Author: cahst300

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.

On the site called Echo at echo-pr.co.uk, the concept that they pushed out to the general audience is very intriguing at first, but it can be very hard on the eyes for some or almost all viewers. First things first, the site starts off with the word ECHO in bold lettering but the texture is thin stripes running down from left to right through the text. The text itself is a light grey color that is put in that color only to showcase its idea behind the website which I will explain later on. It throws me off a bit not only with the stripes, but it is very hard on me to read such a contrasting color with a bunch of stripes running through the page. I get their idea behind it, but it creates such a distraction to the site that could potentially turn away clients/consumers.

Their website has a “switch” widget on the upper left hand side that turns the texture from black stripes with a white background, into white stripes with a black background. This idea is what they called their “switch-on” implementation of making an impact on the layout. The next page while scrolling down switches the text ECHO into diagonal type, which is very interesting in my opinion, then later on breaks off the lettering each time you scroll down.

Now the site’s design is very simple and basically bold with black and white textures and formed layout, but overall it connects in such a way that it flows directly from top to bottom without any contortion through navigation, layout, or scrolling sequences.It’s grid, although some images and text overflows through one another at times, is in a proper format and doesn’t throw off the set details behind the sites idea and design.

Overall, the grid used in the website’s design may be simplistic to a degree, but it controls it’s own layout and the colors and textures are primarily created through implementation of black and white. Although the colors may be simple, it all comes down to how the website portrays it’s usage to the colors.

For my website to review, I chose Sony. Sony’s website and company altogether deals with technology, such as T.V.’s, video equipment, phone accessories, computer software, etc.. The layout is a bit simplistic as it deals with the interface. The top layout is very simple and easy to navigate through for what I was trying to search through.  For most websites the search bar is located at the top right hand side of the interface.  Now with this search bar comes the great addition of adding in a query and locating terms that many other consumers have come across. This helps with a quick and responsive user interface experience. Not only was the search for the item easy and obtainable in a matter of seconds, but based on the tabs that contained the different categories, it was easy to maneuver around for what I was trying to look for. If I needed to go back a step with a category tab, I could easily look to my top left corner and click on the link stating, the previous page and the homepage.

When I need to search for something dealing with a certain category, I found a bunch of bundle deals that were put on display for consumers looking for a particular type of item. For example, in the book called “Don’t Make Me Think” it describes the normal consumer trying to process their thinking by quickly finding and containing the click- able tabs that don’t puzzle or creates a long thinking process of “is this___? or is that a way to get to this?”. This website greatly uses the images to work well within the background and it uses the rule of thirds decently. I say decently due to the fact that the tabs on the top of the page are a bit meshed together. The first row of tabs deals with relatively first look items that consumers look for, plus deals within the company for that week or month. The second row is the different categorical items that you can choose from and uses the images to provide a definitive look at what each software, equipment, accessory can look visually.

If I could choose a couple of things I could improve on with this website, it would be the text color on the small text which is a little harder to read if you have somewhat bad eye site. If anything, I would just make it a bit more darker hue. Furthermore, the first row tabs could be moved towards the left side of the page to grasp at the readers attention and since it is native for most people to read left to right. Other than the small little tweaks that can be made, the overall site design, user-interface, and tab location is very well done and user friendly. Controlling what you want to click on and being able to not think about what a certain search bar or click function will do is very important for customers, because it makes for a better experience and creates a better understanding to the site for others out there.