did by having the red balanced with a dark grey that prevents the viewers of the site from being over stimulated or subconsciously aggravated (The Principles of Beautiful Web Design: Chapter 2: Color pages 50-51).

As for the texture on Pizza Roma’s site, the nav bar demonstrates color change when hovered over or clicked, which leaves it feeling very flat. They have a pattern of their logo repeating in the x- and y-axis in the background behind their content sections. The value of it is toned down so it does not distract from the content on each page. The only three dimensional feature would be the moon in their logo with an outer glow and slight drop shadow of the text (The principles of Beautiful Web Design: Chapter 3: Texture pages 95-98). Our logo is very flat and made out of typographic letter forms leaving a sharp texture from the thicks and thins of the letter strokes. It seems that Pizza Roma’s uses about three typefaces (not including the one in their logo) and each of them are a form of Sans Serif utilizing thick weight for bold headings and a thinner weight for more detailed content. It may be too many typefaces battling for their place to set the overall theme of the site. We plan to only have one type family with no more than three weights or versions such as bold, regular, or italic.

Pizza Roma has obvious hierarchy for their navigation. For my first time visiting their site, I can identify where I want to look for their salads, calzones, or contact information. I do not need to jump around to find information because it is clearly labeled on each and every page. Having the nav bar being persistent on every page helps the process of visitors heading straight to their desired information. I feel this site does not need bread crumbs because the site layout goes down to one to two level from the home page meaning it goes from the homepage to content pages and then across to other content pages like pizza to wings or back to the home page. There is only three instances where the dropdown feature of the nav bar brings up an additional page (ex. appetizers then desserts), but that is the only way to access those pages through the nav bar (Chapter 6 “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug).

East Carson Bistro will stand out as higher quality over Pizza Roma. We will utilize a similar layout of hierarchy with a photo slider and persistent nav bar. Our menus are simple in each section with a clear line to the price. Our photography and corporate identity will be the strongest part of our brand to make our site stand out. We believe having a strong structure for our identity and target audience would help give us a more stable plan for building our website and attracting web traffic.

–Katie Carlton

http://www.breadsbakery.com/

 

I chose to review the website of Breads Bakery in New York City. It is a small café that sells many types of bread, pastries, and desserts. This place would be competition for my group’s restaurant because we also focus on food like this instead of large meals. They are trying to achieve the same type of feeling as we are. A page of their website says “It fills us with satisfaction to feed and to host. Much thought is put into this – making it comfortable, pleasant, appetizing, aromatic, satisfying and abundant.”

 

Their website is a little dull for my tastes but it’s also quite busy. When you first go to it you aren’t sure where to look because there are so many things competing for your attention. Their logo at the top center of the page is one of the things that stands out the most since it is bright red against a light tan background. The only texture is in the photos of their food throughout the site. The dominant colors are the tan background and the same bright red that is used in the logo. Red also appears on their “passover menu” and “order online” buttons. It seems they use that color to draw attention to whatever services they are featuring at the moment.

 

Their contact and location info is at the top of the page where it is easy to find. Their navigation is simple and easy to read- they use a horizontal menu near the top of the page, and when you hover over each word, a drop down menu appears.

 

One thing that stands out to me is the success of their menu page. They did a great job of fitting all of that information into one page while also keeping it uncluttered and easy to interpret. There is texture on this page that makes the menu look like a real, physical menu. It’s light green and stands out from the rest of the page.

 

The only thing I don’t particularly like about this website is the business of the home page. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing, though. Its format reminds me of a blog with photos and text throughout. It does make the page interesting, but it could be distracting to people who are looking for a specific thing on the site.

 

I think my group could consider doing a menu page similar to this. We have been having a hard time fitting all the information on one page, and this might be a good format.

