Category: Site Review

I chose to visit the Puma website. When first visiting, the home page with featured products pop-up. I knew when I got to the site that I wanted to look at the women’s products. It was very easy for me to find, located at the top left of the page next to the Men and Children tabs.

After reading the first couple of chapters in “Don’t Make Me Think” I actually realized how much thought is put into mapping out a site. The first chapter talks about getting rid of “unnecessary thinking” for the user of the website. When I went to puma.com, I really didn’t think at all about navigating my way through the site.

Another thing the book mentions is the concept of “scanning.” One of the reasons we do this is because “we’re usually on a mission.” As soon as I read this assignment, I went straight to Puma’s website to find shoes because I was on a “mission” to do that. The second reason is that “we don’t need to know everything.” This is very true. I would say more than 80% of the time I’m only really interested in what I needed to find.

These chapters made me realize that user-friendly websites are a necessity. Especially in the case of a successful website!

I have chose to do my website review on the site: Amazon.com. I have chosen this site because not only am I familiar with it I would assume most of you are as well. Amazon is a huge site with many different accessible settings. They are also an international site giving them even more complexity. I decided to go onto Amazon and add a micro SD card to my shopping cart and hit checkout. Up to this point everything was straight forward and easy going. Having a small insight on coding, I now understand even the simple action of clicking the “check out” button would be an extremely complex process. In the reading they mention about self explanatory items and how this is effective to a great website. I think Amazon has done a great job at this because everything is easy to find and simple to navigate. Once you actually hit the check out button it takes you to the part where you you put in your shipping information and once again everything is easily accessible and then you hit place order. I personally think Amazon has one of the best e-commerce sites out there and this is a reason why they remain at the top.

Hannah Daman

Professor Ames

Review 1

January 24, 2018

For my first review, I chose to use eBay. I honestly use eBay a lot. Probably on a day to day basis. EBay is very simple to use. To search for an item, you want you tap on the little magnifier labeled search, and type in the name of an item or a keyword associated with that item. Next you would tap on the picture of the desired item to further inspect it. After you decide if you want the item or not you would tap on the big blue button that says either “Buy it now”, or tap on the button just below it that says “Add to cart”. EBay doesn’t make you think at all when you are searching for anything which can be a dangerous thing for a shopaholic. They have inserted the most basic of functions onto their website and mobile app to ensure that customers of all ages can see what is on the screen and also can understand how to manipulate it. The most important things on the site are displayed at the bottom of the screen sorted in little tabs. These tabs can let you travel to your profiles home page, a page with products based on your previous searches and purchases, notifications from the site or people you bought items from, and also gives you an option to sell items yourself.

Krista Johnson

Intro to Web Design

Review #1

1.24.2018

 

The e-commerce site I chose was JustFab.com. When you first enter the site there is a homepage displaying all of the sales currently going on. I clicked on a picture which brought me deeper into the site. I clicked on the heels section in the now visible menu bar and it took me to a long page with different heels to choose from. I chose a pair and then I was directed to a page that had just that heel on it , the close up pictures , how tall the heel was, the price ,etc. I then clicked “add  to bag”. A small notification popped up letting me know that that item had been added to my bag. From there I could choose to continue shopping or proceed to checkout. The JustFab site had a homepage but didn’t show a menu bar at the top until you logged in or clicked on one of their shoe sale pictures which I didn’t think was user friendly. I think that could be a bit confusing for the user when trying to find something specific. Another downside is that there is no search bar on the homepage either. As far as the notification popping up asking to proceed to checkout or continue shopping , I think that was a great feature, and you can quickly get to either page, I didn’t have to think about the actual purchasing of the item. Overall I think JustFab should improve their homepage and make it easier for users to find items quickly.

 

Guidelines: first choose a large eCommerce site like ThinkGeek, Puma, Fab, newegg etc, then search for a product you are interested in and place it in the site’s shopping cart. Because it takes a great deal of planning to create something that takes little or no thought to use reflect on how much the site made you think about this process. Refer to the reading and discuss how the site either makes it easy or not to find and buy a product you are interested in.

