Ames' syllabi

Overstock.com

For the first review, I chose to visit the website Overstock.com. Overstock initially focuses on selling returned and surplus merchandise on the online website. I have used Overstock to buy small miscellaneous items from time to time but have not used it or visited it in a while. A short while after launching I knew that Overstock.com attempted to simplify the website name to O.co but by doing this, several users were confused and struggled to get used to the change showing that simplifying something does not always make it better as stated in the reading. While scrolling down the home page, the images that are actual links to sales and categories are a positive addition to letting a user know what the website has to offer instead of just listing the sales in a categorical and somewhat boring order.

Next, the color scheme of the website is clean and easy to read with white as the background, red accents and black text. At the top center of the screen is the search bar, with the tabs listing the several categories for the many items just below. One thing to notice is that the tabs are not alphabetically listed on the website but that did not seem to be a problem. One thing that I would change about the website is some of the sizes of some of the text or categories on the pages. Although it is a nice font and simple, a large amount of the text is the same size or relatively close to each other, making it a little harder to find what I am looking for immediately.

I used the search bar to find the item that I was looking for on Overstock. The search results popped up with ways to narrow the search by price, size or even brand. I quickly found the item I was looking for and clicked on the image depicted. I was then directed to the item description which included a drop down list with the full word for the sizes, the quantity as well as the colors I could order the item in. The shopping cart button was in the top right corner and was small but like most of the other shopping cart icons on a website. After clicking it, the checkout button, differs from the rest of the site’s color scheme being that it is green instead of the theme of red, white and black.

–American Eagle Outfitters www.ae.com

I frequently look at American Eagle Outfitter’s website for deals on their rather overpriced clothing.  I am a bargain shopper especially during the holidays. Depending on the platform I access their site, the usability varies in level of difficulty. When I first access the site, they always have the most recent news plastered in bold blocks of information on their homepage like “New Arrivals”, “Sales”, or their “brands.”  Currently, each block of information is self explanatory. For example, if I want to shop their “Save up to 60% on Clearance” special right now, I can click “Shop Women”, “Shop Men”, or “Shop Aerie.” They are the 3 most common choices their customers make without thinking.  They have a header of 6 options ranging from “Women” to “Clearance” at the top. If I want to go to the cheapest clothing, I know to immediately click on the “Clearance” link since it simply states where it will take me.  However, they appear just as text, not as button. I believe it is through conditioning of multiple websites using this kind of technique that online shoppers know that text explaining “women”, “men”, “clearance”, etc. will take us to the specified location without necessarily having to have a “button” appearance.  One feature I have always liked about American Eagle’s website is how they always have a photograph of the product that makes it obvious about what the product is, how to wear it or use it, and that you can click the image to look at more information or buy the product.  It does not require a lot of thought. It’s so easy even my older relatives know how to maneuver the site when they are shopping for their nieces, nephews, and grandchildren.  As for the format of the site, the most important information is in larger sections that take up the majority of the site’s visual space.  Product names and prices are significantly smaller than the corresponding photograph because American Eagle deems the visual of the product is more important than the name of it, but the price follows by being larger than the product name.  Their pages are easy to scan with a helpful “Back to Top” feature since their pages tend to scroll on for what seems like forever in the internet world.  The most important information is easy to scan through quickly and the more detailed information is on single product pages where you see the image, product name, price, size information, and availability. Unnecessary information is never immediately displayed when viewing their products.  The user must work further into the site mapping to see more detailed information.  If I am in a hurry, I scroll quickly looking at contrasting colors that will cause me to pause and look at an item I may like.  It is easy to go back to a previous page without having to start back at the top again.  (This is not the case in their app on the iPad or iPhone.) Overall, I think their main webpage is easy to use, but their apps are much more difficult to maneuver and have significant bugs.  The website usually loads quickly and is not flashy so it is easy for the eye to flow through the information and not become over stimulated. Important information is bold, large, and easy to find. Hovering over bits of information all over the site makes submenus appear.  The site is layered, but the layers do not need to be accessed in order to work through the website to achieve the ultimate goal of making a purchase.

–Katie Carlton

Jennifer Hoffman
http://www.modcloth.com/

The site I am reviewing is for Mod Cloth, which sells clothing, bedding, room decor and more. This site fits the “Don’t Make Me Think” criteria. The buttons that you are meant to push to navigate through the site either hightlights when the cursor is hovering over it, or is within a bound box as a button, just as the book describes. Everything is laid out very simply, with headings such as “Dresses” “Shoes” and “Home & Gifts” to name a few. When you hover over the headings you get a drop down that lays it out to more specific categories such as “Graphic Tees” “Leggings” and “Bedding”. This organization makes it very easy to browse their products and to find exactly what you are looking for.

When you find the product that you want, it is very easy to add it to your “bag”, as there is a large pink button that says “Add to Bag” and even directly takes you to the bag to view all the items that you have saved in it. To view your bag at any given time, there is a small icon shaped as a tote bag, on the top right of the screen, right next to a large button that says “Check Out”.

Over all this site is very easy to navigate and is well designed to make saving and purchasing your items fast and simple.

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.