Ames' syllabi

For my second review, I am reviewing the single site, NeoBred. I love the use of colors through out this website. The background was black and most of the text was white. Only headers and words needing emphasis were one of four colors (pink, yellow, hot pink, and cyan) that were used. With the black and white, the four other colors pop really well and achieving the emphasis that was desired. Also having the black background and that only one section is displayed at a time, the reader may think that it is actually a multiple page website. The text is a neat and precise font, which gives me a clean texture feeling.

In order to move from section to section, the reader has to scroll up and down. There is also numbers that you click on to go to the next page of information in each section. On the right, there is a menu section that will cause you to be able to move from each section as well. The headings are located on the left, and only a few lines of the text on the right. Below the headings are numbers that you click to move forward to the second lines of text in each section. There also is a count that tells you which section you are on out of the total number of sections.

I believe this site is designed well. I picked this site from onepagelove.com because the color popped and got my attention. As I looked throughout the rest of the site, I saw that NeoBrand used the colors really well. It was very easy to navigate from section to section. Also I really liked the fact that there are only a few lines of text for each section, because it makes it easier for the reader to follow. Overall, I think this is an aesthetically and functionally pleasing website.

http://isinvisible.com/

“Is Invisible”, surprisingly and unfortunately, is not a website looking to sell invisibility cloaks and comic book X-ray specs, rather recommending a products and gadgets designed to be as minimalist as possible.  The general theme of its wares can be described as “clean efficiency”. It’s worth noting the website doesn’t actively sell goods, rather acting as a hub for minimalist products.

Much like the gadgets and gear the site advertises, the website is all about efficiency. Nothing is flashy. The color scheme of the site itself is monochromatic, existing entirely within the gray-scale. The products themselves are showcased in color, but even then they’re more muted than saturated. It’s about displaying a realistic look at the products, not demanding attention towards any one thing. Further safeguarding the calm design the website doesn’t house video or banner advertisements. No need for Ad-block here.

The products are split into two columns, one on either side of the screen. There’s a simple picture of each product, the price, and then the next product. Rinse and repeat. The name of the site sits at the upper left corner of the page and will scroll down with the page. A question mark sits in the lower right. Clicking it pulls up a what is essentially a text box explaining the idea behind the website, as well as naming the two people maintaining the site. Clicking on any of the products opens up another page, to the site that sells the desired product.

Being a single page site, the only real navigation is scrolling up or down. This design choice is perfect for the site, again keeping with the minimalistic theme. As a person well versed with the internet, scrolling down was a natural progression to navigate the site. Someone less accustomed may have trouble, as there’s no obvious hint that there’s more below. This could be seen as a flaw, but given the nature of the site it’s perfectly acceptable. Adding even an arrow pointing down, or having the next product picture visible at the bottom of the page, would disrupt the clean looking site.

As implied, the website is perfectly designed for its purpose. The benefit of the sites theme matching the theme of the products it advertises is subtle but brilliant. It’s clean, minimalist, but still extremely clear on with how to navigate. It’s incredibly well designed for its purpose. The only thing that doesn’t work is the prices. They certainly aren’t minimalist.

~Jeremy Molinari

Studio Dunn is an interior design practice in London. My first thought of the website was that it was very modern looking. It almost reminded me as if I were looking at a home magazine. I think that the color and texture used made it very distinctive as to what the website was there for. I also enjoyed the navigation technique for this single page website. You did not have to scroll up, down, right, or left; instead there were arrows on the right side of the page that pop up as your mouse scrolls over them that lead you to the next set of images. Because this is a website for interior decorating, there are a lot of images used. The arrows made it much easier to navigate and I feel like it made the website look cleaner. In the upper right hand corner there is a button with three lines, symbolizing more content, which takes you to the “about me” portion of the website. Here there is a short summary about the company, its history, and what they do. They also provide contact information in this section. The only issue is that in my browser, the words began to run together at the end of the type. It would be more beneficial to the reader to make sure that the words are spread out enough on every browser. I think the use of images and the arrows makes the site extremely easy to navigate.  There is not a lot of buttons that have to be clicked, which can be confusing to some people. I like the short and sweet About Me section, as it is almost as if they let the work shown in the images speak for itself. Overall, I think that the design for this website was done extremely well. It has a very modern look to it, which greatly fits the Interior Design theme. It is easy to navigate and appealing to look at.

