Category: ARTM2210 Intro to Web

Competition within our field consists of soup and bread, so our biggest competition seems to be San Francisco Soup Company. Now, I recognized that the company’s website isn’t exactly similar to our Soups of the Seven Seas Website for a plethora of reasons. For starters, their website is much more simple in design, like a newspaper section. Their homepage consists of an image placed largely in front of the page to where it switches into a different image showcasing their seasonal soups. Then we jump down to the 4 other webpage navigations below that consist of their catering, nutrition facts, todays soup, and their email sign up page. The colors of green and a tan color that they chose mixes pretty well with the pages. It doesn’t scream too much on a bright side, nor does it seem dull, but in my opinion, I might have choosen a different color to go with green. Maybe adding in some sort of gradient or a really transparent texture could work, but their color choice doesn’t seem to far off at all.

Their layout is in the direction of allowing the user to see all about their company’s food and community, so the placement of some of the tabs, and images centers around the page in order for the user to be able to navigate effectively without any issues at hand. For example, their todays soup that consists on the “Our Food” tab is where the user can bring in their location in order to find their type of special soup brand within their region. Then, their page consists of tabs that bring up their different menus from the “Catering” menu and the “Restaurant” menu followed by their nutritional tab that tells the user what kind of soup it is in regards to health such as calories, gluten free products, low fat, etc.

So overall, their website maintains a good standardized website that is simple yet effective for the user to navigate through. That is what we want for our website. For our website to flourish, we basically have set up a simple navigation system that is very interactive and somewhat playful to a degree that helps the user not feel like they are on some repetitive and dull website. Controlling the UI is key to making the website standout, and adding in the extra interactive features will bring our website to a well conditioned website for all users to see, use, and stick with.

Our fusion restaurant, The Pasta Project, would face competition form such companies like Olive Garden. We will have similar menu items and will be targeting the same customer base. The Olive Garden web site, http://www.olivegarden.com/home, is extremely well built and offers a lot of insight for our own site. The site uses the elements of layout, color, texture, and navigation to its advantage. For starters the layout of the web page is easy to follow. When a visitor enters a web page they don’t ready the page logically, their eyes bounce all over the place and information is discovered in an unorganized way. Even so, the Olive Garden web page is simply designed and uses a lot of stunning graphics. The layout makes it easy for the viewer to find information without putting too much effort into reading.

Another elements that helps with the pages layout is its navigation. If a page is organized well and easy to navigate than the page suddenly feels like a seamless experience for the user. The Olive Garden web page keeps the navigation bar on the same part of the screen for every move and scroll. The background is also static. Both of these elements give the user an anchor while browsing the page. At no point should the viewer feel lost, as there is always a reference point that doesn’t move or change in appearance. The navigation bar itself is effective due to its simplicity and options to select. Rather than add a lot of different buttons for the user to click on the Olive Garden web page keeps things simple and only presents the topics that really matter. This is something that The Pasta Project should aim for: simple and easy to understand navigation.

In some cases color and texture and be critiqued together as they are responsible for the aesthetic feel of a web page. Olive Garden’s web site used both elements to create a visually stunning experience. The entire web site has a color scheme that it sticks too. The colors are soft beige, dark red, bright mint green, and subtle browns. These colors combine to create a feeling of warmth, compassion, and fresh ingredients. The colors play nicely together and invite the user to keep looking and find out more. The texture has a similar effect. Olive Garden’s web page uses very soft textures compared to some other sites. Watermarks of their logo appear in different sizes throughout the web page. These subtle designs help to give the graphical elements more character as well as give the page a little more depth. Many pages that feel very flat are the cause of a lack of texture. The Pasta Project will try and do the same in creating effective textures and color schemes to make the page easier look at for the viewer.

The Olive Garden’s web page is visually stunning, and pleasingly simple to use. However, the site is not perfect. Because the company is a franchise that is owned by a larger company the web page is built to encompass Olive Garden restaurants all over the nation. The Pasts Project will focus on making the page more personable for the user. Seeing a menu is great, but it is also nice to get the feeling that the restaurant actually wants you, as a customer, to come in and have a good time. With Olive Garden, the customers are simply numbers in a spreadsheet that keep profits in the green. The Pasta Project site will focus more on the individual and present the user with as much friendly, and welcoming information as possible. We want our site to say “come on in, we’re happy to have you.”

