I chose to review www.no9park.com and www.peterallens.com, which is where the bravofranco.com link takes you. The No. 9 Park website is very clean and elegant, and it gives you the feeling that this is a very fancy restaurant. The color palette is simple, but the flat dark background and sophisticated light blue serif font work very well together. Overall the site is very well balanced, although the home page is a little odd for my taste. I wish the image on the top right were a little lower, and the text on the navigation bar on the left a bit higher. It seems like each of those elements are pushed too far to the top and bottom of the page. Everything on the page works well together and creates a nice sense of unity. I think there’s a bit too much emphasis on the images and not enough on the logo. I would make the images a little smaller so that the logo doesn’t compete for attention. The layout is very well done and easy to navigate. There is no unnecessary information or clutter.
Www.peterallens.com is very different. You immediately get the feeling that this restaurant is not as fancy or expensive as the first. The page is busier and is more colorful. The page is mostly consumed by a large animated gif that instantly draws your attention. On top of the image is a big chunk of text that you don’t really want to take the time to read. Their navigation is simple and effective. The site is relatively balanced, but it would be better if the logo were smaller or the image did not move. You aren’t sure where to look because of the animation and prominent logo on top of it. The site uses the principle of unity well, but when you scroll down to the bottom of the home page everything changes and it almost looks like another site. Like I said, there needs to be more emphasis on one element of the page and less on another. Their navigation is successful and easy to understand.
Krug stresses the important of creating a clear visual hierarchy. Both sites are decent at this but could use improvement because of the competition between the images and logos. Other than that, all of the elements have a clear hierarchy.
He also says to take advantage of conventions. Both sites do this. We have seen countless websites in these layouts before and they are nothing out of the ordinary. The user recognizes where things are and understands how the sites work.
Krug says to break pages into clearly defined areas. The No. 9 Park site is much better at this because it just has a simple navigation bar and an image on the right. On the other hand, the Peter Allens site is still broken down, but it is definitely more squished together than the first.
The next important thing is to make sure the user knows what is a clickable link. The user is sure that the No. 9 Park navigation links are clickable because there is not much else on the page to click, and it just seems like it would make sense. The Peter Allens site is pretty successful as well, and some of the links change color or produce a drop down menu when you hover over them.
Finally, Krug says to minimize noise. The No. 9 Park site is better at this because of its incredibly clean design. They only included what is absolutely necessary, and the colors and even lack of textures contribute to this. The Peter Allens site is noiser and busier and could use some cleaning up. But maybe their site works for the “image” they want to achieve as a less fancy, less expensive restaurant.
The No. 9 Park site is more effective in my opinion. Although the Peter Allens site is busier and may be more attention grabbing to some, to me the elegant minimalism of the first site attracts me most.