Author: Stacey Capp

For review 4 I chose to compare my fusion restaurant’s website to Dunkin’ Donuts. For the final project, my team and I decided that we would create a donut fusion restaurant that would offer savory or sweet sandwiches that would sit between a donut. Being that Dunkin’ Donuts is a huge name, especially for donuts, I feel that this business could be competition for our restaurant, The O Zone.

Dunkin’ Donuts is a very well known and loved establishment throughout our country and for that reason I feel that they will be The O Zone’s biggest competition in donut selling. The website for Dunkin’ is very messy in my opinion. There are a lot of bright colors going on and content randomly placed on the pages. There is a lot of text also present, which makes it hard for me to locate what I intended to. However, the navigation is fairly simple since they have a navigation bar located at the top of the page with links to different things such as: drinks, food, and so forth. When I clicked on “Hot beverages,” I was lead to another page with pictures of their different offerings and the names of each product beneath. I found this aspect of the site to be successful because I certainly didn’t have to do any thinking. As far as texture goes, there isn’t much present other than a few gradients on keys and navigation bars. I don’t think the lack of texture takes away from this site, but the messy layout and highly saturated colors don’t do it much justice. In all, the site is decently put together, but it is not the most aesthetically pleasing design that I have seen.

For The O Zone, my group and I decided that our website will be a single page site that can be navigated simply with a constant key. Upon entering the page, our logo will be at the top center of the homepage with our location on both sides, and a key to navigate the content of the website beneath it. The key has clickable buttons that will take the viewer directly to what they are looking for. For example, we will have a button that says “The Menu.” Once clicked, the page will scroll directly to the menu portion of the site. This concept goes for the rest of the content on our site. When our viewers want to change content or go to another section of the website, they can do this easily with a navigation bar that moves with the page and sits at the top always. We felt that this technique would make our website as user friendly as possible and allow our viewers to never have to think. The background color of the website is black. The content of the page will live in a margin that is more narrow than the page as whole and will have a grey background color. The accent colors of The O Zone are comprised of dull and saturated hues of purple, pink, and tan. To create a well flowing page, we decided each heading will be the same color, bright pink-orange, and our body text will be a dull tan. Instead of having photographs to present our products, we decided we would create our own illustrations for our unique products. This idea allows for the viewer to have an idea of what they can expect to get at the restaurant, while still leaving some mystery and fun for their visit. Like Dunkin’ Donuts, texture will not be a prominent part of our website. The O Zone is a chic and modern establishment and giving our site a flat look compliments the concept. In all, our fusion restaurant will stand out against Dunkin’ Donuts because: we have many products you cannot get at Dunkin’ or anywhere else for that matter and our website is trendy while still being user friendly and easy to navigate through.

For review 3 I chose to investigate the websites for Bravo Franco Ristorante and Six Penn Kitchen. To begin with, I found that the two websites had many similarities. For example, both sites have their company name and logo at the top center of their home pages; making it very easy for the viewer to observe what restaurant they are looking at. They both also have a tool bar at the top of their home site with links to different parts of the site, such as: menus, contact information, specials, etc. A third similarity I came across while experimenting was that when I clicked on a link in the tool bar, I was directed to a different page but still had the same tool bar to use if I wanted to go to a different page. I think that these aspects gave strength to both sites because I didn’t have to do any thinking when I wanted to travel to another page.

That said, the two restaurants are very different when it comes to what they serve, so their layouts are also very different. Bravo Franco Ristorante’s site had a much more distinguished look. It used serif typefaces and a more natural, business-like color scheme. The color scheme and typefaces remained constant from page to page, which gave it unity. The information presented on each page was clean and readable. Each page also had a heading, with a word that was much larger than the body of that page, which emphasized what the viewer should expect to read. The layout was clean and the text was very easy to read on each page, however I found it be quite boring. I found myself bored with the lack of color usage and illustrations. There were a few pictures present of dishes they served, but they were very small and in my eyes, took a back seat to the rest of the content on the page.

The design of Six Penn Kitchen was very different from the previous restaurant. This website used a much more playful color scheme and modern look. As stated before, the information that I was searching for was very easy to find due to the tool bar being constant within each page. However, I found that for the most part, the text was centered on each page making it not as legible. The site did use emphasis in making words bold or a different color, but I still found myself getting lost in the text at times. The website dealt with unity well since each page was almost identical to the next. Balance was also achieved because the body on each page was centered, leaving equal negative space on each side.

In all, I think both websites were successful in achieving balance, unity, emphasis, and layout. I think Bravo Franco’s was more successful when it came to emphasis and layout while Six Penn was more successful with balance and unity. Both sites were “idiot-proof,” which is a major goal for web designers according to “Don’t Make Me Think.” Also, I didn’t find many useless words that would turn me off to the site. Krug states multiples times in the text that the less words, the better. Viewers have a goal in mind and if they can’t find it within seconds, they will go to the next website. Neither website made me feel like I had to rip out my hair trying to find what I was looking for, so I’m sure Krug would say, well done.

The single page website that I chose to review was done by James Ellington. The designer’s topic discussed the hills and forests of Iwate, Northern Japan. The first thing I encountered entering the site was some information about what the site had to do with. The designer clearly stated that he took a trip to Iwate and was inspired by the landscape and wanted to create a page that informed others of its beauty. To navigate to the next concept of the page, al I had to do was scroll down and I was greeted by new background noise and footage of the forests. He had “Inspiring Soundscapes” as his largest text, which let me know that that is what this part of the page was going to talk about. Beneath the large text he talked about what you would hear while walking through the forests and the background noise he added made it fee like I was there, which I thought was very creative. To get to the next segment of the website, all I had to do was scroll down again. I was greeted by new footage again and new large text that said “Motion Into Life.” The footage was of a running stream and the background noise parralled the footage accurately. The text beneath the large text was there, again to explain this segment. When I scrolled down again, to find another segment, there was no footage; instead a simple picture of the tops of trees. However there was new background noise and more large text to explain the page. The text read: “Sound x Motion x Experience.” The text underneath, or the text that has been used to explain each pages concept, did not make sense to me for this part. It didn’t have much to do with his experience; it simply stated that he was leaving Iwate that night and would not be returning. My final scroll led me to a short biography of the designer with a picture in the background that matched the footage that I was greeted with one the opening page.

Overall, I think this website was laid out very well. Everything was consistent and I didn’t have to do any thinking as far as navigating the page went. The different segments of the website were unified by similar text, sound, and imagery which created a nice even flow. The images and footage he chose to have on each segment worked well together because they all had a similar color palette, letting me know that this was indeed one website. There wasn’t much texture in this website as far as the text went because everything was black and white with a sans serif font. However, there was still texture and this could be found in all of his different footage that he chose to add. I think he made the text so plain so that it didn’t take away from the pictures. It was clear to me that his intentions were to make his viewers feel as if they were actually in the forest of Iwate and I think he was successful in that aspect. I think the designer did an excellent job on this single page site.