Category: Site Review

The website i choose to review that i feel would be competition for my groups fusion restaurant website is P. F. Changs. i feel that this would be a good compareison are website as it combines chinese food with different cultures of food just as are website combines ice cream and potatoes. The layout of the website is fairly simple everything on the page is very easy to get as far as the menu tabs and others on the top off the page. The navigation i feel could be a little better because if you would click the menu page it brings you to different menus instead of the menu itself, as it is with all the other tabs as well. I also feel that the layout as far as the color palette goes it is very bland and could use more then just the two colors it has which makes the website unappealing to the user i feel. I feel a more brighter color palette would have been a better choice to give it more life. i feel the texture of the website works very good with the website the text and the way things are arranged works very well i think. over i would change the color and the navigation for the different tabs but everything else works very well.

Potato Bar Spud’s Poutinerie would be good competition for our Cream and the Crop restaurant because it includes very unique menu items. It looks like a popular college student place to go to. I can imagine this restaurant in a location such as the Strip District. After looking at the menu I found a bunch of unique options which is similar to our restaurant menu. Their website had the restaurant’s name in the upper left corner that stayed in place and a main navigation key at the top of the page. The navigation keys lead to the menu, restaurant locations, about the restaurant, franchising, and community information. When you put your mouse over any of the navigation keys on the top of the page, a yellow border appears. The background is a kitchen style looking stone tile that is stationary on the screen. Each navigation key has an orange sponge textured border. In the reading it says that texture should give off a feeling and the kitchen stone tile look gives off a home feeling.   Also in the reading, orange is thought to promote happiness, enthusiasm, and creativity. At the bottom of the page are more navigation keys such as Spud’s store, franchise login, faq, become an associate, and Spud’s club. All of the main navigation keys are on every page the website allows you to go to. There isn’t much information on the main page of the restaurant’s website. The menu only offers two pictures of items on the menu. The menu is organized into many sections. Our menu will include many pictures of our menu options. You do have to go back a page once you’re on the menu page in order to get to the other navigation keys. Shown on the locations page is a picture of more food and map views of their restaurants. I don’t believe their color scheme works for the website. I also found that when you place your mouse over the food pictures on the main page, a small sign pops up telling you what the transition into the next picture is going to be. Our Cream and the Crop restaurant website will stand out because of the many pictures and pages loaded with things to read. Our website has smooth transitions between different pages and easy navigation. Our website includes much more information about the restaurant itself and the faces behind the food than most restaurant websites.

Today I will be reviewing another restaurants website, but this time I will also be comparing it to the website that my group is currently finalizing. The restaurant that I was to find to review is that which could be in competition with my own imaginary fusion restaurant, “Cream & the Crop”, a restaurant I feel fits this bill is “Gaucho”. This is a small restaurant that serves Argentinian food, and boasts a wood fire stove. The reason I believe this business is in direct competition with “Cream & the Crop” is the location in Pittsburgh’s strip district as well as it’s unique style and reasonable costs. I will be comparing the restaurants’ websites, but first I’ll discuss the use of layout, color, texture and navigation.

Firstly I will jump into the overall layout of the Gaucho site. On the homepage we see a large container floating in the center of the screen with margins around it. In the top right hand corner of the container is the menu, featuring; restaurant, menu, find us, and reviews. It is slightly off putting that the entire top left hand side of the home screen is blank, as this is where users typically begin their search for a site ID and navigation bar. Then inside the box below the menu is a large logo followed vertically by an embedded commercial, and below that the address and hours of operation. Upon opening each of the pages in the main navigation menu I notice that apart from the home screen the rest of the site features a site ID at the top left of the screen. The center container is the only change on each page, getting larger or smaller to fit the menu, reviews, or map. The two boxes stating the address and hours of operation remain the same on every screen as well. Overall I think this site’s layout is simple and works well enough, but could be enhanced if the menu was in a place that felt more natural, and if each pages didn’t feel so disconnected from one another.

