For the final review, I looked up a restaurant called Conflict Kitchen and looked at the design of their site. Something interesting about the restaurant is that they actually change their style and design every so often. They serve food based on countries that the U.S is in conflict with at the time, and currently they are serving Palestinian food. The layout of the restaurant site is very interesting, where scrolling is the main function of the site. On each page, the main information is at the top of the page, with an image behind, and more additional info, you scroll down, and the navigation bar is consistent through each page, and the layout is consistent where the information is laid out and crisp. The text is balanced, and images do not take away from the text. Along with the layout, the texture of the site is very visual, but interesting. The textures that are used as the main background are used throughout the site, as well as the actual restaurant. They use this as their brand, and change it based on what country they are focusing on. The texture also designates the color of the site. The colors that the Conflict Kitchen used were colors from the textural banner at the top of the site. They consistently keep purple, black, red, white, and yellow. The colors work well together, except for some white text over the pictures. Some text is hard to read, but overall the colors work great together. According to the Principles of Web Design, red symbolizes excitement and passion. Purple symbolizes royalty and power, as well as extravagance. Yellow shows energy and happiness. Black, finally, is often negative, but it can show power and strength. Overall, the colors work very nicely together. Navigation works great as well, and leads the viewer around without causing problems. The site maintains the nav bar through every page, and is clean and understandable. Overall, our website could be comparable to this through our color choices, and it would be nice to mimic the image use of this site, as well as navigation that is understandable. Our site will stand out through images and colors, as well as possible textures.
Restaurant Site Reviews
For my review of restaurant sites, I chose to look at Six Penn Kitchen and Kyoshi Bistro. At first glance, both of these sites look clean and have a neutral, non-distracting background behind the content. To start, Six Penn Kitchen is a very crisp site. Everything is balanced, clean, and ordered. Everything is contained within the confines of the banner across the top, and the navigation is continuous throughout the site. Emphasis is used through the use of important items being placed in the navigation bar or having a bright green color for the image to pull attention to these items. The site is very unified through the color schemes, and works well through the continuous navigation bar. Overall, the layout of the site is effective, and all the elements I would like to see, from the navigation, to the menu, even to reservations is included online. I also really like that they have galleries of the different food items and other important info.
For Kyoshi, The site is much simpler, and the layout is not as visually pleasing. As I can remember, the site was actually a bit different the last time I was on, which makes me think they are going through changes, although it would be more effective to push a new site after the updates are finished. For this site, the layout is a bit sloppy, and not very interesting. The first thing that I notice is that the size of the page changes for each tab. The navigation stays throughout, and there are always images that are found at the top of the page, but the balance of the site is not there, at least for the home page. The page is very heavy on the left, with hours and other information on the right, but all of the other pages are centered and balanced better. Unity is also a bit off, as the background color changes throughout, and the color scheme is a bit too wide. The site uses pink as an emphasis color, but it is a bit too much and does not work great overall. As a whole, I feel that the layout of the site is not up to par.
In total, both sites have some basic principles that are important for sites. As Krug states, navigation is a big part of a site, as we need to be able to get to the pages we need. Both sites follow navigation, and make it easy to be able to navigate the pages. Both sites have page names that change based on the page you’re on, and also identify the restaurant. Neither site has a search option, which is not very important for a restaurant, and also do not have bread crumbs to show where you have been because there is no need to go multiple pages in. The navigation bar cuts down on the issue and allows the user to get to any page needed through the page already being viewed. Overall, the Six Penn Kitchen is a stronger site, and works as a whole much better than Kyoshi, but Kyoshi also has really strong elements that could be fixed and worked better. The pictures used for Six Penn Kitchen as well as the colors and the overall layout are more effective and more captivating than Kyoshi.
Review 2- Hartzfeld- Knock Knock
For my review of a single page website, I chose to look at Knock Knock, a company that is looking into the gas, water and electricity usage in the Netherlands. When the page is first loaded, the screen opens to a circle with orange and teal surrounding the circle, and the phrases “knock knock” and “Focus on the fun things in life” in front of a transparent blue background covering an iPad being used. Upon first sight, the site is clean, but it is a little bit distracting with the moving video behind the text. The color scheme is crisp, and the text is easy to read.
Upon scrolling down the page a bit, the web page appears to work on somewhat of a grid system, having all of the images and other elements in line with each other and spaced apart to effectively use the page. All of the scrolling is down, and new information is added the farther the page is scrolled. The website is crisp, and avoids a lot of clutter. Knock knock follows a lot of the elements such as the grid and negative space that is talked about in The Principles of Beautiful Web Design.
Knock knock sticks to the main colors of orange and blue through the whole page. Any important information is shown through the use of these colors. From The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, They talk about colors that work for websites, and give the emotional reactions to colors. Orange creates a sense of creativity and enthusiasm, which is exactly what knock knock is trying to achieve. Blue is a calming color, and promotes intelligence. When these colors are looked at together, a viewer can get a sense of contrast from warm to cold, which could be the intention of the site, since it talks about electricity and gas. Web designers for this page also use line to their advantage as they use literal lines to connect points together. The main idea of the next point is shown under this line, and scrolls into the next section. The designers also use a lot of other images to convey the ideas, but they are not distracting in the way that the video is at the very top of the page.
Overall, knock knock is an effective website, and the design works well. There are some flaws such as the opening video and some cluttered spots, but overall the web page is crisp, clear, and interesting to read through. Knock knock is designed to create a sense of imagination into the viewers, and it is effective that the viewers will think, but not have to think about how to navigate the page, but to be able to think about the material presented.
ARTM 2210 Amazon Review
For my first review, I chose to look at Amazon.com. I have been needing to purchase a new battery grip for my Nikon D3200. I have always preferred to use Amazon because of the simplicity, but I have not really stopped to think about why it is easy to use or why I like the site.
According to Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think, a website needs to be usable without forcing people to think. Websites should almost be navigated mindlessly. We should not have to ask questions for every click we need to make.
Amazon does a good job of following the thoughts of Krug. For the battery grip that I wanted to purchase, I went to Amazon’s homepage, and right at the top, found the search bar. When I began typing “Nikon D3200 Battery Grip” Amazon gave me suggestions based on the characters I was typing. In Don’t Make me Think, the example of the airports is similar to the auto-filling of Amazon. After clicking the suggestion for the battery grip, Once loaded, the page showed matching battery grips to what I was looking for. On the left side, I was given a chance to filter my search by brand, price, and battery type, and could also limit results based on specific categories from Amazon. I selected the first option shown, a Neewer battery grip. When added to my cart, I got a notification that it was saved, and asked if I wanted to view my cart or continue to look. I clicked on the Neewer grip, and scrolled down the page. On the page of the Neewer grip, it had reviews from customers that had purchased the same grip, specifications, and also suggestions similar to my original search in case I wanted a different brand. For fun, I clicked a suggestion for another battery grip, and looked at a Vivitar grip. This page had the same filters for my search, as well as more suggestions. I decided to keep the Neewer battery grip because it was cheaper and had similar reviews.
Overall, the simplicity of Amazon to purchase items is very high, and it does not make a person think too much to navigate around pages. The site is very clean and does not have much clutter. I feel that anyone could navigate Amazon without much trouble at all. All links are highlighted and easy to find, the white background is not distracting, and navigation is very easy. Amazon does a nice job of avoiding the questions of a viewer by allowing limitations of a search and being able to go back to the main page when needed, while saving searches and giving suggestions. The only change that I could suggest is making it more clear that hitting the Amazon logo at the top left corner will take the viewer to the home page.