I chose to visit Amazon for my site review. When I got to the website, I was immediately overwhelmed. There was so much going on that I didn’t know where to go first. There was pictures and text everywhere. There’s no sense of hierarchy either. Once I saw the search bar I went and clicked the all button to see what was in it since it looked that it should be the first thing I should press on. Then a huge list popped out from it and I felt a bit anxious because there were too many options, there are too many categories and some of the categories seemed like they could possibly be combined with each other. So I ignored that and went to the search bar and typed in “shoe storage” because I have been looking for a storage space for my shoes. The products that showed were not what I was looking for. The products were coming from the category “Home and Kitchen,” which is far off from what I was looking for. The website clearly ignored what I was searching for and gave me products that were sponsored. So then I typed in “shoe shelves” and it was close to what I was looking for. So it seems like I have to be a little more specific about my search. The products did not look like it was organized in any specific way as well. Once I found the product I wanted to purchase, I clicked on the product and it took me to a page that talks about the product a little more. Once I’ve decided on the bag, there was a big yellow button that read “add to cart.” I clicked on it and it took me to a log in screen. I typed in my username and password to my account and it walked me through the steps to checkout. Once I entered in all of my information, there’s another big yellow button that read “place your order.”

Overall, I feel like Amazon could improve their website a little bit so that it is easier to navigate through and not as overwhelming. Not only could they make it a little easier to navigate they could combine some of their categories because there are many products that could be in 5 different categories and it gets confusing and makes the visitor feel dumb. A visitor should not have to think too much when going on the website unless they are thinking about what they are wanting to buy. I understand that Amazon is trying to showcase all of their products to their customers but it is overwhelming the way they did it.

For my website review I decided to review Dell.com. Now this website isn’t one that I typically shop on, but because I need a product that they sell, I will use it for this example.

I went to their site in search of a Canon camera battery. I have been in need of a backup for quite some time now and it would be helpful to get another one for when we go to Ireland in May.

When you first log onto the Dell website, I noticed that it is a pretty simple design. Search bar, scrolling images, and dropdown menus to take you somewhere else. It is relatively simple to find what you’re looking for. My eye doesn’t wander, and nothing distracting is happening to take me away from the task at hand. They have different categories for electronics, and after some more clicking and filtering, I am able to find the camera battery I need.

The actual page for a single item is a bit more confusing. There’s a lot of information going on on the side but I suppose this is necessary for some people. Then from there you can add it to the cart with a simple push of a button.

Overall, the site is simple, if not a bit dull. It is easy to navigate but could be difficult to find certain products just by browsing without filters, and would be faster to use the search bar. There are many features that would help someone browsing and trying to decide between one item or another. The site also has many features that helps when deciding whether to buy or not in general.

When it comes to thinking, it is a good example of not thinking too much or too less. There’s a trickle of ads and deals, making you think for a moment before moving on. For most of my time on the website I was not distracted though and could easily navigate through the Dell website.

The site I chose for review is Amazon.com. I chose this one because I am familiar with the site because I almost exclusively use it for my online shopping needs. After analyzing the site carefully, I think that it has great usability, which is the main point that people look for in a website. It is easy to use so it passes the first law of usability which is “don’t make me think!” I think Amazon being as big of a company that it is, almost requires their site to be as easy as possible to use because its audience is so vast. Amazon is marketing for everyone, from young adults to the elderly. Bringing packages fast and killing the inconvenience. Nowadays you can buy almost anything by just simply searching the first word and a bunch of options pop up. Now, I do not want to make it sound like Amazon is the ultimate user-friendly website. They can sometimes be confusing with the constant running adds and deals that tend to pop up from time to time. For example, Prime Day is a day that prime members get exclusive deals to products that otherwise normal users couldn’t access. This meaning that it is more of an incentive to sign up for prime membership. However, also during this time they do give-aways where you click on the items and see if you won. To find this “giveaway” page it usually pops up in the home screen. However, sometimes it does not. This makes it extremely difficult to try to find the page again. Also, another issue that I found is that Amazon has a certain features. One of which is the “your garage” page. This is where you can enter the make and model of your car and you can search for parts and accessories that match your car. This feature however is not with the other featured pages and it somewhat makes it difficult to find. I think that I am guilty of what the “don’t make me think!” book said about muddling through when you have an issue with finding something. In the last two problems I mentioned I definitely spent way too long trying to search for these features. Overall, I think that Amazon is extremely user friendly. It is accommodating for people who really want to piddle through pages for items looking for something interesting and for the people who know what their looking for and want it now.

