For my final review, I will be discussing Pizza Roma’s website (pizzaromamoon.net) and how it compares to my group’s restaurant, East Carson Bistro. First, Pizza Roma has their logo above a nav bar and has a photo slider. We plan on having a similar layout, but we are using a three column system in order to add space on the sides of each page for future information or advertisements. They also have a footer that contains business information, location, and legal statements. East Carson Bistro plans to have a footer with similar information. Pizza Roma appears to use a 2 column layout system with the left column being larger than the right column. An image is always at the top of the page showcasing the message or mood of the page. East Carson Bistro will be using a similar technique because we feel that this kind of layout quickly shows the viewer what information they will find on the current page.
They have persistent navigation, which is explained in Chapter 6 on page 66 in “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug. Persistent navigation is any navigation element that appears on every page such as Pizza Roma’s Home, Appetizers, Salads, Wings, Pizzas, etc. in the navigation bar. Some may even include drop down sections to allow the viewer to have a more direct search. On each page, they tell the viewer that they are on Pizza Roma’s website and that they can navigate to any page from any page. This is an important layout and navigation tactic that will be used on East Carson Bistro’s website.
Their use of warm reds bouncing against cool greys sets up a successful contrasting color scheme. Coincidentally, East Carson Bistro choose colors that are very close to the same tint of grey and pure tone of red. Their grey is more of a darker shade of grey whereas our grey tends to have more of a tint to it meaning that their grey has more black and our grey has more white in their tonal values (The Principles of Beautiful Web Design: Chapter 2: Color pages 50-51). It has been a persistent study in color psychology where warm colors such as reds, oranges, and yellows seem to stimulate hunger, anger, heat, and motion. These colors tend to be more stimulating and provide more engagement and interaction. We want our customers to be hungry, but in a controlled method, which seems to be what Pizza Roma did by having the red balanced with a dark grey that prevents the viewers of the site from being over stimulated or subconsciously aggravated (The Principles of Beautiful Web Design: Chapter 2: Color pages 50-51).
As for the texture on Pizza Roma’s site, the nav bar demonstrates color change when hovered over or clicked, which leaves it feeling very flat. They have a pattern of their logo repeating in the x- and y-axis in the background behind their content sections. The value of it is toned down so it does not distract from the content on each page. The only three dimensional feature would be the moon in their logo with an outer glow and slight drop shadow of the text (The principles of Beautiful Web Design: Chapter 3: Texture pages 95-98). Our logo is very flat and made out of typographic letter forms leaving a sharp texture from the thicks and thins of the letter strokes. It seems that Pizza Roma’s uses about three typefaces (not including the one in their logo) and each of them are a form of Sans Serif utilizing thick weight for bold headings and a thinner weight for more detailed content. It may be too many typefaces battling for their place to set the overall theme of the site. We plan to only have one type family with no more than three weights or versions such as bold, regular, or italic.
Pizza Roma has obvious hierarchy for their navigation. For my first time visiting their site, I can identify where I want to look for their salads, calzones, or contact information. I do not need to jump around to find information because it is clearly labeled on each and every page. Having the nav bar being persistent on every page helps the process of visitors heading straight to their desired information. I feel this site does not need bread crumbs because the site layout goes down to one to two level from the home page meaning it goes from the homepage to content pages and then across to other content pages like pizza to wings or back to the home page. There is only three instances where the dropdown feature of the nav bar brings up an additional page (ex. appetizers then desserts), but that is the only way to access those pages through the nav bar (Chapter 6 “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug).
East Carson Bistro will stand out as higher quality over Pizza Roma. We will utilize a similar layout of hierarchy with a photo slider and persistent nav bar. Our menus are simple in each section with a clear line to the price. Our photography and corporate identity will be the strongest part of our brand to make our site stand out. We believe having a strong structure for our identity and target audience would help give us a more stable plan for building our website and attracting web traffic.
–Katie Carlton