ARTM2210 Intro to Web Design
Just another Intro to… siteArchive for Monthly Review
Monthly Review 3
For my third monthly review I decided to analyze and compare the websites of Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo.
The Manolo Blahnik website is a clean crisp website, with a nice subtle nude background. When you first go to the site all you see are the categories you can choose from, which include: Biography, Collection, News, Where to Buy, and Contact. Clicking on the Biography link, replacing the picture on the home page the options “The Man” and “The Shoes” appears with the context continuing to the right of it and another picture further to the right. As you move down the through the categories the same channel occurs, with the exception that there are more option of shoes to look at when you get into the Collection category. Manolo Blahnik’s website shows the viewer the hierarchy of the website and is easy to navigate through both forwards and backwards, the only thing it is lacking in Steve Krug’s trunk test is there is no search bar that is seen throughout the entire website.
The other website I decided to look at was the Jimmy Choo website which is more extensive than Manolo Blahnik. It has a search bar in the upper left hand corner and the name “Jimmy Choo,” the site id is always centered at the top. There are different categories to shop under, each having their own drop down bar to choose even more specifically what is being looked for. Once you start to go further into the site, a “You are here” bar appears to show where you are, but it doesn’t match up with the path you took to get there. For instance I just chose shoes and chose boots and clicked on a boot, and the path back towards home does not take me back the way I came and was a little confusing because going back one step took me somewhere completely else. Other than the “you are here” not following the same way back as it did forward, Jimmy Choo’s website is fairly easy to use, has nice aesthetics, and a nice display of navigation for how “big” the website is.
When comparing both of the sites, the best shopping site is the Jimmy Choo site. They have a way for you to purchase the shoes right on the website without taking you to another site to order the shoes like the Manolo Blahnik website does. When it comes to navigation and how to go through the different levels of the site I like how the Manolo Blahnik website works; it’s an easy forward and backward chain that you can’t get lost in. The Jimmy Choo site confuses me with the way they have the site history set up and how you cant go back the same way you came. Overall my I think the Manolo Blahnik website worked better in navigation and the Jimmy Choo did better on a way to purchase the products on the website.
Comments off
Monthly Review 3
The first site I chose was Manoloblahnik.com. This simple, but elegant, one-page website, is very limited in its design. The homepage has the title and global navigation on the left, and one photograph on the right. When one of the options is selected, another list of navigation appears to the right. The selected section changes so that the user knows where they are within the navigation. Once a final option is chosen, the content appears where the picture was on the homepage. The user is unable to scroll, and has to click arrow buttons to go back and forth between the content. This is especially frustrating when attempting to scroll through a body of text. The navigation is simple and easy, but accessing the content is difficult.
The total feel of the page is successful. The balance of content and navigation is the most unique part of this website, which is not seen very often. The flow of the content is unified until the “Where to buy” section is reached. The elegance of the page is lost, maybe because of the amount of content that is needed in this section. If this information were organized in the same way as the rest of the content, such contrast wouldn’t be noticed. Perhaps it is because this section is lacking a photo. With such a small amount of content, a small and simple layout works well.
In contrast, Thefryecompany.com uses a more generic type of navigation, one seen on most websites. The website name and the global navigation live at the top of the page. As one rolls over a section, another secondary navigation panel drops down. There one can select the type of shoe they are looking for. Upon selection, the user is taken to the next page, where the shoes are listed, and the global navigation header is highlighted. Options to refine the search, or customize the shoes via color, size, etc. are also given. However, there is no indication anywhere on the page telling the user what secondary navigation link they selected. The user could be in the new arrivals section and have no way of knowing so. Breadcrumbs are necessary when a website has a lot of content.
The layout here is nothing unique, as compared to the previously mentioned website. The navigation is at the top of the page, which was previously mentioned, and the content lives underneath of it. All of the options at the top of the page are very similar in size and color, which makes it hard to determine which are more important. As one gets further into the website, emphasis should be made on the global navigation so the user can easily get back to where they came from.
Both websites work well because they have two contrasting purposes. The first site is mainly for information, and the second site’s purpose is to sell something. As far as eye-catching, Manoloblahnik.com wins the medal. The user does not have to look around very far to find what they came there for, but on Thefryecompany.com things are a little different. There are many different things going on to distract the user, which takes away from the reason they visited the site in the first place.