Moving on to color and texture in the design. The site uses a handful of colors to help unify the pages into one company scheme, but fails in some regards. The main colors of the site are a pale yellow, black, and light gray. These colors are used on every page, grey for main containers and menus, black in the text and logo, and a yellow background that also features a photo. This scheme works effectively to give the whole place a feel of south of the boarder food, but a few problems effect the overall effectiveness. Mostly the page that features the menu, on this page the main container has another container inside itself, this is the menu and it is very dark grey nearly black, with white text and a reddish boarder. the dark grey with white text is not seen anywhere else on the site and feels out of place. The reddish boarder could be explained as matching a strip of color between the yellow background and the background image, but these two colors even appear to be slightly different. As far as texture goes many of the colors are flat, which I don’t this is bad. Gradient effects are used sparingly on the menu bar to give a sense of roundness, and it works to create more interest on the menu bar. The largest problem as far as texture goes is the image that is found in the background of the site. The image is not high enough quality to be blown up so large, and has not been edited well enough to match the color scheme of the rest of the site.

Lastly is navigation, one of the most important things to keep in mind when creating a site. As already discussed there is an issue with the menu being located in the top right as opposed to the top left, this could confuse users as the first place they look is to the top left for a site ID and menu options. That being said the menu does it’s job, with a simple hover effect that shows what can be clicked on and what can’t be. But there is no way to tell what page the user is on based on the menu bar. This problem is made worse by having the word Gaucho before each page name so that’s all that can fit into the tab above. There is also no courtesy navigation at the bottom of the page, which is a useful tool when navigating a site. Other issues include blue lettering in places when they are not clickable links, and the logo sometimes linking to the homepage and sometimes being just a graphic. Overall the navigation is simple and while it does it’s job, it could also be improved on for the user.

The Gaucho website is not bad, it is very simple and does what it needs to in many ways. I feel that “Cream & the Crop” will have a superior website that will be usable and visually appealing. It will do this by having a more unique layout featuring a fixed menu that scrolls with the user, as well as unified pages. With a constant color scheme that gives a feeling of an old fashion ice cream shop while reinforcing textures that bring up visuals of potatoes. And finally by clearly showing where the user is, and featuring multiple ways to navigate to the same page, for a more organic user experience.

As a doughnut fusion restaurant, I chose to review a website that directly competes, a popular doughnut restaurant in Chicago, Illinois: Glazed and Infused. The website’s address is https://www.goglazed.com/index.php. The website immediately stood out to me, it’s simple but vibrant and definitely was designed well. The Glazed and Infused Website uses a lot of mediums together: illustration, type, and photography within the same page. In other words, there’s a lot to look at.

Upon first looking at the website, there is a blatant color scheme which successfully ties the elements of the page together. The prominent color of the website is a bright orange, which creates cohesion and instills brand recognition. Otherwise the color palette is cream and black, which complement and calm down the vibrancy of the orange. There is an interesting texture to the background color, which gives it a vintage paper feel. This in combination with sketchy illustrations and detailed photographic textures creates a retro yet modern mood to the website. I think that the website does a good job to attract a certain audience.

The layout and navigation of the website are fairly standard. The homepage draws you into a button labeled “Order Here” which takes you to the menu page. The rest of the homepage is general information about the restaurant. Otherwise there is a navigation bar near the top of the website which lists important categories like menu, locations, etc. Hovering over these aspects of the navigation bar places an orange bar over the text, and upon clicking it leads you to another page with information and photography. Photography is a major aspect of the website’s layout and uses large photographs of the restaurant and doughnuts to head each page. The photography is great and looks very appealing; I think that using large, indulgent photographs was a wise decision to entice viewers to purchase their food.

Everything is fairly well organized apart from feeling a bit cluttered. One thing I did not like about the website is a panel at the bottom of the page which has several, but not all of the same buttons as the top navigation bar. I do not like that you cannot access all elements easily from one navigation bar alone; for instance, the social media icons are only found at the bottom of the page. A lot of the same information is repeated and I feel as though the website needs to be more streamline and simple. Overall, the website had a fairly straightforward layout, but a lot of the information and pages were overwhelming with content.