In this final review, I will be going over the website design and its effectiveness of the Mexican-Asian fusion restaurant, Sumo Maya. To start off, the site is very bright and welcoming when it first loads up. Along with a lot of the sites that I have reviewed in the past, the color scheme is white with pink and orange accents. So many organizations base their websites on a white with accents color scheme nowadays and this is because it has a modern look and it is easy on the eye.

The layout of the site is very blocky but in a good way. The blockiness keeps everything ordered and professional, which is why it works so well. The only complaint that I have about the layout is that when scrolling down the page the pictures and white backgrounds go over the top of each other. To me, this is kind of bothersome because it does not look natural. It is nothing too big, but it is enough to cause me to be bothered by it. Other than that, I think the layout works well with the pictures and information being separated into different parts as you scroll down the page.

The site presents a very comforting and smooth texture. The font used is not rough or rugged, but smooth. Also, the white background keeps it smooth and comfortable as well. The site is also easy to navigate as the tabs to each page of the site are at the very top and are easy to notice. On each page when scrolling down, all of the information needed to be found will be there.

With my group’s project, we took a different approach. Our site is drastically different from Sumo Maya because we have a darker theme and we have kind of steered away from the typical modern site layout. I think that our site will stand out because it is unique and does not follow along with the status quo of web design today. Using darker shades of colors, it already sets us apart from a lot of sites that restaurants have. Overall I think our theme and layout will stand out amongst others.

Our group decided to join Mexican and Chinese cuisine together to make a fusion restaurant called “Panda Loca.” In order to get inspired and also to take a look at what kinds of restaurants we could potentially be competing with, we looked at and analyzed websites for restaurants such a Mad Mex, Kiyoshi Bistro, TGI Friday’s, and Olive Garden. The one website, though, that could ultimately be one of our competition restaurants was Mad Mex. (https://www.madmex.com)

Looking at the layout of their website, it is very plain. Their background is a solid color and does not make it very exciting to look at. The content of the website is centered in the middle of the page with a navigation bar, a cover photo, and a logo for the restaurant. The text is very simple, but there is a lot of it on a majority of the pages as your navigate through the website. The homepage does good job of creating a “site identity and mission,” one of the main things Steven Krug talked about in Chapter 7 of his book; it is very laid-back and gives visitors a sense of the restaurant’s atmosphere.

The colors used throughout the website are very warm. The use of deep burgundy, gold, green, and white all work very well alongside one another and good a job of complimenting one another. This scheme, as defined by The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, is an analogous color scheme; the colors are not the same, but they all work together to make the page look cohesive. I do not think this website has much texture to it. Texture, as defined by The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, is anything that gives a distinctive appearance or feel to the surface of a design or object. Mad Mex’s website is solely designed of solid colors and pictures that have no additional pigment, pattern, or texture to make them stand out in any way. On a positive note, the website is very easy to navigate and allows users to find anything and go to any tab using the fully functioning navigation bar on the top of the page.

Since the content on the website is very bland, it is hard to read through since there is so much text in such a little space. A lot of people get bored and don’t feel like rummaging and reading through long paragraphs at text to get to the point. A lot of sites choose to use bold, large headings and short sentences to not only keep visitors interested but to make sure space is being utilized and is even. Being that all of the text is also going straight up and down the page, it is sometimes easy to get lost in the words and forget about what you were originally trying to find or read.

