The site is the cheesecake factory. The site uses 4 basic colors white, tan, purple, and black. White is used at the top of the page for the navigation bar. Black is used at the bottom of the page for the bottom navigation. Tan and purple are used through out the rest of the page go give it color and detail. The layout of the home page starts with a promotion of there gift cards followed by the top navigation bar. After that comes the content which starts with a large image and a link to online order. Followed by a section of scrolling info. The next section has info about some of what they serve and links to different parts of the menu. Last is links to reservation, story, and locations followed by the bottom navigation bar. All up and down the home page there are links to different pages on the site. When you go to a sub page there are links that go back to other pages. An example is the menu page which is broken up into categories which each have their own page. Any of the menu pages has a link that goes back to the page before it and a link to start an online order. Our site being the same when it comes to the page links. Where they are different is the colors and layout. We used pink, orange, and black for are colors with black being for are navigation bars and orange and pink for are content. The best place to see how the layout is different is the menu. Are menu is simple with all categories on the same page and in two columns. Another way the navigation is different is our home page. There is a link to all the pages of the top navigation bar and some sub pages on are home page.
Review 3
The two sites are Burgatory, and Franktuary.
The Franktuary home page has a simple layout with 3 major parts. First at the top of the page says that there is a food truck with a link to the menu and form to reserve the truck. Second in the middle of the home page there is a large series of scrolling images. Last at the bottom is the 3 types of things they serve. Those 3 things are franks, poutine, and libations/drinks. The most emphasis is placed on the food truck followed by the images. This is do to its size and location on the home page. Unity of the page is simple the images in the middle are the largest thing starching across the whole page. Having a different amount of space between the middle and the elements above and below it. The elements at the bottom of the page have a balance to them with one being in line with the center of the page. One on the left and right sides of it with an equal amount of space between them.
The Burgatory home pages layout is also simple and can be broken down into 5 basic sections. At the top you have the navigation bar followed by an image, an introduction, secondary navigation, and contact info with socials. The emphasis on the page can be broken down with the image having the most. Then the navigation bar, introduction, secondary navigation, and last the contacts and socials. Emphasis on the page comes from the size of the elements and the location of the elements. Balance of the page is asymmetrical as each major element is a different size with a different amount of space between them. Unity of the overall page is good and nothing feels as if it would be better off in a different place. The navigation bar is centered on the screen with equal space between the links and a reasonable amount of space between the links and the logo. Secondary navigation is broken up into 3 sub elements all 3 are equally space with each other and with the elements above and below.
Layout between the two sites are completely different with the Franktuary being simpler and having less elements while the Burgatory’s is more complex with more elements. When it comes to balance they both are asymmetrical horizontally and symmetrical vertically. The overall unity of the Burgatory site is better that the Franktuary’s. Emphasis is another way in which the Burgatory site is better with the size of the image and its location it draws you down the page to see more but at the same it does not force you down the page. The Franktuary site draws you down the page but in a way that forces you down as you feel that you do not have all the information.
The Burgatory uses Krug’s five principles well with simple navigation, clear hierarchy, little text, simple decisions. Now the Franktuary dose have, clear hierarchy, and little text. It also has complex navigation, and more difficult decisions making the site harder to use. The Burgatory site is more affective at getting my attention. As it uses Krug’s five principles well along with the good layout and sticking to the color scheme of the logo on the whole site. The site also has a secondary navigation system at the bottom of the page that is more decorative and fits the overall theme of the Burgatory.
site review 2
Wow page is the site for this review. When you scroll down the page the elements change size and position. At about the middle of the middle of the page when you scroll up or down the elements move left to right. This is an interesting way to see a page done. There are a few different colors used on the site. the primary color are green, white, and black. The texture of the site goes’ with that of a kids drawing for there images. The navigation tabs that the user up and down the page to the relevant section of the page.
Site Review 1 e-commerce
The site I have chosen for my first review is Amazon. When you enter the site the top of the page has a tab from witch you can access all category’s of products. There is also the surch bar, your cart, orders/returns, language settings, and a number of category tabs according to the time of year and helpful tools. This is what you expect to see when you use an sites like this. Navigation of the site is made easier and has a better flow when using category tabs like this.
Going down the home page there are categories of products. The first one at this time is for prime video with the football games that are coming up. After that recommend for you and suggested for you are listed. They show product based on the time of year, and past perches this is similar to how Netflix recommends shows. Next comes random categories of products ex. beauty and personal care, frequently repurchased, amazon live. Last is back to items that are based on your history.