In comparison to my restaurant’s page I think it competes well. Both websites use a selective color palette and a vibrant, retro appeal. I think what will make our website stand out is its more modern take on a classic food item. The one-page website with a streamline design and minimal information will make it easier for the viewer to be guided through content.

In this review I used carrabbas. There use of color and texture were very good. It has great depth with the background image and foreground image. layout is also good but is not a traditional and could get confusing. They do a good job at navigation but could use more features to make it pop and easier on the user. in our website we use excellent navigation with clear information.

The fusion restaurant I have created for my final site is titled Bacon & Bliss, and it incorporates bacon into many common dishes. There are not many restaurants that focus solely on the sale of bacon related items, but the ones that do could be considered direct competition for my style of restaurant. One close example would be a restaurant titled “Bakn”, and it is located on Main Street in Carnegie, PA. The examples of items they sell are very similar to the ones my restaurant would be offering. When I first opened Bakn’s webpage at eatbakn.com, I noticed how they utilized a full page layout. This gave me a large image of one of their food options the moment I opened the site. Another thing that stood out was the bold set of info in the upper right corner. It displays their location and phone number, leaving it very easy to find when navigating to the site. As I continued on further I began to realize the website is a one-page scrolling site. The navigation bar only jumped to a certain part of the page, instead of taking me to another one. The color choices they made closely match the choices I had made for Bacon & Bliss. They used red and gray as their two main colors, with warm toned images of their food to help balance everything out against the white background. They also utilized texture in their main logo which gives it a ‘rustic’ look, matching the style of the restaurant.

The only thing I would change about this site layout would be to put the hours somewhere else on the page besides the bottom. This would be fine if it where a multiple page site, but being a one page layout makes it difficult and time consuming for the user to navigate through. This is one main aspect where my site’s layout would work better, because the information is very quick and easy to get to and I also have a navigational tab for it as well. Another part of my site that may work better is how it is totally contained in a wrapper. In my personal opinion, it is easier to read when everything is contained together, and it is much easier to find information. After viewing Bakn’s website, I realized I could add more user interaction with my site in order to draw people in. Branding is also very important when creating a website because it must reflect what the restaurant aims  to be seen as to the public. Bakn’s branding incorporates humor into it’s message, and they have a very modern take on their business. This kind of branding is what I aim for when creating a restaurant such as this, and I feel I am working my way towards that goal.

In all, I feel that both restaurant sites share many similarities such as color scheme, menu, and branding, but also differ in their layout and information hierarchy. Both strive to sell a product. 

For review 4 I chose to compare my fusion restaurant’s website to Dunkin’ Donuts. For the final project, my team and I decided that we would create a donut fusion restaurant that would offer savory or sweet sandwiches that would sit between a donut. Being that Dunkin’ Donuts is a huge name, especially for donuts, I feel that this business could be competition for our restaurant, The O Zone.

Dunkin’ Donuts is a very well known and loved establishment throughout our country and for that reason I feel that they will be The O Zone’s biggest competition in donut selling. The website for Dunkin’ is very messy in my opinion. There are a lot of bright colors going on and content randomly placed on the pages. There is a lot of text also present, which makes it hard for me to locate what I intended to. However, the navigation is fairly simple since they have a navigation bar located at the top of the page with links to different things such as: drinks, food, and so forth. When I clicked on “Hot beverages,” I was lead to another page with pictures of their different offerings and the names of each product beneath. I found this aspect of the site to be successful because I certainly didn’t have to do any thinking. As far as texture goes, there isn’t much present other than a few gradients on keys and navigation bars. I don’t think the lack of texture takes away from this site, but the messy layout and highly saturated colors don’t do it much justice. In all, the site is decently put together, but it is not the most aesthetically pleasing design that I have seen.

