Our group decided to join Mexican and Chinese cuisine together to make a fusion restaurant called “Panda Loca.” In order to get inspired and also to take a look at what kinds of restaurants we could potentially be competing with, we looked at and analyzed websites for restaurants such a Mad Mex, Kiyoshi Bistro, TGI Friday’s, and Olive Garden. The one website, though, that could ultimately be one of our competition restaurants was Mad Mex. (https://www.madmex.com)
Looking at the layout of their website, it is very plain. Their background is a solid color and does not make it very exciting to look at. The content of the website is centered in the middle of the page with a navigation bar, a cover photo, and a logo for the restaurant. The text is very simple, but there is a lot of it on a majority of the pages as your navigate through the website. The homepage does good job of creating a “site identity and mission,” one of the main things Steven Krug talked about in Chapter 7 of his book; it is very laid-back and gives visitors a sense of the restaurant’s atmosphere.
The colors used throughout the website are very warm. The use of deep burgundy, gold, green, and white all work very well alongside one another and good a job of complimenting one another. This scheme, as defined by The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, is an analogous color scheme; the colors are not the same, but they all work together to make the page look cohesive. I do not think this website has much texture to it. Texture, as defined by The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, is anything that gives a distinctive appearance or feel to the surface of a design or object. Mad Mex’s website is solely designed of solid colors and pictures that have no additional pigment, pattern, or texture to make them stand out in any way. On a positive note, the website is very easy to navigate and allows users to find anything and go to any tab using the fully functioning navigation bar on the top of the page.
Since the content on the website is very bland, it is hard to read through since there is so much text in such a little space. A lot of people get bored and don’t feel like rummaging and reading through long paragraphs at text to get to the point. A lot of sites choose to use bold, large headings and short sentences to not only keep visitors interested but to make sure space is being utilized and is even. Being that all of the text is also going straight up and down the page, it is sometimes easy to get lost in the words and forget about what you were originally trying to find or read.
Panda Loca’s website combines accents and colors of both Mexican and Chinese cultures. Our background uses texture by incorporating bamboo in the website’s background. We use light, neutral tan colors and accent our most important features with yellow, black, red, and white. Each page that the navigation bar takes you to a new page that maintains the overall tone and atmosphere of our restaurant but also adds variety and makes the viewer want to look at the every different page. Our overall vibe is more laid-back and fun compared to that of other websites. The Panda logo on the top of every page adds a comedic effect and keeps the viewer interested. We have tabs in our navigation bar for every occasion/customer need and we overall do a better job of representing our company compared to others.