The site I chose to review is [https://2016.cssconf.com/]. I chose this site because the choice of color pallet immediately drew my eyes to it. The contrast of bright colors such as bold blue, magenta and lime green on the pastel pink really stood out to me.

Another thing I think worked well for this site was it’s use of transparent, gradient, organic-blob shapes and transparent zig-zag boxes. As I scrolled through the site, I was happy to see these shapes repeated. What disappointed me, however, the middle of the site, because the color and textures used in the previous section just disappear, which I found odd and inconsistent.

The site is divided into three sections: About, Videos & Slides, and Sponsors. I felt the ‘About’ section and ‘Sponsor’ section were both executed very well. However, I felt the ‘Videos & Slides’ section was extremely bland and repetitive. I understand that the designer probably felt that by taking a minimalistic approach, the site’s design wouldn’t take away from the content it was showcasing; however, I feel the site would look much better if they would have continued the colorful shapes and textures throughout this portion (as seen in the ‘About’ and ‘Sponsor’ sections).

Another thing I think worked well for the site was it’s use of alternating background colors to divide the sections of the site. For example, the ‘About’ section of the site has a light pink background, then the next section, ‘Videos & Slides’ has a white background, then the third section goes back to the light pink background. This helps clearly differentiate the sections without having to read through all of the content or rely heavily on the navigation bar in order to find what you’re looking for.

Overall I really enjoyed this site. However, I found it rather strange that a website that was built to showcase a CSS Design conference would have a very boring ‘Videos & Slides’ section. But besides the odd inconsistent portion, I would definitely consider this one-page-website to have a successful use of color and texture.

For my first review, I decided to take a look at the website of one of my favorite clothing brands, Supreme. Their website is supremenewyork.com, and they’re based on a skateboard/streetwear company Supreme that has been around since 1994. I personally have never liked their homepage, it’s very minimalistic and the setup is nice, but the look isn’t very pleasing. Nonetheless, the homepage is extremely easy to navigate. It shows you the logo and gives you options to visit an about page, an information page, review clothing catalogs from previous seasons, and also an option to shop online. The online shop for Supreme’s website is very cool, and is personally one of my favorites. It opens up with small rectangles pictures of all the sites various clothes, with options to click on them, or simply browse the site’s catalog. The site runs very smoothly, and in essence is very pleasing to work on. They do a good job of keeping everything up to date, and overall I really like the site.

I personally never shop online for anything. When I want to shop I like to go into the stores and talk to sales associates who can answer the questions I can’t solve. That being said I did take the chance to finally sit down and decide what I want and need in order to build my very own desktop computer tailored for my specific needs. Like I said I like having sale associates to answer my questions, but obviously there aren’t any online; so I did my research and created a list of what exactly I needed from my computer. Finally, it was time to see how well www.newegg.com is at helping me find what I want.

When I opened the homepage I immediately was able to find the appropriate tag to continue my search. Not before Newegg’s rotating images caught my eye with their “Unleash The Power” ad which prompted me to explore the link. The link did end up needlessly broadening my search after I licked on the More Deals button from computer components to their entire clearance catalog, but 2 clicks of the back button and I was back on the Home page and moving towards what I wanted.

Finally, I was looking at a video cards, one of my top features, when I found the EVGA GeForce GTX 1070. I was looking at the specifications of the card when I saw it list Interface, know I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what they meant by interface so I was going to waste 5 minutes to google the answer before proceeding. However, just before leaving the page I noticed that interface was a hyperlink that when I clicked on it showed a definition of the world. This saved me time and allowed me to continue my shopping at a steady pace. I finished my shopping and reviewed over my shopping cart to see if there weren’t any items doubles of items or unneeded items. Low-and-behold I had added fans to my cart that I no longer needed so I moved my cursor to delete them.

All and all www.newegg.com worked wonderfully, yes I got held up at times, but I never once had to leave the website to find my way back to where I was. Newegg had even given discounts to every item and given me a promotional gift card. This website made me, a first time shopper looking to build their own desktop computer, a sense of security and confidence with the choices I made.