For The O Zone, my group and I decided that our website will be a single page site that can be navigated simply with a constant key. Upon entering the page, our logo will be at the top center of the homepage with our location on both sides, and a key to navigate the content of the website beneath it. The key has clickable buttons that will take the viewer directly to what they are looking for. For example, we will have a button that says “The Menu.” Once clicked, the page will scroll directly to the menu portion of the site. This concept goes for the rest of the content on our site. When our viewers want to change content or go to another section of the website, they can do this easily with a navigation bar that moves with the page and sits at the top always. We felt that this technique would make our website as user friendly as possible and allow our viewers to never have to think. The background color of the website is black. The content of the page will live in a margin that is more narrow than the page as whole and will have a grey background color. The accent colors of The O Zone are comprised of dull and saturated hues of purple, pink, and tan. To create a well flowing page, we decided each heading will be the same color, bright pink-orange, and our body text will be a dull tan. Instead of having photographs to present our products, we decided we would create our own illustrations for our unique products. This idea allows for the viewer to have an idea of what they can expect to get at the restaurant, while still leaving some mystery and fun for their visit. Like Dunkin’ Donuts, texture will not be a prominent part of our website. The O Zone is a chic and modern establishment and giving our site a flat look compliments the concept. In all, our fusion restaurant will stand out against Dunkin’ Donuts because: we have many products you cannot get at Dunkin’ or anywhere else for that matter and our website is trendy while still being user friendly and easy to navigate through.

http://bravofranco.com/index.asp VS. http://www.burgatorybar.com/

These restaurants are very different and are going after a different audience. Therefore, the styles of the sites are different, but I believe both do a good job.

First, Bravo Franco’s site. The first thing that grabs the user’s attention on the homepage would be the three large pictures of their food and restaurant placed in the center. Then, the user sees the toolbar that is split by the restaurant’s logo. The toolbar consists of all the necessary pages to navigate to and above the toolbar, there is the restaurant’s phone number and address. The site is easy to navigate. The store’s hours are at the bottom of the site in their own section titled “hours of operation.” This makes them easy to find. One visual problem would be the menu section in the bottom right of the homepage. The different categories of the menu are listed in bright red, a color that doesn’t fit the overall scheme of the site. That could because they want to emphasize that section, but their menu already has it’s own page that can be accessed through the toolbar at the top of the page. Although the site’s aesthetic is a little rough around the edges, it does a good job at making sure everything that needs to found is easy to find.

Burgatory’s site has a completely different feel to it. The first thing the user sees on their site is a completely interactive look at their burgers and shakes. This is easy to use and works well for restaurant who’s main attraction is it’s unique menu. The toolbar is placed directly next to the interactive menu and has a way to navigate to useful sections such as the full menu, locations, ways to contact , and merchandise. All of the locations are also listed at the bottom of the homepage. One problem I do have with the site is the fact that the hours of operation are placed at  the bottom right of the homepage in small, dark red font that may be hard to read for some. The site is definitely unique and modern looking, but the hours of operation should definitely be easier to find. It’s an important part of a restaurant’s site.

Although Burgatory looks slicker and more modern, I feel it easier to find what you want on Bravo Franco’s web site.

Miranda Kerin

Review 3

Mad Mex vs. Burgatory

For this review I chose to compare Burgatory and Mad Mex on their websites. The first site I chose to open was Burgatory’s, and was pleasantly surprised by how unique it’s homepage looked. Instead of the classic downward scrolling page, it allowed the user to scan through different burger choices and put humor in each slide. Being a mostly create-your-own meal restaurant, it was a clever way to show some of the creations one could potentially make if they visited in person. The site also has the same design feeling as the inside of their restaurants, allowing for a seamless transition in their marketing. They balanced out their page nicely with the use of bold text shown on either side of the central graphic. They place heavy emphasis on the image of the burger, for good reason. The layout, as I said previously, is unique but it works well for their company.

On the other hand, when I opened Mad Mex’s homepage I was not as impressed by the initial look of their layout. Their color schemes seem to work well for their style of restaurant, but their lack of texture gives the site a boring feel. Although the navigation is easy to understand, for it is located right underneath a simple banner. While this makes in some-what user friendly, it does not make it stand out as a unique and interesting website. The use of balance is thrown off by a large image that drowns out the text. They also use yellow text on a green banner for their additional information footer which is somewhat hard to read. This site also goes against Krug’s, “Make it easy to go home,” rule. There is no home link on the main navigation, the user must click the large banner in order to go back home. In fact, the only other option to go home is the small yellow text on the footer.