Panda Loca’s website combines accents and colors of both Mexican and Chinese cultures. Our background uses texture by incorporating bamboo in the website’s background. We use light, neutral tan colors and accent our most important features with yellow, black, red, and white. Each page that the navigation bar takes you to a new page that maintains the overall tone and atmosphere of our restaurant but also adds variety and makes the viewer want to look at the every different page. Our overall vibe is more laid-back and fun compared to that of other websites. The Panda logo on the top of every page adds a comedic effect and keeps the viewer interested. We have tabs in our navigation bar for every occasion/customer need and we overall do a better job of representing our company compared to others.

 

A possible contender for our restaurant, The Woking Taco, is Over the Bar Bicycle Cafe. Over the Bar Bicycle Cafe is located in Southside in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  This restaurant is competition for The Woking Taco because it is in the same general location. Also, the two restaurants have have similar brand qualities when it comes to appeal, audience, and overall tone as they are a more edgy/quirky themed restaurant with a unique name.

 

For Over the Bar Bicycle Cafe’s website, it is quite simple. It is a one page site with very little information offered at first glance. There are links to the different menus that they offer and a link to apply for a position. They have a link for directions and to their social media accounts. This layout makes navigation tricky. This page feel less engaging and harder to locate the information/answer that you are seeking; it takes a bit more digging. The colors are consistent on the homepage. The darker colors with the bright green adds a fun element to it but keeps it clean. The background, wooden panels with drawings of bicycle/sports related logos, adds a bit of texture to the page. All of these elements, however, are lost when you click on the menu links. The theme is not as strongly represented on the other pages, which causes some disconnect when switching from homepage to linked menus.
When comparing Over the Bar Bicycle Cafe’s website to our site for The Woking Taco, it is clear that The Woking Taco is more cohesive across all pages of the site. The Woking Taco’s website is consistent in overall design with special regards to color and layout. The links and the information that they hold are easily navigated. This is the most important aspect of our site for The Woking Taco that stands out against the website for Over the Bar Bicycle Cafe. This is because a user is more likely to stay on a sight when it is extremely easy for them to find what they are looking for. Not only does the Woking Taco offer easy navigation on our website, it also offers a pleasing and sensible design and layout for a restaurant. Having the colors cohesive throughout all links within the website will stand out against our competition’s websites.   

I chose to compare my final website Doblé Dragon with the website for the restaurant: Ellen’s Stardust which is located in New York City.  I chose to compare these websites because they both are restaurants that focus on the experience of being there.  Doblé Dragon is geared towards an alternative younger group of people.  It has quite a dark theme and could be considered “goth” in its style.  Ellen’s Stardust is a family restaurant that is popular for the performances the staff do because they are all people working while trying to find a job on Broadway.

Beginning with Ellen’s Stardust, the homepage is set up in a very simple manner, the nav bar is located on the left side of the screen and there are several photos covering the home page.  The photos depict the different activities that occur at the restaurant.  It is somewhat confusing because little blurbs of information pop up when the cursor moves over the image making you think it’s clickable.  The nav bar is set up in an easy manner.  The different links to the pages are clear leaving zero hesitation when clicking on a page.  The gallery page doesn’t link to anything so I don’t know if there is something wrong with the website at the moment but that’s the only page not working.  Everything else is set up in a clean manner.  When moving through the pages, there is a good mixture of images and type.  There isn’t a lot of type making it very easy to take in the information.  Images are used a lot to help assist the reader take in information.   Their use of type stays consistent throughout the website except for the menu.  But every other page uses the same font and font size to differentiate between headings and blocks of information.  Every page has the navigation bar on the left which contains links to all of the pages of the website while also including the logo and links to their social media pages.  The website is predominately white, allowing the images to bring color to the website.  This website overall is created in a clean manner that makes it very easy to use.

Comparing Doblé Dragon’s website, the homepage is also created in a very simple manner.  The only items contained are the logo, hours, nav bar, and location with google maps.  The nav bar is set up in three different pages with a sub navigation on the menu page.  When reading the nav bar, the page titled “our people” could possibly be slightly confusing because it doesn’t have a clearly named title.  The style overall is very consistent with limited images and spaced out type.  We kept the information light on the website as to not overwhelm the user.  When clicking the menu, there is a sub navigation menu that breaks up the menu into the different types of food or drinks.  This was done to make it very easy for people to find what they are looking for.  Both of these websites have very simple designs with few different pages.  They both have limited text use to make it easier to read as well.

