The two websites I chose to analyze for this assignment were the restaurant websites of Olive Garden and TGI Friday’s. Olive Garden is national Italian restaurant chain with several locations throughout the greater Pittsburgh area. TGI Friday’s is also a national chain restaurant that serves classic Bar and Grill restaurant and has several locations throughout the Pittsburgh area as well. Although both are high in popularity, each restaurant has a completely different atmosphere; they also offer to very different types of websites.
Olive Garden’s website is very classic and rustic looking. It uses neutral colors like green, tan, and brown. The layout is vertical and requires the user to scroll down the page. There are several tabs, including Menu, Specials, Gift Cards, and more, that allow the user to easily navigate through the website. One of the most prominent features on the website that Krug discussed in his textbook is the site’s use or promotions. A majority of each page from the navigation bar features some sort of promotional effort to get people to come to the restaurant. The website also has a very cohesive layout; a majority of the content is in a square shape and they all are relatively close in size. It all looks like one cohesive layout and showcases it’s food through lots of visuals.
TGI Friday’s website is very up-to-date with technological trends and demands. The website’s homepage includes video backgrounds of the food being prepared and tossed; this not only makes it stand out from other websites, but it also makes the food much more appealing. Like Olive Garden, their site also does a good job of emphasizing their features and promotions. Krug’s book tells readers to “use as much space as necessary” when trying to get their promotional messages across. TGI Friday’s does have a lot of white space on some of their pages, but it does not take away from the quality of the website. The traditional colors and balance of images make the website very classic and true to the restaurant’s vibe.
I think TGI Friday’s website does a much better job at catching the attention of users. The layout is much more visually pleasing and the colors aren’t distracting. It also easy to navigate and understand and all of the text stands out. It looks like one cohesive website and has an overall better visual appearance than Olive Garden’s does.