Author: jennahall98

EscaLa Restaurant & Bar

I chose escalaktown.com for this review. It is a Korean/Colombian Fusion Restaurant in L.A.

The Home page has a smooth and clean yet fun feel to it. The white background paired with the fun photographs and their interesting logo makes for a interesting homepage. My only complaint would be the amount of text. They have a lot of about information mixed with other info. I feel that it could be separated into another tab. Their menu page is clean and easy to read, but they use white text over top of their photographs of white plates making it hard to read. Their events page is a simple calendar, but flipping through it you do not see any events. If there are no regular events scheduled maybe it would be best to just delete that page and add an about. Overall it is easy to navigate and provided a fun and easy user experience.

Compared to our website it is very different. Ours uses dark colors and large simple photographs. Our photographs are taken up close to provide a textured feel to them. We tried only to contain text that was important for people to know and all of our pages are used and deemed necessary. Our menus are split into pages by category, whereas the other was all one long page.

Overall I think that if we were in the same area they could be considered a competition fusion restaurant, but only if they also had a food truck. Our websites do not have a lot in common but they both work in their own way.

     I chose to review and compare no.9park.com and burgatorybar.com for this assignment.

     To start the No.9 Park Website is easy to navigate and pleasing to look at. They use a Hierarchical/ Sequence architecture and Global/Secondary Navigation. This makes the site user friendly and easy to follow. This site gives off a classy and put together feel that you may not get from other sites. It shows that this restaurant is expensive and elegant without being too in your face about it. This site contains a nice balance of images and text so as not to overwhelm the user. These elements also work together to provide a positive viewing experience. Overall this site has a clear hierarchy and layout making it in my opinion an easy to use and enjoyable site.

     The Burgatory site is much different from the first in regards to style but everything else is pretty similar. While No. 9 Park was classy, Burgatory is more of a Trendy site. It too uses Hierarchical/Sequence architecture along with Global/Secondary Navigation. It is user friendly and easy to navigate just like the first site. The websites design and navigation makes it fun and interesting to navigate. You can tell from this site that this is a fun and trendy place to eat. While this site relies mainly on pictures to attract its audience there is enough supplemental text to get the point across. This site does not overwhelm or frustrate, so I would say overall that it is user friendly due to its clear hierarchy and layout.

     Overall, I enjoyed both websites. They both were different yet both had similar setups. I think I enjoyed the No. 9 Park site more simply because it looked cleaner. It was not as in  your face as Burgatory was and I think that it works to the sites advantage.

sbs.com.au (Missing: An Interactive Documentary)

I chose a one page interactive site called Missing: An SBS Interactive Documentary. It goes through the disappearance and murder of a little girl. I have never seen something labeled as a documentary on this kind of platform before, so that is why I chose it. The colors of the site vary seeing as most of the time it is a colored photograph(s). During transitions though the colors are dark and Moody. You see a lot of Black, Dark Brown, and Maroon. A lot of the elements are dissolved and layered overtop of one another giving the viewer some anxiety. The use of 3-D imagery also adds to this. It is a single page site but it tells you when to click for it to transition between different pieces of content. You can also move your cursor to explore/see more of the scene. There is no scrolling involved that I can see/use. If there is a fact or something important you should know about the story, it is placed in the center of the screen on a dark background in bright letters. The use of multiple, complementary typefaces also makes it easier to read. Personally, I like the idea of the site and the overall feel. I do think though that it is a bit hard to navigate and walkthrough. I almost feel like I need more direction in using it. This difficulty though does add to the story in a way.

Jenna Hall

Review 1

2/12/19

PetSmart

I chose PetSmart to review for my large Ecommerce site. I used their search bar to find the kind of cat food my cat eats and the image popped right up. In order to add the item to your cart, you need to click the image and then select the quantity and various other options before you can click add cart. It is a lot of steps to actually be able to add an item to your cart. I would usually say that the item wasn’t worth buying, because I am lazy by nature. However, the site is so well organized that I do not mind the extra steps to be able to add the item to the cart. This just makes sure I have less to select when I go to checkout. The page is not crowded with unnecessary information either. It just shows my product and there are various drop-down menus should I choose to look at reviews and or the products description. I also like how you can choose to add the item to your favorites. I honestly cannot think of something I do not like about this site. Maybe they should include more cut-out photographs than block photographs.