While both restaurants focus on the experience that will happen when you visit it, Doblé Dragon focuses more on the people who work at the restaurant.  In addition, the Doblé Dragon website has a strong style to it that matches what the atmosphere would feel like when at the restaurant.  Ellen’s Stardust says that it has a retro style within the restaurant itself but has very little to represent that in the website.  I believe that is a major draw back because if the viewer isn’t captured by the appearance of the website they might not be interested enough to read about it.  So not giving a feeling of your restaurant in the appearance of the website can make people click away if they feel they don’t have the time to find out if it would be a restaurant that interests them.

For Review number 4 I chose to do P.F. Chang’s as a possible competitor website for our fusion restaurant. They are considered an Asian/Chinese fusion restaurant that has been popular for a while now.  P.F. Chang’s website is actually pretty similar to the way that we are making our website as far as the layout and overall style of the site goes.  They have a main navigation bar with menus, reservations, rewards, etc. Then they feature almost a “block” style design where there are different tiles with information on them. The overall look and feel of the website is very simple, clean, and to the point which in my opinion is very important for a restaurant website as people are basically going to be doing two things- ordering or looking at the menu and that should be as simple as possible. The home page itself is built small so that there is not a lot of scrolling involved. Instead you are clicking on links to travel to the other pages. The navigation is simple and very easy to do with everything being in one central location. In my opinion the website could use a bit more, whether it was some added color or maybe something that makes the sight feel more interactive. It does its job for what it is needed for but I feel as if something more could be added to it just to make the experience of the website a little more interesting to browse.

As for comparing our website project to P.F. Chang’s I think we are going for a very similar general look and navigation style but I feel as if we are adding a bit more interactivity to our website. Its not just going to be plain with pictures of our food and simple things. We are featuring a convenient online ordering system right on our home page so that customers don’t need to search for anything and can just quickly order from our website and head out to pick up their food. I think this is a strong idea because it is straight to the point for the customer and also includes a bit more interactivity and ease for the customer when navigating our website. We certainly do not want to overdue it so that there is just a bunch of junk that is thrown all over our website but something that makes sense and works well for our customers.

 

For this assignment, I looked at the website for Noodlebox (http://www.noodlebox.ca/). This restaurant is looked at as competition to our website due to the Asian-styled food mixed with another element, westernization.

The website at first glance seems like a one-page website, then moves on to being a multi-page website when you click on the last two tabs. This layout is concerning and very startling when you don’t expect it. The other concerning element is the delivery menu at the top of the screen. Every time the page is changed the last thing to load is this delivery option, causing the whole screen to jerk down for a moment. This web page has some pluses when it comes to layout also. The screen’s menu scrolls with the rest of the website, following you on the way down. Picture galleries can be found on the homepage and they flow well with the rest of the page.

The whole website has a very dark black color with white text and red elements. The black makes the words pop but very difficult to read after a while. The name of the restaurant also is put over a photo and is very hard to read at first glance. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you have to scroll all the way up in order to get back up. If someone wants to find something on this website, they most likely can.

The website is very professional and compared to ours looks like it has had a lot of time put into it over a long period of time. The amount of information put on each page is overwhelming at times. The darkness is unsettling on Noodlebox’s website and ours is more welcoming comparatively. Our website has a more uniform feel when it comes to navigation and that is what stands out amongst the two.

Masian versus Zen Fusion

 

A restaurant website that would be competition for my group’s website restaurant, “Masian,” would be zenasianfusion.com/. The website itself, aside from the actual quality of the restaurant itself, appears to be portray a good quality environment. This is shown through their effective layout, color and texture, and the navigation.

The layout of the site is organized in detail. There are seven separate tabs for different user needs, making it not clustered all in one area. The restaurant name/logo is right at the top, which is good for establishing the site right off the back. Right in the middle at the top is a big graphic describing an upcoming event, which is good for highlighting the extra events they throw. The rest of the homepage is all description of the event that week. It is good for highlighting what is to come, but it would be nice if they had a little bit more info about the restaurant itself right on the homepage too for viewers interested in the restaurant, not the event. Underneath is a button to contact them. That button is on the bottom of the site no matter what tab the viewer is on, which makes it easy to find.

