Author: Mike Ruggiero

For the final project, my group is doing a fusion restaurant on a burger joint restaurant. The restaurant I chose to compare it to be Tessaro’s, which is another burger joint restaurant. Opening up Tessaro’s website, the first thing I realize is how little is on most of the pages. The homepage just has a slideshow of photo’s that has a little bit of everything the restaurant has to offer. Also, there’s only three tabs and only one is a dropdown menu. The menu tab just takes you straight to the menu and you have to search the whole thing to find what you want. The about us tab is the one that has a drop down menu. It has three selections for our story, remembering Kelly, and reviews. Then the last tab is a contact us tab. In the our story is just a basic set up of a photo of the building and with the story of how this restaurant began. The next page is a page to remember the founder Kelly Harrington. This description is longer than the story of the restaurant, and also it doesn’t say how Kelly died or when he died which I think would be information people would want to know. The reviews page have a decent amount of reviews, but I wish there would be numbers there as well to show what people are giving the restaurant a rating because guests want to know that. Finally, the contact us tab only has the address, phone number, and location map which this tab looks really pointless because there’s so much space on the left side and the contact info is on every page and it makes this page not too appealing. The colors though I don’t find appealing, especially if it’s just a Pittsburgh type restaurant because there doesn’t seem to have significance to them with the black background and red text. The Tessaro logo though is in white text. There isn’t really much texture either with just the plain back background, and little navigation. Some of the pages that are longer like the menu and the remembering Kelly tab has a button to go back to the top. Also, you can click on the logo whenever you want to take you back to the homepage, but unless you put your cursor over it, I don’t think it would be noticeable if you didn’t go looking for it.

As far as guiding through the content, I feel it’s a simple set up, but I feel aspects are missing or in the case of the menu feel it should be broken up more. Instead of having the whole menu on one page, have it broken up so people can find things quicker that they’re looking for. Besides things already mentioned, what I think is missing is hours of operation and specials as well. People look for opportunities to get better deals and if a restaurant doesn’t have any specials to offer, they would prefer another restaurant to go to over another. Also, if people don’t know operating hours, they won’t know when they’re able to go.

To compare, I think my group’s website will become more successful than this one. We are going to have more tabs to navigate to find things easier and have the information restaurants want to see. We have our menu broken down into food, drinks, and specials. We also have an eClub to have special offers and another way to grow business. Our color scheme also is more appealing since it is a Pittsburgh themed restaurant with the colors of black and gold. Also, our design is more interesting because we aren’t slapping plain colors on and using a nice gray texture for the background.

The two websites I compared were Burgatory and BRGR, both are burger restaurants in the Pittsburgh area. The Burgatory web site is straighter forward, where I think the BRGR web site could be a little confusing. Burgatory’s balance is strange because with the sky and grass in the background, it seems symmetrical at first, but with the restaurant logo and burger and shake images on the left side and on the other side is the navigation tabs, it makes the design look more asymmetrical. This applies to the home page and the submenus. BRGR’s is asymmetrical because of the grainy orange background and all the tabs have pictures when you click on them. For unity, I think Burgatory’s website is kind of crammed with a bunch of things on the home page, but I think it’s enough information that is still appealing to a viewer where as BRGR, I think there’s too many tabs on the homepage making it confusing to search for what you are looking for.

I like how Burgatory emphasis’s the theme of the restaurant making it look like purgatory. But something I think that stands out as far as elements for the restaurant, I like how they have the big burger in the middle of the page where you can click the arrows to see their popular items for the time, which is effective for advertising. What is also unique about that is when u put your cursor on the burger, it shows additional information as well. BRGR, however, they have a really small slideshow at the bottom of the page where you have to scroll down to and it doesn’t really stand out which I don’t find effective because viewers want to see that stuff as soon as they open up the home page. When I first opened the site, there was nothing that stood out to me. Burgatory also has a good layout with everything being right there as soon as you open the website and easy to navigate to find what you’re looking for. BRGR though as I said before, has too much information on the home page and doesn’t really have an appealing layout.

Steve Krug mentions five things that makes a web site easy to understand for users. First is clear visual hierarchy. Burgatory’s is very successful in its design and straight to the point. It sets the theme, but it also elements that stand out to you where BRGR is too plain and doesn’t have anything that stands out as soon as you open the page. The same applies to graphics as well and titles. Burgatory’s also breaks down the different pages well but also on the home page doesn’t have too many options yet where BRGR has so many options on the first page. An example would be having a different tab for food and drink or news and team. Some of these things should be under the same tab then broken up more under that page. If it’s on the home page, it would make the user think more than they need to. Both of these sites though have obvious buttons for clickable links so nothing really blends in. All of this put together explains the noise for each website. Everything you need to know for Burgatory is rite there broken into simplest terms, where BRGR has too much noise on its site.