The design of the amazon home page is great at what it was meant to do. Witch is getting you to look at products that you may or may not need and convincing you to buy them. This is done by showing you products that are similar to products you have bought in the past. As you go down the page the products change from similar to past products to products that are not remotely the same. Then it changes back to similar products at the bottom of the home page. When designed this way it gets the costumer to look at products that they may not have been interested in before.
Each category of products shown on the home page in it’s own rectangle separating it from the rest. The rectangles have two different orientations this allow the page to be broken up evenly. Whether the rectangles are horizontal or vertical depends on the number of products in the category. They are only horizontal if it is a small number of products. The horizontal rectangles are the only ones that can be scrolled through.
When you place a product in your cart a red number will appear over the cart icon. At the same time a drop down menu will show you the items you have put in your cart on the right side of the screen. I like this feature because I can see what’s in my cart with out having to go to it. Also I can remove items from my cart with out having to enter it.
Ecommerce Site Review
For the ecommerce site review, I chose to take a look at H&M retail website. I frequently use the app and the website to buy a large majority of my clothes and I don’t believe that I have ever had to stop and think about the checkout process. However, when going to the website now with this review in mind, I did get tripped up trying to add a pair of pants to my cart because I forgot to choose a size. The problem was that I was rushing and after hitting the “add to bag” button, nothing happened. No animation or any indication that my request had been complete caught my attention, and nothing changed color. I had to scour the page before I realized that I did not choose a size for the pants. When I got it to work, though, it was a very smooth and intuitive experience. It does a good job in adhering to the expectations of where buttons and information are displayed.
Intro to Web Design Review 2
The website I chose to review was astrangertowords.com. The website is a one page interactive website that uses color and texture to visualize data. Each geometric cluster that users can zoom in on to view is made up of lines and points of colors. The entire page is made with an analogous scheme of cool colors against a black background, which allows the visualized information on the page pop and appear more lively. As users move their cursor over individual points in the clusters they can view the point that represents a word and the lines branching off of it that describe the word as things like nouns, adjectives, and verbs as well as tell the users how many syllables are in each word.
The site does not scroll. Instead, it uses this typical scroll feature as the zoom element of the site. The more you scroll the further away from the words you get or the closer you get. The site works well and uses color and texture effectively. If I were to change anything it would be the functions of the cursor and scroll. The cursor is slightly too sensitive and can make it difficult to view a point, instead moving onto the next nearest point and visualizing that word instead. The zoom out only allows users to zoom out for the cluster that they had originally chosen and does not allow users to go to a new cluster without refreshing the page and starting over.
Review #2
This site is for an advertising industry that produces award-winning content. The sites use of color is a little dull. It is just black and white with a little bit of pink and light blue thrown in places. I personally like it because of the simplicity. They do have a lot of texture, though. The black and white background on their landing page is a bunch of stars and constellations that move around, which make it very interesting. That is where the motion and texture end. There is another video further down that shows their work, which is a nice edition instead of a list. However, there are only black and white words the rest of the way down, which lost my interest at some place. I don’t think it was because of the color, but because of how many words were condensed into a small space. The site scrolls from top to bottom, which I like because it’s uncomplicated. They also keep the tabs off to the side, which I can not decide if I like or not, but it is interesting. The easy colors make it easy to understand while scrolling up and down make it easy to navigate. Overall, I like the site and the simplicity. I think it could use more pictures and fewer words, though.
It is a well-made site. It is easy to use and look at. You know what you are looking at immediately. Anything you want to find is easy to locate with the tabs. The video also makes finding information easy. They could obviously do some things better, but, overall, I like the site a lot.
Review 2- Hartzfeld- Knock Knock
For my review of a single page website, I chose to look at Knock Knock, a company that is looking into the gas, water and electricity usage in the Netherlands. When the page is first loaded, the screen opens to a circle with orange and teal surrounding the circle, and the phrases “knock knock” and “Focus on the fun things in life” in front of a transparent blue background covering an iPad being used. Upon first sight, the site is clean, but it is a little bit distracting with the moving video behind the text. The color scheme is crisp, and the text is easy to read.
