Biweekly Review #2:
After comparing the two sites in detail, caribou coffee’s website is better than Crazy Mocha’s in terms of aesthetics, navigation, layout, emphasis, content, balance, and unity. Overall, I think Crazy Mocha’s website is a poor design and is cheaply put together. It feels like it is a template they used from a web builder site. To be somewhat fair to Crazy Mocha, there is limited content on the site to navigate through, and they claim there will be more soon. However, I am not so sure if there ever will be; I visited the site last October and it has not change at all. The site centers on a picture slide show with a small navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. The problem with the pictures is that the slide show doesn’t loop and when replay is clicked it remains white. As a result, the balance of the site is somewhat poor in the way it is laid out. The bottom navigation forces us to look at the bottom with nothing at the top except for a crazy mocha logo on the left. The unity of the site as a whole isn’t horrible; it is a flash website so you never really leave the home page. They do not put much emphasis on the navigation bar, but the logo of the company is very clear and draws the users eyes to it. The only aspect of the site I really liked was the cross fade transition between pages, which made the whole site feel strung together and the navigation smooth.
Conversely, Caribou Coffee’s website is a fantastic in all the ways Crazy Mocha is not. The layout has an excellent balance to it with a clear visual hierarchy. There is a clear sense of organization and excellent grid like layout featuring multiple columns and sections of information. With a very clear visual hierarchy, it is very clear what the emphasis is on. As a result, users can navigate through this website in seconds with no thought. The site is really nice in terms of aesthetics, the color palette is great featuring blues and browns and the typography is diverse featuring at least two different font types used in different sections. The overall unity of the site is fantastic as well; all the pages look the same in terms of color, layout, and navigation. In addition, the website features an excellent store navigator that shows all the stores on a map with a directions option. Crazy Mocha should really take some time and study Caribou Coffee’s page.
-John Marshall