Author: quadiradaniels

The websites I choose to compare to my group’s final website was Pizza Masters. I think many people will agree with me when I say that Pizza Masters is an effective and yet very simple non-appealing website. Pizza Masters layout felt empty and yet cluttered. There was a lot of negative space. Their logo was off to the left side of the page itself. They didn’t use the entire space for the layout of the menu. It kind of looks like they clumped everything together. I didn’t really like the colors used in Pizza Masters’s website. The fixed burgundy background color was somewhat appealing because it’s such an uncommon color to use as a background. However, the text being in different colors really didn’t work with grabbing the viewer’s attention. The website also used different fonts so the text was unified. The menu itself felt light and pretty normal mainly because of the white background behind the text. But it also felt clumped together because of how close the boxes of content were to each other. Navigation wise, it was pretty simple. There was nothing really special about it. There’s no way someone could get lost looking for what they needed when surfing Pizza Masters’s website. But I just wish the website would have pictures or something to give it the “umpth” so it would have some visual appeal.

My suggestion of how my group’s website will stand out will be by the simple yet elegant feeling you get when you visit the page. Our colors aren’t really uplifting but they’re not dull either. Our colors consist of black, white, green, and red. Now they don’t really grab the viewer’s attention but you also can’t get lost or feel cluttered when you’re scrolling on our website. Our text is all one font and very readable. The menu itself will have a clear section for salad, appetizers, and pizza. Another way I think our website will stand out is by our pictures. I mean, people want to see a picture of what they could potentially be eating! And we have some amazing pictures of the food, appetizers and drinks. Our use of navigation is pretty simple too. So there’s no way someone could get lost or confused while trying to find something on our page. In my opinion, I would say our website, ZA’ PIZZA, will stand out more by just being more visually appealing. And being as though this website is for a restaurant, visual appeal should have been the main focus when creating the website itself. The website for restaurants reflect how the food would look and how the place itself would look. It’s the complete opposite with Pizza Masters. Pizza Masters lacks visual appeal and harmony.

The two sites I choose to compare were Bravo Franco and Six Penn Kitchen. I think many people will agree with me when I say that Six Penn Kitchen was a really bad website example. Their use of layout felt empty and yet cluttered. The didn’t use the entire space for the layout of the menu. It kind of looks like they clumped everything together. Bravo Franco’s layout was well designed due to their usage of space and how content was set up compared to where on the menu, the pictures were placed. I didn’t really like the colors used in Six Penn Kitchen. The black, gray, and lime green really didn’t work with grabbing the viewer’s attention. The menu itself felt dark and the text was hard to read because it was small and some of the text was lime green placed on a black background. Those two colors do not mesh well together and I would highly recommend choosing different colors. Bravo Franco colors felt really uplifting. They were of lighter colors and the text was a readable size. The menu itself has a sense of harmony to it and you can feel that everything is unified because the entire menu has a sense of elegance to it. The colors mesh well together. The pictures are appealing. In my opinion, I would say, Bravo Franco’s website was just more visual appealing. And being as though this website is for a restaurant, visual appeal should have been the main focus when creating the website itself. The website for restaurants reflect how the food would look and how the place itself would look. It’s the complete opposite with Six Penn Kitchen. Six Penn Kitchen itself feels unbalanced because it’s completely clumped together and then it just has negative space out on the sides. Six Penn Kitchen lacked visual appeal and harmony.

The single page website I choose to critique is called Echo. According to onepagelove.com, Echo is a public relations agency that tries to connect their clients with the people they want to reach. “Echo amplifies brands and businesses”. I chose to critique this single page website because it’s opening image which was somewhat like an illusion, was pretty cool. The use of colors and illusions stuck out to me the most.