 

A restaurant that I consider to be somewhat of competition for our fusion restaurant would most likely be Rainaldi’s restaurant. Rainaldi’s is fine Italian restaurant that is family-oriented with a friendly atmosphere. It has a long list of quality foods and meals options with appealing photos that accompany the menu items. The layout is very clean and simplified. The options of the multiple pages are listed across the top where it is easiest to find. For each of the pages, the sections of food are divided with bold text centered between dotted lines that break up the food categories. A good consistency is met throughout the site involving the set up each page; once you have been on one page, when traveling to another page the user doesn’t have to scramble to figure out where or what they’re looking at. I recognized this during my first look at the site and I had no confusion. As for the colors, I think they were appealing for the kind of restaurant Rainaldi’s is. The tan background I think works well because it is not in anyway distracting to the viewer and works well with any pictures that are shown or any text, rather than have something too dark or too light. I felt that it was a happy medium that the designer chose. Having the tan consume most of the site, it allowed the photos to pop and the ability to play around with accent colors, such as the green and red, also with some purple at the top, used in the rose vines and grapes vines. In addition, these colors perfectly resembled the Italian culture. For the content of the site, the options bar is separated by the the different titles with borders around each of the options creating a 3-D effect. This same border and effect is around the black and white family photos with shadow effects that fall behind. I also noticed how a nice texture fell on the tan background, however it fades as you go down the page when the user hits the text, which is good so the text is easy to read. Comparing our group’s site with this one, I feel that we both are accomplishing the same design ideas. For one, our group thinks its important to having a background that will not distract the viewer away from the content, and so everything presented on the page is made legible. That is our first concern. After having a successful color choice, the design and secondary color choices, such as our choices of red, green, and yellow, will accent throughout the site’s pages. Like that of Rainaldi’s, our color choices are based on the ethnicity of our restaurant, incorporating colors of the two country’s flags, both Italian and German. In hopes of our project, we look to make our atmosphere kind and friendly, while presenting fine dishes, having delicious homemade foods using authentic ingredients, and having a somewhat fancy aspect to our customer’s dinner experience. In addition to this, to make ours stand out, we look to score on our content, providing as much information as possible whether it is about our dishes, contact information, or about our restaurant, history, and dining, that way we leave our visitors without question.We tend to make sure our site will appeal to the eye and have our design layouts reflect the kind of restaurant we want it to be. We will make sure our graphics throughout the pages are unified. For example, Rainaldi’s used 3-D effects throughout their pages with text, navigations, and photos, while the graphics such as the rose vines, and grapes used for the top border looked as if they were pasted on. Unity is our biggest concern and should be any designers.

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!

For our final project we are making a fusion pizza resonant called ZA Pizza. So for my final review I am analyzing a similar theme restaurant call Pizza fusion. I will be looking at its color, texture, navigation, and layout

When I enter a site the first thing I notice is the color of the site whether that be conscience or subconsciously. In the Fusion Pizza restaurant site it is clear that their color pallet is a complimentary color scheme of both greens and reds. When you get into the phycology of colors this seems to make perfect sense. Red is an attention getter and also in some people increases hunger or apatite. For a pizza restaurant this is a perfect color. Green on the other hand represents nature; freshness and growth all help describe their pizza is all-natural. While some times it is hard to pull of a green and red color scheme with out getting the feeling of Christmas. I believe that Fusion pizza did a very good job at bringing the whole scheme together with the incorporation of some neutral colors into the mix. I would overall give their color choices and A+.

The next design principle I want to talk about is the texture of the site. While there are some geometric shapes through out the site it is clear that they want everything about their site to be organic. Everything from the textured wood background to the green vegetation type print on the lower half or the site. Most of these organic textures not only send a positive message about their product but also help to make the site look more interesting. While geometric shapes make a subtle appearance in the site its work does not go unnoticed. The use of these geometric shapes along with some repetition and rotation of objects adds a little guidance to the eye and cleanness to another wise organically filled site. Between the two uses of texture I think they work well together to bring a sensible compromise to these to styles.

The layout of pizza fusion seems to be pretty strait forward. It is a three Colum system with a block style organization. The Colum layout dose change a little depending on the page your on for example in the menus page it changes to a two Colum system but keeps the block style organization. In the layout they also do a very good job at guiding you eye with text. They use everything from type of font to color of the font. It is clear that there is a hierarchy in the information that they want you to know.