Due to the lack of fusion restaurants in Pittsburgh, I would have to say our biggest rivals for business would be Kaya and Habitat. Both are restaurants that pride themselves on fresh, local produce while integrating Island cuisine and twists on traditional favorites, respectively. Of course, since The Burgh focuses solely on fusion burgers, it has a bit of its own uniqueness that Kaya and Habitat do not already possess. Kaya’s website (bigburrito.com/kaya) is a bit lacking to say the least. The body is but a square in a seas of earthy brown. While its color scheme does give a feel of “island life”, it does so in a generic way with thickly textured backgrounds of palm trees. It lacks the sophisticated appearance of a restaurant that is supposed to be one of Pittsburgh’s best and disappoints with its lack of web pages, especially the menus which are just PDFS linked to the page. There also seems to be little care shown to how margins and gutters are used in regards to text and the blocks of color they are placed within. Habitat (habitatrestaurant.com), on the other hand, has a much more pleasing aesthetic than Kaya. This website has a fresh and clean looking that is pleasing to the eye and hints at the more extravagant (and expensive) dishes that they serve. The website is not the most straightforward one I have experienced. When arriving to the homepage, I was caught off guard by the lack of navigational bars and instead had to search for the “menu” icon seen in many cell phone applications. After realizing that this was the navigation bar, I could appreciate the design since the website really does focus on the food more than anything else with the menu being the focal point and otherwise unaccompanied by blocks a text. Even the “About Us” portion was only three or four snippets of short sentences. I also enjoyed the overall flow since the website is mainly one page that just scrolls vertically, except for the extended menus, such as breakfast, brunch, and lunch. Our design for The Burgh is similar to Habitat’s in that is uses a set color scheme that is clean and consistent as well as a simple layout made for easy navigation. Elements that our website shares with Kaya is that it too uses a navigation bar at the top and bottom and has separate pages rather than Habitat’s single flow. While The Burgh would potentially be less expensive than either of these restaurants, we designed it to have a similar to feel to a restaurant that is more modern and high-end than the average burger joint. Its simplicity and cleanliness is what will make The Burgh standout as a fusion burger restaurant.

For my third site review, I chose to compare and contrast the websites of Burgatory (burgatorybar.com) and Red Robin (redrobin.com). Out of these two sites I believe that Red Robin has a much more classic site than Burgatory as it follows a tight layout that I have seen on many other websites, food-related or not. Red Robin balances its website through the use of this layout, or grid, as well as through the use of color as its panels/links are pops of color on a more muted background. Burgatory, on the other hand, seems to use the term very loosely. While I enjoy its use of background and more interactive interface, I can’t help but feel that its elements are just floating in air without much thought to a grid or hierarchy. It does feel unbalanced to me as there are transparent images (the logo and burger/shake icons) on the left side of the home page that rely on negative space, while on the other side of the massive burger/shake gallery the navigation bar simply hangs with what looks like a gift card center positioned below it. I personally think that Burgatory’s choice of a less defined website, despite making it more interesting to look at, makes it more of a guessing game when trying to navigate the site. Both websites have a firm grasp on unity, despite some layout issues. Both are consistent in their use of color and typography. Both are also conscious of their use of background throughout their web pages. Burgatory’s website did confuse a bit, though as I noticed discrepancies through some of their pages where the bottom nav had a weird upper border.  Red Robin also has the upper hand with their clean and precise gridded layout, as mentioned before. In regards to Krug’s principles, both websites have their highs and lows. Krug’s “First Law of Usability” is apparent in Red Robin’s design. The page is laid out in a way where things are easy to spot and find as they use very little text, so links are simple and defined. Burgatory is a bit harder to decipher. It is difficult to tell what is a link in some cases as much of the page has a flat, unresponsive appearance despite it being very interactive once you begin clicking. On my first encounter with these sites, I immediately noticed the differences in how well one would perceive them. Red Robin can be easily scanned as most are familiar with its layouts. I was able to quickly find what I was looking for without reading in to it, but one Burgatory’s page I had to think about what I was looking for and got distracted along the way by giant pop-ups as I moved my mouse over the central image (burger or shake). If Burgatory were to fix its layout and comply to a stricter grid, I believe I would enjoy its site more just because it is entertaining and makes me want to explore the site, but as for which is more effective, I would have to say Red Robin has altogether easier to navigate site that the average person would maneuver much faster than one on Burgatory, especially if you are easily distracted like me.