The navigation for the page was easy. It scrolls down to about three different “sections”. So the website is pretty short and stops abruptly. The layout and composition was simply plain. But it was too plain! At first glance, I thought the simplicity made it elegant but when I started to scroll down, I just realized it had more of an incomplete look. There was way too much negative and free space. I think this issue could have been fixed if there were some columns added here or there. There’s a “knob” on the upper right side of the opening page. The knob makes you want to click on it and drag it right, thinking you’ll unlock something but it actually doesn’t work. The fact that it doesn’t work makes me question if it even is a knob. The links on the website do not work as well.

The use of color was black, white and an off white almost gray. My opinion of the creator picking these colors was that they just tried to play it safe. If Echo is meant to “amplify brands and businesses” then why doesn’t their website portray that same excitement? I think one way of fixing this would be to add a pop of color here or there. I would suggest red because it’s an exciting color and it will combine nicely with the black and white colors previously used. According to The principles of Beautiful Web Design: Chapter 2: Color, the color red can be perceived as the color of passion and excitement. So I think having a pop of it in the original design would be good.

The chapter also states that the color white can be perceived among viewers as perfection, light and purity. However when I visited the page, I didn’t receive any of those thoughts from the web creator’s use of white. I just got a feeling of empty space. And the black text up against the white background didn’t bring anything special either. Now the color black can be perceived as power, elegance, and strength. I did get a hint of this feeling when the white text was up against the black background. In my opinion, it gave that section of context a bold statement. The font wasn’t special or fancy. However, it was used in two different colors (black and off white). The font isn’t really pleasing and the size is too big.

The chapter about texture doesn’t really apply to this website. There was no repeated pattern. The viewer cant feel roughness or smoothness. There wasn’t really any proportions because the website didn’t have much of a layout. The only thing that I would say had emphasis was the picture, I assume, of the creator. But even then it was pretty simple because it had a thin black border around the circle that held the image.

The only thing that I found interesting about this website was the opening page where it had an illusion where the text would slowly disappear and then reappear as you scrolled down. The text, ECHO, was put behind a black and white stripped layout so it looked like it was moving. It’s one of those illusions where if you look at it too long it will start to hurt your eyes. Most viewers would find this a bad element to have on a website but I found it quite exciting considering everything was pretty bland.

Chapter 1 of “Don’t Make Me Think” will have readers realizing just how effective and non effective a web page can be. Last week I visited an effective website called Amazon.

Amazon is a very simple looking website compared to most but because of it’s simplicity, I find it pleasing to look at. At the top center of the page you have your search bar, which is nice and big instead of off to the right in a small corner like most websites have them. Since the search bar is the first thing you see when the page pops up, it literally takes you a couple seconds to search for what you want. I went looking for a 521 Nokia Lumia phone case. It took about two seconds for the page to navigate to another page with a list of results.

On this page you are shown several different options varying in price, color and style. I didn’t have to use the “Shop by Department” drop box, on the top left hand side, because Amazon took me exactly where I wanted to go by using my key words. What I didn’t know, however, was exactly which case I wanted to purchase. So what I did was narrow down my search results by using the “refine by” column on the left side of the page. Free Shipping by Amazon: check, Condition: new (check), Price: $0 to $5…GO (check).

There is one thing that I wish Amazon would improve. One thing that wasn’t the greatest while narrowing down my results was that for each refining I checked, the page would reload itself with new results. I checked off three things to narrow down my search and the page reloaded 3 times with different results from the last. Chapter 1 of “Don’t Make Me Think” mentions several times that web users are “usually in a hurry” which is true in most causes! So I think it was a poor choice to have the page keep reloading every time a customer clicked an option that narrowed down their result.

I think it would have been more efficient if you could click all the things you want and then have the page refresh it self. Other than the page reloading several times, the website is pretty much the closet thing you’ll get to easy, online shopping. The check out process was simple and easy. Users of all age and web experiences can operate amazon.com with just a few clicks here and there. Never once did I get frustrated or question, “What is this” or “where should I go”, like Chapter 1 suggested web users do. The simplicity of Amazon’s layout makes it pretty easy to find what you’re looking for.