Lastly the navigation is also made to help your time on their site to be a pleasurable one. They use a hierarchical navigation to help convey their most important messages and guide you around the page. Similar to most other sites there global navigation can be found in the nav bar above all other information on what ever page you are on. If you hover over each nav bar every other link shows you supplementary content related to the globe content being hovered over. While I think there navigation works I think it need the most work out of all the sections. The first thing I had a problem with is the home button is not intuitive. It took me a few seconds to realize that you need to click the logo to go home. I also think that they have way to many selections in their nav bar. They could benefit from some condensing of their information. They also might benefit from a breadcrumbs bar that tells the user were they are and were they have been so they can make their way back. While I think the navigation works I do also think it needs some work.

Our site is going to stand out one because it is simpler and easy for our customer base to breeze threw information and two because our site will be more interactive. The lac of simplicity of pizza fusion is something I think might turn users off and make them look else where for a better site. Our site with its strait forward design and intuitive navigation will hopefully give our users a pleasurable experience at our site over our competition at pizza fusion. The second thing that pizza fusion didn’t have was anything that the user could interact with on the site. This keeps the user engaged on the site and is something ZA pizza hope to deliver. Everything from and interactive slide show to dancing pizza slice arrows that guide our users back to the top of the page.

http://www.lemonadela.com/

Layout& Navigation : The layout of the restaurant I choose is very similar to my fusion restaurant. Though you can scroll down rather then how ours you can scroll horizontal. With this feature our viewers will experience less confusion with where to navigate. Though, you could argue that the navigation bar is at the top, our website will be less distracting to the viewer and more organized with are double menu idea. With our double menu I mean, two navigation bars will appear. Example is when you click menu at the top of the navigation bar, the next menu will appear right below with the entrees, deserts, and so on.

Color : The color use of the Lemondela site is very citrous orientated. Though this works with the name of the restaurant it can confuse the taste of all of the other food. When we chose our color scheme, we decided to make it simplified. When the color scheme is simplified it put emphasis on the real important information. This would mean the colors of our food in our pictures, and will create a sense of importance. Having a simplified color scheme can give you a sense of classiness.

Texture : The texture on the Lemonadela website is shown in its pictures. The close ups of the food gives you the “taste” of its texture. In our website we use the same approach, but we also included filters on our pictures. This will also explain a sense of texture that you get besides a picture of food.

 

The two site restaurants I would like to talk about are Bravo Franco and No. 9 Park. The strong points of each site are very contrasting between each other. I visually enjoy No. 9 Parks website design and its over all feel of its design in an artistic way, but navigation and structure wise I feel like Bravo Franco has a better site. With Bravo Franco it is much more easier to navigate what you want fast and easy. The bigger sizes they use is easier for us to locate what we are looking for without much effort. Too much of the same size and like colors loses us with what information is important like I feel when I am on No. 9 Park restaurants site. No. 9  Park’s site does not have enough contrast between all of its elements to navigate as easy in Bravo Franco. This causes us to overlook the navigation we need to explore.

No. 9 Park’s site  is relatively static and not balanced based on the amount color-choices and image at the top of the home page. While navigating through this website, the only thing that changes is the top-right div that houses an image and some text. While this makes navigation easy to examine, the sites balance remains poor. There is plenty of black in the background, and the div appears floating because it has a lighter value. This value is sitting on the right side of the page, so I do not look at the bottom-left of the site at all.

Like before, the only content that changes are text and images on different pages; the site is unified because of its static approach to displaying content. Every page has black, gray, a splash of the accent colors and similar footer and sidebar content. The emphasis is drawn on the new text on each page. Where there is a stark contrast between the background and div containing the image and text, there is an emphasis on what the audience should look at. The layout is lacking any differentiation. There are two columns, one for navigation and another for images. There is a footer at the bottom with some more information on the company, reservations, photography credit and site design.

The site is identified by the logo at the top left corner, something that is found in many sites created today. The user knows they are No. 9 Park’s site because of the logo and consistent color scheme carried throughout. This identification serves as a primary indicator of current page viewing and a home button to bring the user back from the rabbit hole of links on this site. As previously stated, the logo is a primary way to go back home. There are no breadcrumbs on this site, so an additional home button is not found. The browser’s back and forward buttons are simple ways to get back, but there is no way back home other than clicking the logo.

There is no option to search on this site. I looked for search bar and came up with nil; however, there is a small site map located in the footer and a menu of pages along the side of the page. This site has some ancillary pages to describe how-to’s and other information you may need when visiting the restaurant. Sections are divided by layout and column work delegated by the web designer.