The color and the texture of the site is mainly black and white with the occasional hint of red. The font is not consistent, which is a little bit bothersome. Every now and then there is a hint of a bright, different color, which may throw the viewer off. For the most part, the color is clean though. There is a little bit of texture only in photos, not the actual site. The logo in the top corner, while convenient, is also a tad fuzzy. However, the overall color and texture appears to be clean, but needs tweaked a little.

The navigation of the site is organized for the most part. As stated above, there are seven separate tabs breaking up the website. They are all clearly organized, making it easy to navigate the site without getting confused. However, hidden within the site and at the bottom, there are a few links that take the user somewhere else not labeled at the top as well. Luckily, they stand out so they cannot be accidentally clicked and throw the user off. However, overall the website is easy to navigate and all flows nicely. They effectively guide the user. Especially by keeping the navigation bar fixed, so the user doesn’t even have to scroll back up to click to another tab.

In comparison to our site “Masian,” there are many similarities. Most of our tabs if not the same, are vastly similar in how the website is broken up. There are photos scattered throughout to break up paragraphs as well, much like our site, especially in our “About Us” page and their “Our story” page. However, I’ll site will stand out because it will be more bright and inviting through our use of color, rather than the dark contrast their site has. Our font is also consistent throughout, unlike theirs.

Although there are many similarities throughout the two sites, there are enough differences that they each stand out in their own way as well. However our website will differ and make sure the mistakes made on the site reviewed are not reflected in Masian as well.

For the final review, I choose www.kiyoshibistro.com website that could be considered as the competition of out fusion restaurant. The layout of kiyoshibistro is very simple. They have all the content embedded in two rounded rectangle shapes. One of them is a navigation bar and the other one has the main content of the particular page. All the content is vertically aligned on every page. In the menu pages, text goes in a line followed by an image at the top.

The color scheme is pretty simple. Their website has black color as the background for all of the pages. Yellow/gold color is used for the navigation bar and hover property. Also they have used the tone of yellow as the background of their menu image. Some white and black text is also in the use at certain pages of the website, mostly on the home page. So, overall three color are used throughout the website i.e., yellow, white and black.

The navigation of the website is pretty simple and easy. Obviously, you can scroll up and down throughout the page. Other than that, there is a navigation bar at the top of the page which directs you to the specific page you want to go. Also, on each page there is a navigation button for the home page and a button to go at the top of that specific page. Since, there is only one way of navigation, it is easier for the users to navigate throughout the site and find the stuff fast and easy.

The texture of this website is not as good as the other components of design such as color, layout etc. But it’s not that bad either. It doesn’t have any unique line making up different shapes than the other websites, it’s kind of the usual shapes that has been used everywhere. There is some repeated stuff used at different pages but again it’s all the usual stuff. There isn’t enough depth in the in images, design, and shapes created, but it doesn’t look bad as it is.

The guidance to the user through the content of the website is quite effective. There are only six pages in the website and the navigation to each page is at top of each page in the navigation bar. There isn’t any other further link in the website except those six pages, so the user shouldn’t have any problem accessing the website.

The website that my group has made would have different color used than kiyoshi’s website. We used orange, green, and white. Also, our website has more pages than kiyoshi. Kiyoshi’s pages have different menu for lunch, dinner, sushi bar, and signature dishes, but we didn’t use our pages that like. Instead, we have all the dishes in one page names menu. And further we have more pages like gallery, reservation, events, shop, contact, about, and home page.

The font used by kiyoshi doesn’t  look good, and the line height is very less which makes the text hard to read. Since we have used good font and would have good line height and spacing, it will help our website to stand out. Also, in the gallery we used good looking images that can make a customer really hungry and order food from our website. Finally, the reservation page will help a lot for our website to stand out because a user can reserve a table by himself during a busy day or before without being in the line and waiting forever.