For the final project, my group is doing a fusion restaurant on a burger joint restaurant. The restaurant I chose to compare it to be Tessaro’s, which is another burger joint restaurant. Opening up Tessaro’s website, the first thing I realize is how little is on most of the pages. The homepage just has a slideshow of photo’s that has a little bit of everything the restaurant has to offer. Also, there’s only three tabs and only one is a dropdown menu. The menu tab just takes you straight to the menu and you have to search the whole thing to find what you want. The about us tab is the one that has a drop down menu. It has three selections for our story, remembering Kelly, and reviews. Then the last tab is a contact us tab. In the our story is just a basic set up of a photo of the building and with the story of how this restaurant began. The next page is a page to remember the founder Kelly Harrington. This description is longer than the story of the restaurant, and also it doesn’t say how Kelly died or when he died which I think would be information people would want to know. The reviews page have a decent amount of reviews, but I wish there would be numbers there as well to show what people are giving the restaurant a rating because guests want to know that. Finally, the contact us tab only has the address, phone number, and location map which this tab looks really pointless because there’s so much space on the left side and the contact info is on every page and it makes this page not too appealing. The colors though I don’t find appealing, especially if it’s just a Pittsburgh type restaurant because there doesn’t seem to have significance to them with the black background and red text. The Tessaro logo though is in white text. There isn’t really much texture either with just the plain back background, and little navigation. Some of the pages that are longer like the menu and the remembering Kelly tab has a button to go back to the top. Also, you can click on the logo whenever you want to take you back to the homepage, but unless you put your cursor over it, I don’t think it would be noticeable if you didn’t go looking for it.

As far as guiding through the content, I feel it’s a simple set up, but I feel aspects are missing or in the case of the menu feel it should be broken up more. Instead of having the whole menu on one page, have it broken up so people can find things quicker that they’re looking for. Besides things already mentioned, what I think is missing is hours of operation and specials as well. People look for opportunities to get better deals and if a restaurant doesn’t have any specials to offer, they would prefer another restaurant to go to over another. Also, if people don’t know operating hours, they won’t know when they’re able to go.

To compare, I think my group’s website will become more successful than this one. We are going to have more tabs to navigate to find things easier and have the information restaurants want to see. We have our menu broken down into food, drinks, and specials. We also have an eClub to have special offers and another way to grow business. Our color scheme also is more appealing since it is a Pittsburgh themed restaurant with the colors of black and gold. Also, our design is more interesting because we aren’t slapping plain colors on and using a nice gray texture for the background.

For my final review, I chose a European Bistro called Euro Bistro.  They are located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This restaurant would be competition for my groups restaurant because they serve the same type of foods.  Our restaurant is just a breakfast and lunch kind of restaurant. The Euro Bistro is the same as ours plus a dinner menu.  I believe that even though they have more than ours, I think our restaurant wouldn’t need the dinner menu, too.  I feel like our restaurant would be fine only serving breakfast and lunch. Their website is not what I would expect for a European Bistro.  It is just a black background with a rectangle horizontal in the middle of the screen.  The rectangle is cut in two evenly with a picture and the name on the left side and the tabs on the other side.  It is interesting to me that the pictures on the left side stay the same on every tab but the private parties.  I feel like it should change for everyone or none.  I do not like the layout of their site either.  The rectangle in the center seems too bland to me.  I feel like it should cover more of the page.  I think the color of the website suits the feel of the restaurant very well.  It is black with dark reds and oranges.  It sets the mood for the dinner feel of the restaurant.  I do not think that it suits the breakfast and lunch part of the restaurant though. I think that if the website included some lighter colors than all dark colors, it would make it work better for all of the food times. I believe that our color pallet suits our style of restaurant with breakfast and lunch items. The only texture that is on this website would be in the pictures.  I think that if this restaurant did want to keep the same look that they have with the black background and rectangle in the middle, adding a lacy texture to the black would look very nice.  Our restaurant doesn’t have much texture besides the pictures also.  We use the pictures as the background of our site with having the words or menu items in front of the picture.  The navigation for this website is simple.  There are tabs on the top of the rectangle.  You can click the tabs to go to the menu, location and hours, private parties and their story.  These different tabs are also accessible by swiping across the screen.  I believe that their effectiveness at guiding the user through the website is very good.  Our navigation is similar in its simplicity and usage.  Our tabs will stay on the top of the page at all times and they are basic blocks that stretch across the screen. I believe that it would have been hard to screw up the Euro Bistros guidance because of how simple the website is. All their is to do is click on the four tabs and click to see their different menus.  I believe that my groups website will stand out in comparison to restaurants like this one because our color scheme is bright and more appealing to the eye.  Also, we have a wide variety of different types of food from different  countries.  I think that our restaurant would go over very will if it was actually introduced into the market.