 

Primanti’s, in relation to No. 9 Park’s website, has more balance, unity and emphasis because of the division of content, images and colors used, typography and visual interest. To start, balance is even because Primanti’s uses right and left justification/float of text to express balance. The cover image has left alignment of text, while the navigation buttons are right floated. There is balance when scrolling down the page because of the dark background, imagery that copies the style of neon signs, chunked segments in terms of divs and analogous colors. This site is unified because the navigation bar and footer match on each page, as they should. Textures are implemented across the board to give a feeling of unification, especially when used more than once. Fonts are consistent and imagery feels the same on different pages.

As previously stated, emphasis is placed on neon sign skeuomorphism found throughout the site. This draws in the eye to the food or images that are near these icons. Every page, other than the home page, follows the unification of explaining the page with one of these icons that have a great amount of emphasis due to size and color. Layout consists of horizontal divisions with differing backgrounds and emphasis on different sections of the website. It works well to show an image for each page; this image describes what is going on before the user scrolls.

Primanti’s logo is based in the top left corner and provides a way to identify what site the user is on and also a way to go back home by clicking on it. As said before, the logo is a great way to go back home. As with No. 9, the information architecture is hierarchical and does not require a breadcrumb, because most pages are only one page deep.

Like No. 9, there is no dedicated search bar, but a small site map at the bottom. These utilities are found in the footer along with the site map. There are different sections in the site that are accessed from the navigation bar.

Primanti’s’ draws my attention because it has bold, big icons, imagery, dynamism and similar typography throughout the site. The attention to detail and interactivity are more fun and make me want to use the site longer and find more information on it. Although I did not read much, the imagery gave me the idea of where I was and what I was doing.

 

No. 9 Park (http://no9park.com/)

Primanti Bros. (https://www.primantibros.com/)

When designing a website is it key to have clear, simple, and consistent navigation. The user looks for tabs and navigation the way one uses the hanging signs in a grocery or hardware store to find their way to what they are searching for. The more obvious the signs are the better. The ability to easily navigate ones way through a website will hold regard to how successful it is. From a designers point of view you want to avoid frustrating the user, once frustrated you have lost them and there for your site serves them no purpose. The use of balance, unity, emphasis and a good layout are key elements to create a successful website. Two sites I examined for use of these elements were Burgatoybar.com and Frantoary.com. Both sites exemplified use of these elements however I found Burgatory’s site to be more functional then Franktuary’s site.

Burgatory’s site being the more successful of the two is where we will start. The site its self is very interactive and has a lot of information displayed in a very organized and easy to navigate arrangement. The fundamental rule to follow is to have repetition with the site ID on every page the site may take you. This should remain consistent with the navigation. Both the Burgatory logo and site ID within the navigation function as home buttons and also remain stationary through out the sites navigation. The logo is set in the upper left hand corner and the navigation opposite of that. There is the use of balance and unity. They also both act as a means to get back to the home page, which is very critical if the user begins to feel lost. When exploring the navigation bar, first you have five initial tabs, taking you to their menu, products and other obvious reason you might by at the site. The most complicated the site navigation bar gets is the ten secondary links under the “hungry” tab, which take you to each section of their menu. The user may get stuck inside the menus tabs but not lost, never once will they think they are at a new page or not know how to move forward on the site. All elements mentioned are utilized in this site, balance, unity, emphases and a good layout. Which awards it the more successful. Now lets look at why Franktuary’s website and why it was not as successful in it execution of design.

Frantuary’s site is quite simple at first glance, I would argue that Burgatoy’s site is a bit more to take in but it is still much easier to navigate. At first glance, you notice the navigation bar that is placed obviously at the top of the page with the Frantuary logo right bellow. Both are thoughtfully placed and also functional. There is a sense of balance since both are conveniently placed at the top of the page where the eye tends to lazily rest itself. However once a location is chosen a second navigation bar is displayed in the body of the content. Which can cause confusion with the user. I feel it offers more distracting purpose then functional, something I would personally leave out. The second aspect I found to be misleading and confusing was the photo page. Once the viewer had checked out all previous tabs they are now at the photo tab. Once this tab is selected they are presented thumbnail pictures of dishes Frantuary offers. On one occasion of one of these thumbnail images being selected, it takes the user to their instagram page. This is where the user can get lost and move on. So much for the prospective diner booking a reservation they are now at Burgatory’s site buying a gift card. The only redeeming quality of this site to over come this is that fact that has a search bar. The “all mighty” search bar is a key element which allows the user the power to take the site where they want to go with out any noise.