When comparing these two websites, Burgatory succeeds in having a more unique and balanced layout in comparison to Mad Mex. They tied in the theme of their restaurant to the experience of their website, and it only helps add to their brand.

For review 3 I chose to investigate the websites for Bravo Franco Ristorante and Six Penn Kitchen. To begin with, I found that the two websites had many similarities. For example, both sites have their company name and logo at the top center of their home pages; making it very easy for the viewer to observe what restaurant they are looking at. They both also have a tool bar at the top of their home site with links to different parts of the site, such as: menus, contact information, specials, etc. A third similarity I came across while experimenting was that when I clicked on a link in the tool bar, I was directed to a different page but still had the same tool bar to use if I wanted to go to a different page. I think that these aspects gave strength to both sites because I didn’t have to do any thinking when I wanted to travel to another page.

That said, the two restaurants are very different when it comes to what they serve, so their layouts are also very different. Bravo Franco Ristorante’s site had a much more distinguished look. It used serif typefaces and a more natural, business-like color scheme. The color scheme and typefaces remained constant from page to page, which gave it unity. The information presented on each page was clean and readable. Each page also had a heading, with a word that was much larger than the body of that page, which emphasized what the viewer should expect to read. The layout was clean and the text was very easy to read on each page, however I found it be quite boring. I found myself bored with the lack of color usage and illustrations. There were a few pictures present of dishes they served, but they were very small and in my eyes, took a back seat to the rest of the content on the page.

The design of Six Penn Kitchen was very different from the previous restaurant. This website used a much more playful color scheme and modern look. As stated before, the information that I was searching for was very easy to find due to the tool bar being constant within each page. However, I found that for the most part, the text was centered on each page making it not as legible. The site did use emphasis in making words bold or a different color, but I still found myself getting lost in the text at times. The website dealt with unity well since each page was almost identical to the next. Balance was also achieved because the body on each page was centered, leaving equal negative space on each side.

In all, I think both websites were successful in achieving balance, unity, emphasis, and layout. I think Bravo Franco’s was more successful when it came to emphasis and layout while Six Penn was more successful with balance and unity. Both sites were “idiot-proof,” which is a major goal for web designers according to “Don’t Make Me Think.” Also, I didn’t find many useless words that would turn me off to the site. Krug states multiples times in the text that the less words, the better. Viewers have a goal in mind and if they can’t find it within seconds, they will go to the next website. Neither website made me feel like I had to rip out my hair trying to find what I was looking for, so I’m sure Krug would say, well done.

I chose to review two local restaurant’s websites: Meat and Potatoes (http://meatandpotatoespgh.com/index.html) and Butcher and the Rye (http://butcherandtherye.com/#) They are not only similar in cuisine, style, and atmosphere, but the two restaurants are actually in collaboration, so I felt it would be interesting to compare the two.

I first looked at the website for Meat and Potatoes. Upon first visiting the website the viewer is immediately drawn to a butcher chart in which is labeled the different parts of the website which can be navigated: Menu, About, Gallery, Contact, etc. Upon clicking on one of these panels takes you to a simple webpage that minimally addresses the information. The viewer can then visit other parts of the website through a navigation bar at the top of the page. The website has a good sense of unity by using consistent color scheme, texture, and illustrations. The only disruption in this was the “The Chef” tab, which takes you to a bland, mediocre website belonging to the owner, which distracts from the otherwise persistent theme. Nonetheless, this website does a good job to create a brand for themselves and convey a sophisticated, yet rough around the edges, attitude. While the emphasis of these webpages is of course on the information selected, the restaurant’s logo, address, and number are consistently repeated on each page, which is convenient.