Upon scrolling down the page a bit, the web page appears to work on somewhat of a grid system, having all of the images and other elements in line with each other and spaced apart to effectively use the page. All of the scrolling is down, and new information is added the farther the page is scrolled. The website is crisp, and avoids a lot of clutter. Knock knock follows a lot of the elements such as the grid and negative space that is talked about in The Principles of Beautiful Web Design.
Knock knock sticks to the main colors of orange and blue through the whole page. Any important information is shown through the use of these colors. From The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, They talk about colors that work for websites, and give the emotional reactions to colors. Orange creates a sense of creativity and enthusiasm, which is exactly what knock knock is trying to achieve. Blue is a calming color, and promotes intelligence. When these colors are looked at together, a viewer can get a sense of contrast from warm to cold, which could be the intention of the site, since it talks about electricity and gas. Web designers for this page also use line to their advantage as they use literal lines to connect points together. The main idea of the next point is shown under this line, and scrolls into the next section. The designers also use a lot of other images to convey the ideas, but they are not distracting in the way that the video is at the very top of the page.
Overall, knock knock is an effective website, and the design works well. There are some flaws such as the opening video and some cluttered spots, but overall the web page is crisp, clear, and interesting to read through. Knock knock is designed to create a sense of imagination into the viewers, and it is effective that the viewers will think, but not have to think about how to navigate the page, but to be able to think about the material presented.
Ease of Access by Brandon Kreiser
TigerDirect is one of the most popular online retailers of computers and other electronics. The site provides an easy to understand and fun experience for the user and/or possible buyer. I used the site to look for an Intel Core i7-5930K 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor. Buying computer parts can be one of the most challenging things to buy online because of the limitless part models, retailers, and manufacturers. TigerDirect does a very good job at keeping electronic purchases simple and understandable.
One of the first things I noticed when I went to the TigerDirect website was the simple design and layout. The company name and search bar were the first things I spotted, helping the user know exactly where they are. The close proximity of the search bar to the site name helps the user that knows exactly what he wants to buy. For the user that may not be sure what they are looking to find, there are many buttons and pictures on the screen to assist in the search of an item. While there are in fact many buttons to click on, TigerDirect keeps things obviously clickable. The book “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug discusses the importance of keeping buttons clearly clickable to avoid user confusion (2014).
Another effective strategy used on TigerDirects website is the way that users check out once they have found the item(s) they were looking for. The process is not as quick as Amazon’s one-click-purchasing, but I think that it’s even better. After clicking the purchase button and finalizing the items in the shopping cart TigerDirect brings you to a page where the user can log into TigerDirect and enter their billing information. But even better yet, the site lets the user pick other vendors to pay through in order to make the payment process more customizable. The user pay through TigerDirect, PayPal, VISA Checkout, MasterPass, Amazon, or Google Wallet. I’m not able to think of many other websites that gives the user so many payment options. To make the deal even better TigerDirect accepts American Express, Master Card, Visa, and Discover; not all sites accept American Express, and Discover. This ease of payment actually makes this part of shopping, when the buyer loses money, seem like the best part of shopping. It could not be a better system in my opinion.
The last element of design incorporated into TigerDirects website that impresses me the most is their easy-to-scan pages. “Don’t Make Me Think” stresses the importance of keeping information easy to read and scanable so the user does not need to spend vast amounts of time reading information (Krug, 2014). Buying electronic parts can be such a difficult process because of how much technical information is involved. I personally hate buying electronics from sites like Wal-Mart, Target, and especially Amazon. They all fail to give me the technical information I need on a computer product. For example, when attempting to buy an external hard drive on Amazon.com the technical information provided with the product rarely has information of the rotation speed of the disk; which requires extra research on the users end. TigerDirect always gives every technical detail of electronic parts that are given by the part manufacturer. In the case of the external hard drives, TigerDirect provides the rotation speed of the disk as long as that information is available from the manufacturer. TigerDirect even gives links to the manufacturer’s website so the user can look for even more information about the part before they purchase it. This ease-of-access system for computer and other electronic pieces is what makes TigerDirect a very easy and simple to use website.
There are many online retailers that have easy to use designs and unbeatable prices. I feel that TigerDirect is one of the best retailers for any electronic equipment because of the easy to navigate pages, obviously clickable buttons, numerous payment options, and easy to scan, yet detailed technical information provided with each part. Attempting to buy and find the Intel Core i7-5930K 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor could not have been easier, and I would recommend TigerDirect to anyone shopping online.