No9Park has a very professional looking home page.  The layout of a website is extremely simple.  The top right corner of the page has flipping images of food and the restaurant.  On the left side of the page is the navigation.  The bottom of the page consists of location and reservations information.  Every page has an image that goes with the text below it.  The colors of the website are very pleasing to the eye.  There are different wrappers around each section on each page guiding your eye to each place.  When hovering over a clickable link the text gets underline.  The website as a whole is very balanced and has minimal noise.  Peter Allen’s Italian restaurant website is my favorite out of the two.  As it was stated in the reading, Krug outlines 5 things you can do to make sure users see and understand as much about your site as possible.  These 5 things include: 1.Creating a clear visual hierarchy on every page 2.Taking advantage of conventions (both naming and graphic) 3.Breaking pages into clearly defined areas 4.Making it obvious what constitutes a clickable link 5.Minimizing noise. In my opinion Peter Allen’s Italian restaurant website succeeds in all 5 of these admirations.  The first thing my eyes go to are the interactive images on every single page the website provides.  The background color of the home page is very relaxing and calm meanwhile cheese is falling from the top of the screen onto a delicious looking stack of noodles.  Even the way the restaurant and food offered is described sounds more enjoyable than No9 Park.  This much effort in a website hopefully means the food is unbelievably good!  This Italian restaurant website provides great use of hierarchy on every page.  The navigation is in smaller text but just off to the right of the name of the restaurant.  Other than the home page, the images on the top of every page are the exact same size including the name of the restaurant in the top left corner.  The site’s pages are divided into three sections which include navigation title in the first section, information about the chosen path, and the consistent hours and address information in the third section.  A red underline appears under any clickable link.  The layout is easy to navigate through and the interactive pictures are entertaining to watch over and over again.

The two websites I compared were Burgatory and BRGR, both are burger restaurants in the Pittsburgh area. The Burgatory web site is straighter forward, where I think the BRGR web site could be a little confusing. Burgatory’s balance is strange because with the sky and grass in the background, it seems symmetrical at first, but with the restaurant logo and burger and shake images on the left side and on the other side is the navigation tabs, it makes the design look more asymmetrical. This applies to the home page and the submenus. BRGR’s is asymmetrical because of the grainy orange background and all the tabs have pictures when you click on them. For unity, I think Burgatory’s website is kind of crammed with a bunch of things on the home page, but I think it’s enough information that is still appealing to a viewer where as BRGR, I think there’s too many tabs on the homepage making it confusing to search for what you are looking for.

I like how Burgatory emphasis’s the theme of the restaurant making it look like purgatory. But something I think that stands out as far as elements for the restaurant, I like how they have the big burger in the middle of the page where you can click the arrows to see their popular items for the time, which is effective for advertising. What is also unique about that is when u put your cursor on the burger, it shows additional information as well. BRGR, however, they have a really small slideshow at the bottom of the page where you have to scroll down to and it doesn’t really stand out which I don’t find effective because viewers want to see that stuff as soon as they open up the home page. When I first opened the site, there was nothing that stood out to me. Burgatory also has a good layout with everything being right there as soon as you open the website and easy to navigate to find what you’re looking for. BRGR though as I said before, has too much information on the home page and doesn’t really have an appealing layout.