After reading the assigned section, I can see how both sites unitize the fundamentals of successful navigation. I personally feel that Burgatory executed their layout in a much more efficient manor with a lot more information.

The two local restaurants being compared are Bravo and Panera. When first entering Bravo’s website, it is noted that the color of their website is easy on the eyes and not too dark or too light. The links at the top of the page are straight forward and easy to navigate and find anything. Bravo’s number and location is easily seen at the top of the page, with the hours at the bottom of the page so that users don’t have to do extra clicking to find out. Bravo’s front main page doesn’t contain a lot of wording and is spacious instead of cluttered like most other websites. Their page is organized, doesn’t have a large amount of useless text, and doesn’t require myself to do extra thinking in order to find information.

Panera’s main front page is also easy on the eyes in terms of color and contrast, using earthly tones like Bravo does. Their links have a drop down box that expands to more links that fit into the category of the main link. Their website requires thinking when finding certain information. For example, I tried to look up their hours but I still have yet to see a link for it on their front page. I had to place my mouse on locations at the top of the page, type in my zip code, and then it shows a list of stores, their distance, hours, and more information. This is a great feature, but some users may feel they have to think more in order to figure it out. Panera has a good amount of wording on their main page, with appetizing images of their food and links to important information that users may want to know about.

Between Bravo’s website and Panera’s website, Bravo’s website was easier to navigate and easier to find information for. Bravo’s website is clean, organized, not cluttered and overwhelming, and it is visually appealing to my eyes.

For my review of restaurant sites, I chose to look at Six Penn Kitchen and Kyoshi Bistro. At first glance, both of these sites look clean and have a neutral, non-distracting background behind the content. To start, Six Penn Kitchen is a very crisp site. Everything is balanced, clean, and ordered. Everything is contained within the confines of the banner across the top, and the navigation is continuous throughout the site. Emphasis is used through the use of important items being placed in the navigation bar or having a bright green color for the image to pull attention to these items. The site is very unified through the color schemes, and works well through the continuous navigation bar. Overall, the layout of the site is effective, and all the elements I would like to see, from the navigation, to the menu, even to reservations is included online. I also really like that they have galleries of the different food items and other important info.

 

For Kyoshi, The site is much simpler, and the layout is not as visually pleasing. As I can remember, the site was actually a bit different the last time I was on, which makes me think they are going through changes, although it would be more effective to push a new site after the updates are finished. For this site, the layout is a bit sloppy, and not very interesting. The first thing that I notice is that the size of the page changes for each tab. The navigation stays throughout, and there are always images that are found at the top of the page, but the balance of the site is not there, at least for the home page.  The page is very heavy on the left, with hours and other information on the right, but all of the other pages are centered and balanced better. Unity is also a bit off, as the background color changes throughout, and the color scheme is a bit too wide. The site uses pink as an emphasis color, but it is a bit too much and does not work great overall. As a whole, I feel that the layout of the site is not up to par.

 

In total, both sites have some basic principles that are important for sites. As Krug states, navigation is a big part of a site, as we need to be able to get to the pages we need. Both sites follow navigation, and make it easy to be able to navigate the pages. Both sites have page names that change based on the page you’re on, and also identify the restaurant. Neither site has a search option, which is not very important for a restaurant, and also do not have bread crumbs to show where you have been because there is no need to go multiple pages in. The navigation bar cuts down on the issue and allows the user to get to any page needed through the page already being viewed. Overall, the Six Penn Kitchen is a stronger site, and works as a whole much better than Kyoshi, but Kyoshi also has really strong elements that could be fixed and worked better. The pictures used for Six Penn Kitchen as well as the colors and the overall layout are more effective and more captivating than Kyoshi.

I decided to choose Bravo Franco Ristorante and Six Penn Kitchen for this review.  I thought that the top bar navigation on both sites were extremely similar and I liked both of them.  The nav bars incorporated both their logos and and offer everything I knew I was looking for.  I also liked that Six Penn Kitchen had a sub nav bar once you clicked menu.  Bravo Franco Ristorante had two separate pages for their lunch and dinner menus.  I liked that Six Penn showed you what menu you were on and didn’t take away the option of going to different menus on the second nav bar.  Bravo Franco took you to only one menu then you had to scroll the whole way down to bottom of the page to pick other menu types.