Next I visited the Butcher and the Rye website, which had a one-page layout. While the website seemed to mimic Meat and Potato’s monochromatic color palette and heavy use of texture, this website seemed to portray a more whimsical mood. At the top of the webpage is clickable typography and corresponding illustrated decals. Upon clicking on the words, for instance “The Menu”, the page automatically scrolls down to an image of the menu. The viewer also has the ability to scroll manually through all of the information. There is an evident consistency in the imagery of the page, relying on a bitmap texture and vintage collage technique. While the Butcher and Rye website is a bit busy, it’s certainly unique and attention grabbing.

Regarding Krug’s list of essential aspects of a website, I’ve tried to determine how the webpages implemented these. As far as creating a clear visual hierarchy on every page, I feel that the Meat and Potatoes website does a better job. Each category is featured very directly by importance, whereas the Butcher and the Rye webpage is a bit all over the place and everything seems to flow together. I feel that the Meat and Potatoes website also does a better job at utilizing conventions, for instance it implements headlines in a more prominent way, where as the Butcher and the Rye is presented in more unconventional way. I think both pages do a good job at creating clearly defined areas through page breaks, borders, and titles labeling each section. Both websites clearly define what is a clickable link very well. Meat and Potatoes implements underlined text and text that changes color when hovered. Catcher and the Rye relies on a bold red color when hovered at the beginning of the webpage, which really grabs the viewer’s attention and urges them to click. Lastly, I think both websites did a fairly good job at minimizing noise. If anything, the Butcher and the Rye website is a bit busy and slightly distracting, but I think it works well to suggest the desired feeling of the restaurant.

Overall, while the Meat and Potatoes website is definitely clean and well organized, the Butcher and the Rye personally draws my attention more. The one-page scroll is unconventional and interactive, and there is immense interest in the visuals of the webpage. The webpage is fun and a bit offbeat, suggesting that the restaurant would be a unique and unordinary dining experience.

 

 

The two sites I choose where Bravo and Six Penn. I think both sites were very well designed. Bravo put the most emphasis on there logo where as Six Penn decided to put the focal point on the location image at the top of the page. Six Penn’s unity works better than Bravo’s because of overall texture and color usage. I also think Six Penn’s layout works better than Bravo’s because it looks more interactive and interesting than Bravo’s very basic look. However, I think both sites are very usable and easy to navigate. Six Penn is defiantly more effective at grabbing my attention. They use a variety of images that show a many different aspects of the restaurant. The color choices were also much better with Six Penn than Bravo. They show a very elegant style but also very approachable. In conclusion both sites are successful but Six Penn steals the cake with style, elegance, and approachability.

The two websites i reviewed was SixPennKitchen.com and Burgatory.com. the Purgatory website attracted me more bc it uses more of a Bighter color palette then the sixpennkitchen website does, Burgatory’s website also has a better use of images as they are bigger and easier to see. the Burgatory website in that sense users emphasis very well because the pictures of the food and everything is bigger to put that emphasis on them. the sixpennkitchen website has a very limited color palette as far as having the same two colors, i found that it is easier to get to as far as the menu or about us page and news & gallery page, were as purgatory makes it very hard to navigate to other pages. the sixpennkitchen website is very easy to navigate through because all of the different tabs are all on the top of the page and easy to find, the different sub menus are very limited as well the color palette, were as the Burgatory website sub menus are more colorful and have a better design to them then the other website which is better to look at and more interesting. Overall i feel the Burgatory website is the overall better website.

Multicraft International as a single page website works out very good as the navigation is very easy and simple for the user to work their way through the site. I also liked the way the navigation of the page as it was going from top to bottom following the gear as you went through the different sections of the page. I also liked how the the different sections had very good descriptions of the management style they were trying to convey. I felt that the graphics on the page could have been a little bit better, I also felt that the color choice could have been used better i felt they used to much grey and red. overall i felt it is a ok single site page but still has a lot that could be better on it. The navigation on it is very good and very easy to follow and i liked the how they used the gear to follow you as you went down through the page. Overall i felt it was a very well thought out but still needs a little bit of work to do on it.