• Michael Carbonara

Newegg has been my go-to website for years now when it comes to electronics. I’ve watched the site change and evolve over the last half decade, and I’m familiar with how the site works in its current state.  That being said, I do have some critiques.  First of all, the site comes off as a slightly more cluttered, less visually appealing version of Amazon.  The general layout is the same: Welcome banner, search bar at the top, and products below.  All the core components are their, but they seem to be arranged in a less efficient way than the competitor. Searching for and a product is simple, and it “doesn’t make you think.” You know instinctually to type what you want in the search bar, select the product from the auto-suggestion drop down menu. I chose a somewhat specific product (Intel i7 6700k Processor) and the process was as smooth as I could have hoped for. It was the top result on the page and I was viewing it in 2 clicks. As I hovered my mouse of the “Add to cart” button, another element of the page loaded on a delay.  My cursor was now above an option to add a 1 year replacement plan for $25.  I don’t know if this was intentional or if my internet was simply lagging a bit, but it acted as a hiccup in the buying experience and threw me off for a second.  Regardless, I managed to add the item to my cart.  Unlike Amazon, which offers a “proceed to checkout” option, I found myself on a page encouraging me to choose from one of their numerous protection plans (again) and a “proceed to cart” option. The whole process felt like I was dealing with the annoying associate at the register trying to sell me on additional charges I didn’t want. I understand this from the perspective of Newegg, but most people already know ahead of time if they’re going to get a protection plan. Eventually I made it to the checkout which was a smooth and easy process. I was able to checkout as a guest and had the confirmation page within a few minutes.  Overall, I think NewEgg is functional and gets the job done, but could use some visual tweaks.

Review 1:  Thinkgeek.com

The website that was chosen to be reviewed was thinkgeek.com. I tested its ability to navigate and how much the website “made me thing.” I went onto thinkgeek searching for something related to pokemon. I immediately saw the search and knew where to type in my search. I used it and found what I was looking for. I went back to check if there was another way to find the desired results. Through use of the intuitive tabs, I found the pokemon tab and it led me to the same results. This was useful knowing that if I didn’t want to search through the website, all I had to do was just type in my desired search right at the top of the page, but I could also use the tabs that are very self-explanatory to find the products. Thinkgeek gives you the option without making it confusing. I’m able to easily scan the site and find the things that interest me quickly. For the most part, you can tell where you can click without wondering. There is a good variety on screen to really pick and choose where you want to focus on. It is quite easy to find the products you want. Users do not have an autofill dropdown box when you are typing though, so spelling is up to them. That would be the biggest improvement I would offer to the sight. The autofill option would make it a more intuitive and pleasant experience. The front page also does seem to be a little over cluttered so maybe taking out a few of the elements can really bring it together more.  Overall though, it is a strongly intuitive site that holds your attention and navigates easily.

Tristan Coyle

For my website review, I decided to review one of my favorite store’s website, Tilly’s.  Tilly’s is a clothing store that is headquartered in Irvine, California.  The website displays their clothing lines, and is a place where customers can purchase the products.  The website has a very clean look.  It has a plain white background, with a black and gray banner, and pictures of the clothing centered.  There is a search bar, centered and high up on the home page.  This is extremely useful if you already know what you are looking for.  Below the search bar is a header with page tags that when hovered over, a drop down menu pops up.  There are many options here to click to move to other pages.  Under the Women tag, they have nine categories, which are featured, clothing, swim, intimates, shoes, accessories, beauty, deals, and outlets.  Each page loads relatively fast.  There are no ads placed on this website, which makes sense because Tilly’s does not want you to leave their page.  They also have a responsive and functioning shopping cart.  Not only does it show what you saved, but also shows what other people bought with the items that are in your shopping cart.  Once the customer picks what they want to buy and precede to checkout, their checkout is safe and secure with McAfee services.  GeoTrust, which is the world’s second largest digital certificate provider, also verifies Tilly’s.  From being a frequent shopper at Tilly’s, I have not experienced a negative time on their website.  They have done a great job with keeping up with traffic, updating new lines, and getting their old lines on sale.

The site I chose to review is etsy.com. Etsy is a site where artists can buy and sell artwork, antiques, and art supplies. The website layout it pretty simple in my opinion. When you first view the page it explains what etsy is all about. It also has a search bar, which allows you to bypass having to go through the plethora of categories on their navigation bar at the top. As you visit the site more frequently, the site keeps track of your most recently viewed items and begins to suggest things for you. My only problem with this website is that you have to scroll down pretty far in order to figure out how to sell items on etsy. If I wasn’t already familiar with etsy’s selling process, I would have been rather frustrated with the lack of available information regarding starting a shop.  Overall, etsy will continue to be one of my most viewed sites; however, I definitely think there is room for improvement design-wise.