Author: Puneet Chhabra

For the final review, I choose www.kiyoshibistro.com website that could be considered as the competition of out fusion restaurant. The layout of kiyoshibistro is very simple. They have all the content embedded in two rounded rectangle shapes. One of them is a navigation bar and the other one has the main content of the particular page. All the content is vertically aligned on every page. In the menu pages, text goes in a line followed by an image at the top.

The color scheme is pretty simple. Their website has black color as the background for all of the pages. Yellow/gold color is used for the navigation bar and hover property. Also they have used the tone of yellow as the background of their menu image. Some white and black text is also in the use at certain pages of the website, mostly on the home page. So, overall three color are used throughout the website i.e., yellow, white and black.

The navigation of the website is pretty simple and easy. Obviously, you can scroll up and down throughout the page. Other than that, there is a navigation bar at the top of the page which directs you to the specific page you want to go. Also, on each page there is a navigation button for the home page and a button to go at the top of that specific page. Since, there is only one way of navigation, it is easier for the users to navigate throughout the site and find the stuff fast and easy.

The texture of this website is not as good as the other components of design such as color, layout etc. But it’s not that bad either. It doesn’t have any unique line making up different shapes than the other websites, it’s kind of the usual shapes that has been used everywhere. There is some repeated stuff used at different pages but again it’s all the usual stuff. There isn’t enough depth in the in images, design, and shapes created, but it doesn’t look bad as it is.

The guidance to the user through the content of the website is quite effective. There are only six pages in the website and the navigation to each page is at top of each page in the navigation bar. There isn’t any other further link in the website except those six pages, so the user shouldn’t have any problem accessing the website.

The website that my group has made would have different color used than kiyoshi’s website. We used orange, green, and white. Also, our website has more pages than kiyoshi. Kiyoshi’s pages have different menu for lunch, dinner, sushi bar, and signature dishes, but we didn’t use our pages that like. Instead, we have all the dishes in one page names menu. And further we have more pages like gallery, reservation, events, shop, contact, about, and home page.

The font used by kiyoshi doesn’t  look good, and the line height is very less which makes the text hard to read. Since we have used good font and would have good line height and spacing, it will help our website to stand out. Also, in the gallery we used good looking images that can make a customer really hungry and order food from our website. Finally, the reservation page will help a lot for our website to stand out because a user can reserve a table by himself during a busy day or before without being in the line and waiting forever.

For my second review, I chose NeoBred, a single page website. The site’s use of color is really good. It uses the black as the background color and white as the text color. The color of text on black background reflects the text really good. Black and white is a great combination to be used together. Use of black text on white background is very normal but using background as black and text as white is not seen everywhere and it feels different from usual and reflects the tone of the both colors. Other colors used in the website are yellow, pink, cyan and soft pink. The shades chose of these color are light and works really good with the black background. Soft pink color is used for BRED in the logo of the website, some text in section 1, and also for a small circle in sections 1, 2, 3, and 5. Yellow color is used in section 2 for heading ABOUT, a couple text lines and periods. Pink color is used in section 3 for a word of the heading, a line on the page and some periods. Cyan color is used in section 5 for one word of the heading again and just a couple words in the text. Cyan color also pops up in section 5 when you try to fill up your information in the space provided. All the colors used on the black background pop really well that gives the builder to achieve emphasis in his website. The text used is very neat and explicit font which gives a really good texture feeling.

In this single page website, user has to scroll up and down to explore the content of the website. There are five sections in the website, assigned accordingly to a specific section. A user can click on the section number linked on the bottom left corner of the webpage, and it will take the user on that section. Also you can scroll it up or down with your mouse to switch the section and there is a small mouse icon on the bottom right corner of the website that takes the user to the next section when he clicks on it. I really liked this mouse icon as it keeps bouncing and it is something new and unique that I found on this website. In the middle right of the webpage there is a menu section which is another option to navigate to all the sections except the home page. On the bottom left of the webpage there is a count that tells you which section you are on.

I think the colors used in the website make it easy to scan and read. Colors like white, yellow, pink, cyan, and soft pink works and reflects the text really good, and make the text easy to understand. Repetition also comes into the play since white text has been used on every page of the website to make the text easy to scan when it pops up on the black background.

I believe that the site is designed well. While I was looking over onepagelove.com to pick a website, this was the first website I found that is designed well out of first 20 I saw. NeoBred uses really good color combination which pops up the text and make the website easy to scan and read as well. It also has different ways to navigate the website and the user can pick whichever he likes the best. The best navigation way/controller I like in this website is the little mouse navigator on the bottom right of the website. Other thing I liked in the website is that the user has to scroll up and down rather than left to right. I personally prefer to have up and down scrolling since it can be down by using the scroll button on the mouse which is quite easier and quick rather than clicking on the left/right side of the webpage again and again. Overall, this single page is designed pretty good.

After reading the first page of “Don’t Make Me Think”, I learned that most of the eCommerce websites are designed in the way that it should be self-evident, obvious and self-explanatory. People using the website should be able to get it- able to know what it is and how to use it. My recent experience about this came from gifts.com, when I bought a product from their website.

The home page of the website is beautifully laid-out. It shows very nice gifts presents which can attract the attention of the user in a few minutes. Even if someone is not willing to buy something, he would get attracted towards it and will end up buying it. On the top left corner, they have their website logo and on the top right, they have account registration, blog and cart.

Across the top of the website is the main menu, subdivided into various different categories including Valentine’s Day, birthday, occasion, recipient, category, red envelope, and personality. These categories are further divided into the occasion that you need to gift for and the gender to whom you want to give the gift. It is also include the gifts according to the age of a person. Depending upon what the user is looking for, he can easily find it from the top shopping section of the website. Underneath the main menu, they have different kinds of gifts arranged in a symmetrical way.

I was looking a gift for my brother’s birthday and eventually I found an oversize beer cup which can be personalized as you want. I didn’t order the first time when I found it, and the next time when I wanted to order I just typed the name in the search bar on top right of the website. It was very quick and easy to find it again and order it. Once I added the item in the cart, it asked me to proceed to checkout or continue shopping. When I proceeded to checkout a coupon code popped up on the screen for the promotion of their products, and helped me saving couple bucks for my order. Checkout is also very quick and secure.

I think the search keyword works the best for the website. A user can find the product that he is looking for very easily. Also, the different gifts presented as a gallery of beautiful gifts attracts people to buy their products which works the best for a website. I guess site make me think of buying more and more products from their website as they are pretty cool. I don’t think if I would like to make any change in the site. I like how it is designed and programmed with all the main buttons in the front that are subdivided into small different categories. Each category is divided in a way that it makes a user’s search easy and help him find exact what he is looking for.

The design principle and elements works very well in this website. The white background color is suitable for this site because it helps the gifts to reflect their own color and design to get more attention of the users. The alignment of gifts are also perfect. They all are aligned in 4 different columns with same gap in between. Proximity is also good in between the gifts with not too much space in between. Different colors from the gifts reflects differently all over the site on the white background.