Steve Krug mentions five things that makes a web site easy to understand for users. First is clear visual hierarchy. Burgatory’s is very successful in its design and straight to the point. It sets the theme, but it also elements that stand out to you where BRGR is too plain and doesn’t have anything that stands out as soon as you open the page. The same applies to graphics as well and titles. Burgatory’s also breaks down the different pages well but also on the home page doesn’t have too many options yet where BRGR has so many options on the first page. An example would be having a different tab for food and drink or news and team. Some of these things should be under the same tab then broken up more under that page. If it’s on the home page, it would make the user think more than they need to. Both of these sites though have obvious buttons for clickable links so nothing really blends in. All of this put together explains the noise for each website. Everything you need to know for Burgatory is rite there broken into simplest terms, where BRGR has too much noise on its site.

It’s obvious at this point that I think Burgatory’s web site is better than BRGR’s. Burgatory has a good system breaking down the information you need to know advertising its latest products and specials on the home page and not too many tabs. You can’t have two things on the homepage that could mean the same thing, which BRGR does and viewers won’t be sure at first where to look to find what they’re looking for, hence the goal for a web site is clearly stated on the name of the book Don’t Make Me Think.

I chose to review www.no9park.com and www.peterallens.com, which is where the bravofranco.com link takes you. The No. 9 Park website is very clean and elegant, and it gives you the feeling that this is a very fancy restaurant. The color palette is simple, but the flat dark background and sophisticated light blue serif font work very well together. Overall the site is very well balanced, although the home page is a little odd for my taste. I wish the image on the top right were a little lower, and the text on the navigation bar on the left a bit higher. It seems like each of those elements are pushed too far to the top and bottom of the page. Everything on the page works well together and creates a nice sense of unity. I think there’s a bit too much emphasis on the images and not enough on the logo. I would make the images a little smaller so that the logo doesn’t compete for attention. The layout is very well done and easy to navigate. There is no unnecessary information or clutter.

Www.peterallens.com is very different. You immediately get the feeling that this restaurant is not as fancy or expensive as the first. The page is busier and is more colorful. The page is mostly consumed by a large animated gif that instantly draws your attention. On top of the image is a big chunk of text that you don’t really want to take the time to read. Their navigation is simple and effective. The site is relatively balanced, but it would be better if the logo were smaller or the image did not move. You aren’t sure where to look because of the animation and prominent logo on top of it. The site uses the principle of unity well, but when you scroll down to the bottom of the home page everything changes and it almost looks like another site. Like I said, there needs to be more emphasis on one element of the page and less on another. Their navigation is successful and easy to understand.

Krug stresses the important of creating a clear visual hierarchy. Both sites are decent at this but could use improvement because of the competition between the images and logos. Other than that, all of the elements have a clear hierarchy.

He also says to take advantage of conventions. Both sites do this. We have seen countless websites in these layouts before and they are nothing out of the ordinary. The user recognizes where things are and understands how the sites work.

Krug says to break pages into clearly defined areas. The No. 9 Park site is much better at this because it just has a simple navigation bar and an image on the right. On the other hand, the Peter Allens site is still broken down, but it is definitely more squished together than the first.

The next important thing is to make sure the user knows what is a clickable link. The user is sure that the No. 9 Park navigation links are clickable because there is not much else on the page to click, and it just seems like it would make sense. The Peter Allens site is pretty successful as well, and some of the links change color or produce a drop down menu when you hover over them.

Finally, Krug says to minimize noise. The No. 9 Park site is better at this because of its incredibly clean design. They only included what is absolutely necessary, and the colors and even lack of textures contribute to this. The Peter Allens site is noiser and busier and could use some cleaning up. But maybe their site works for the “image” they want to achieve as a less fancy, less expensive restaurant.

The No. 9 Park site is more effective in my opinion. Although the Peter Allens site is busier and may be more attention grabbing to some, to me the elegant minimalism of the first site attracts me most.