It’s obvious at this point that I think Burgatory’s web site is better than BRGR’s. Burgatory has a good system breaking down the information you need to know advertising its latest products and specials on the home page and not too many tabs. You can’t have two things on the homepage that could mean the same thing, which BRGR does and viewers won’t be sure at first where to look to find what they’re looking for, hence the goal for a web site is clearly stated on the name of the book Don’t Make Me Think.

The single page website I chose to review was called How To Design A Delightful Experience. This website has a simple structure scrolling down the page to each part of the website. The purpose of this web site was to explain how to make a simple design through the three layers of pleasure, flow, and meaning. This website has a few animated designs such as the top of the page having a hand pointing down bouncing up and down. Again, something simple to express the point of this website. There is also a menu button by a hamburger looking design on the top left as you scroll down. When you click on it, it gives you shortcut tabs to the different layers.

What really stands out about this website is the use of color. Each layer has a different color. Pleasure is green because that section seems to be the more important information needed to be known. When I see green, I think of nature and exploring, which makes sense for an attention grabbing color for a web site because you are exploring it. The color white is used throughout the site as well, for the most part in the sections where examples for each layer are shared. Flow has the color pink because pink has an energetic positive feel and the point of flow in design is for being in the zone. It takes motivation to be in the zone and pink is the perfect color to represent that. Blue was the color for meaning because blue has been said to have a calming feel to it and as well as intelligence. As of this point, the designer wants the viewer to feel more intelligent from what they have learned viewing this site. Finally, the bottom of the page has orange because it is an energetic color, and the goal for this web site is to make users learn more about simple design and excited to enhance their knowledge on their own.

This website is a simple design and simple to navigate. The simple downward scroll and the little animated hands express the idea of “simple” for the design. Also, the menu button leading to the shortcut tabs are also useful. Nothing too special with texture, but the use of color is meant to give the feeling for the viewer. I feel that this website is useful for someone who is just starting out in design and want a simple tutorial. This website gives a great philosophy for design through its bread and butter of color. It’s not the most complex looking sight, but it’s a good simple website for educational purposes in my opinion.

Recently, I had been asked to look up possibilities for lavaliere microphones and one of the stores I was suggested to look up was Best Buy. So I went onto Best Buy’s website and searched for lavalieres. The search bar was immediately in my sight. When I searched, it gave me a few pages of options, but on the left side, there were different categories that allowed me to search for what I was looking for without going through the whole tab. An example would be a price range or a specific brand or wireless. It also shows next to the tab how many items are in that brand. When I added what I was looking at to the cart and went to check out, it gave me three shipping choices with the price and date of arrival by them. You would then click checkout to continue to log in to your best buy account and choose your payment method.

After reading the beginning section of “Don’t Make Me Think”, it helped me pick out the smallest details on Best Buy’s website. When I first went on, the search bar was visible and it stood out to where I needed to find it. A search bar should always be at the top of the page because it is what a viewer will be looking for most of the time when they go to a web site. I liked the order of the tabs on the side to reduce your search. I think the order it is in from what’s on sale to brand then price I think are some of the first things that come to mind if someone wants to look for specific details on a product. It was a little strange though that the page would always refresh when you checked off one box. To improve that, I think you should be allowed to check the boxes off first that you want to check out and click search. In other words, it’s an advanced search. The cart was up in the right hand corner to keep it visible while I continued to look at other items, but there was a notification by the cart to show that you have one item prepared to check out. When I was done, I just had to click on the cart. Finally, I liked how the choices for shipping were listed and it had the answers to some simple questions someone would be thinking as soon as they go to review their order. It had when you would receive it by and how much it costs. I did find it a little odd though that it had the name of the shipping type below that information. Most web sites would have the type of shipping first in bigger font, following the information. I still think it worked though, but others might disagree.

 

In conclusion, I think Best Buy’s website is well structured with the search. Not only do they give you the tools to help you find what you are looking for easier, but it is organized into what most customers would want to know first. With someone in media like me, it makes a good site to search options for on equipment and any other media material needed.