For Review 3, I chose the websites for two restaurants, Burgatory and No. 9 Park. They are both probably great places to enjoy a meal, and they seem to be expensive from their websites. To begin, I’ll start with Burgatory, the more causal of the two. When you enter the page, you are immediately greeted with images of the eatery, people having a good time, and delicious food. It places an emphasis on feeling good, and basically having a good time while you’re there, which is probably the goal for any establishment. This makes me want to go to the nearest Burgatory soon, so I assume that is what the audience will desire as well. It is a simple and easy to understand layout, with the logo placed at the top, a slideshow, and a little bit about the company underneath. The colors are muted and neutral, and nothing is too in your face. The dark brown, grey, and red tones complement each other nicely. There are links along the header with more information on close locations, an in-depth menu, and various social media platforms the restaurant is on. In the reading, Krug explains how when customers go into a store, they go through a process to find exactly what they came in there for. They also explain how that is pretty much the same for websites and on the internet, and that a smooth and easy to navigate page is a good option to go with. It is extremely important that any company, regardless if it is a restaurant or not, has a layout that a large variety of audiences can understand.
Moving onto the next establishment, No. 9 Park, this is a bit different to the prior. We are greeted with a photo of what I am assuming to be the outside of the restaurant, and you have to scroll to see more. It is wordier than Burgatory’s and uses sweet-sounding adjectives to describe the environment in the first part. You are then shown a picture of the dining area, with glasses and silverware neatly aligned. Finally, we see information about the team, the owner, and so on. I think it is an interesting approach, and could work well with the audience to get in touch with the restaurant. The color palette is dark brown, white, and a tiffany blue. It is a well-organized layout, and there is an emphasis on the history and actual making of No. 9 Park. The other tabs are placed at the top, with more to read pertaining to the menu and reservations. Overall, it is an informative, and neatly stylized website.
I feel as though both restaurants did a nice job of showing who they are, and what they can offer customers when or if they are looking to eat at one of these establishments. Nothing is out of the ordinary with them, and both pages do make you feel a certain way. But, I would have to say Burgatory is the winner between the two. Not that No. 9 Park is bad, but a few things made me not like it as much. First, there are no pictures of food on their website. The whole reason for a restaurant is to eat, and I feel like it is not smart to not incorporate any of the products onto the page that would probably be viewed the most by consumers. People might go out of their way to find the menu, but wouldn’t you want to be greeted with a good-looking meal? Next, there are a lot of words on the site. Not that it is a negative thing, but it seems as though it is more of a report about the restaurant than the actual eatery. It is nice to include the behind the scenes stuff about the place on the page, but I would suggest maybe putting that in the tabs above, and replacing that space with the best-selling dish or popular meal. I did not read everything that popped up when I entered the site, and I’m not sure that the majority would either. But to conclude, I do believe Burgatory and No. 9 Park have strong websites that really show the audience what they are about. With a few tweaks, it could be even better though!