I liked the background image on Bravo Franco’s page and the white container that held all the information.  The red and black text on white stood out and I didn’t really struggle to read them.  I would have liked to see the menu items be centered on the page because it looks like there is a lot of open space to the right of all the text.  With Six Penn all text is center and uses the space of the page very well.  The dotted likes work to break up the sections of the specific menus.

I feel like Six Penn’s website is better than Bravo Franco’s because Six Penn is just a more visual site.  The sites are very similar in what they offer on the nav bar and effectiveness of finding what I need.  Bravo Franco’s lacks on the simplistic look of the page.  Bravo Franco has a very text heavy website where as Six Penn uses more pictures effectively.  They show their interior and exterior to their advantage as well as having galleries so that you can see and understand the atmosphere there.  Bravo Franco’s style is just not up to par with Six Penn in utilizing images and their well balanced division of their page.  I think that although content is pretty similar, Six Penn has the edgy due to style and organization of their contant

In the book  “Don’t Make Me Think” Steve Krug discusses the principles of web page navigation really nicely.  He goes on to compare the process of navigating a web page to navigating through a store. While browsing any number of web sites I’ve never stopped and realized how similar the two processes are. When shopping the consumer uses signs to find the right department, isle, and product. A well constructed web page operates in much the same way. I recently reviewed and compared two sites: bravofranco.com and no9park.com. These two web pages are very nicely designed as they are both easy to use. I personally liked the no9park.com site more than bravofranco.com for a number of reasons.

Firstly when entering a web page it is key for the homepage to snag the user and keep them from leaving. If the homepage suffers in functionality or ease-of-use the user will quickly hit the back button. Bravofranco.com’s homepage lacked in its visual appearance due to the poor photos that are right in the middle of the homepage. The site has three large, tacky, and poorly light photos that give the user a sense of the restaurants informality and a lack of self respect. Other than having poor photo elements, the site is nicely balanced and all pages are brought together nicely. The pages are all properly tagged and framed to avoid user confusion. The pages emphasis on the page also left a lot to be desired. I didn’t get a good sense of where the homepage was trying to direct me. Should I check out the menu, or click on the directions button?

No9park.com is my favorite site because of how simple it is for me to navigate through the sites pages. The navigation bar on the right side gives me a firm idea of where I am located within the site. The web page also has a very nice visual element, the photos and graphic design is sleek and professional. Photos of the food looks elegant and intriguing, making the user want more eye candy. Information about the restaurant is well organized and easy to access. The site has complete unity as the side navigation bar locks all the pages together. This site simply has a very nice and easy to use layout. The reason I feel that no9park.com is nicer than bravofranco.com is due to how little thinking I had to do while using the site. It felt like an effortless experience to me, which will bring me back to the site.

The two websites I chose to use were the No. 9 Park and Bravo Franco Ristorante. What I noticed first about both sites were the photographs shown on the homepage that provide the user with a certain vibe about the restaurant; such as an elegant dining experience or a formal, very professional setting to it. However, when dealing with these photographs I feel that the No.9 Park site is more successful in their use of imagery due to the quality of the photos, along with the changing slideshow of the food, as well as chefs, and the dining place settings; whereas the Bravo Franco site gives only three different photos which do not give the viewer that good of a variation. As for the layout stylistic choices, I feel that the sections for each site are both listed in an organized way. But if I would have to choose one that is more legible, it would have to be the Bravo Franco layout because, unlike No. 9 Park, their sections are listed at the top of the webpage (where most are on most websites) and I personally feel that it is much easier to read across than vertically, especially if a title of the section is too long to fit on one line, such as “Monthly Cocktail Classes.” When looking at unity throughout each webpage, I think that Bravo Franco appears to be much stronger and I feel that it strongly relies on the color scheme chosen. The colors are really consistent throughout the different pages of the site and it even shows within their pictures too. The colors of a deep brown and a beige/tan are used, accompanied by white, are visible all over the pages. With this strong contrast, it allows all text to be very legible. Another thing I noted about the text was that here it is at a much larger size and with a nicer font than that of No. 9 Park. On each page for each of the sections on No.9 Park, the text is very small and in a standard font, and it is also used for the section titles which make the look of it seem a little plain and simple. However, plain and simple doesn’t have to be a bad thing. One thing that brought out some emphasis to each page on the Bravo Franco site was that each page has a quote from a worker or customer on the side about the food or their dining experience which in-turn make the atmosphere more personal and friendly. Overall, I think that both websites have their pros and cons, but if I had to choose one that was more effective, it would have to be Bravo Franco due to their legibility, personalization, and styles/theme throughout the pages provided.