Comments off
Review 3
The two sites I choose to use are Zappos and The Frye Company. They both have a good use of balance. Their color themes for both site are equal throughout. Picture placement balances out as well. The Frye Company has better unity within the page than Zappos does. It may seem this way because the Frye Company surrounds its website around on them opposed to Zappos which covers a variety of products with different themes. The Frye Company emphasizes boots and the more vintage, country look. Zappos has no specify emphasis on anything. I think the layout for the Frye Company is more eye pealing. Zappos’s layout is clean though, it is just more busy. Both sides are easy to navigate and really show off what they’re offering. They both have search boxes and have all the other “things” that Krug’s says makes a good website. I personally think that the Frye Company is more effective at drawing an audience to their website because it is more eye appealing and warm.
Comments off
Monthly Review 3: Shoe Websites
For the 3rd review I compared zappos.com and manoloblahnik.com.
While Zappos has much more on its website, manoloblahnik has a simpler design to it. There isn’t much color, most of it being gray or white, and the layout is pretty simple. Page tabs towards the left and Pictures towards the right.
Zappos, on the other hand, has more to offer with color, just having more in general, and things flow a lot better. It takes on the design of most other websites. The layout, however, is not as simple as manoloblahnik.com. It is a bit scattered, yet connected.
As far as emphasis goes, Zappos.com stands out a lot better, having more on its page while Manoloblahnik.com has a simpler design and doesn’t stand out as much.
Overall, Zappos.com seems to be the better website in general, having more color and a better emphasis.
Comments off
Frye Company & Cole Haan
For my monthly review I chose to do the Frye Company and Cole Haan’s websites. Both sites really draw me in and make me want to explore them more. Each sites uses balance in how things are laid out on the page and the color palettes they chose. The Frye company uses dark browns, gray in the drop down menus and a leather background while the Cole Haan site uses black and white as a palette with a sky blue hover over the links. Both a pretty simplistic in design even more so with the Cole Haan site.
Emphisis in both sites is shown through text and pictures. Both sites have pictures on the main pages that bring emphasis to them. On the Fyre Company site you can scroll through them on the main page and on other pages they use big pictures for emphasis, they also use a leather background to emphasis that they make leather shoes. Both sites use text that is in all caps so all the headings etc. are in all caps. The Fyre Company’s text is bolded while the Cole Haan’s are only in a few spots.
Both sites use unity consistently when navigating throughout the site. They both have navigation bars at the top of the page with there logo’s on the left side the Frye Company’s being next to the navigation bar and the Cole Haan’s right above. This helps with unity because on each page the navigation bar is there and you always know where to go.
Both sites are similar in some aspects of their layouts but different in the fact that one uses pictures more and a darker color palette while on uses less pictures and a light color palette. To me the one that draws my attention more is the Frye Company’s website because I like the darker color palette and the use of leather as a background to help emphasis that they make leather shoes. The bigger navigation bar also really draws me in too. The pictures they use through out the site and the scrolling affect on the main page also really draws me in and makes me want to scroll through an see all the pictures. The only thing that I didn’t like is that there are a lot of navigation tabs and categories that it becomes some what busy on the top, and maybe narrowing them down a little bit could help it not be so busy and distracting.
Comments off
Monthly Review 3
When i checked Zappos the color of the site balanced very well with the whole site and was calming experience to search for shoes. Then the site Jimmy Choo had a more vibrant color and the balance of the colors were good. I Also noticed that on the sides of Jimmy Choo the flowers were not the same giving off a asymmetrical balance while the balance in Zappos was clear to be symmetrically balanced.
Now the Emphasis was different for both Sites. Zappos were emphasizing running shoes. spring shoes, Certain kinds of clothing for rainy days, and lastly Casual clothing. While Jimmy Choo is showing off there seasonal shoe right off the bat, and a actress wearing the shoe and walking in them. Which emphasizes that they look really nice and are look nice for events and special occasion outings. Where Zappos is just showing different types of shoes for running and just for the spring. Then they have Clothing for special days like rainy days, and just a casual day of outfits. Jimmy Choo is also emphasizing that there shoes are more extravagent, then the ones that Zappos sells.
I think both sites have a nice layout and are different from one another. On Zappos and Jimmy Choo the sections are both up top, but then Zappos has a subsection on the side. On Zappos the search tool is more emphasized then the one on Jimmy Choo, It took m a few seconds to find the search tool on Jimmy Choo because its so small and is in the corner. Also the search tool on Zappos seems a little easier to use because under it says you can look for certain sizes,narrow, wide, and popular shoes. Where as in Jimmy Choo there is no advance search. Also the sites logo is easily seen when one the page and when you got to different pages. Though the both have the logo different locations one more effective being in the middle while the other is in the top left corner. I noticed in the Jimmy Choo that it has a Breadcrumb trail to lead you back to the home page. Where as the Zappos doesn’t show a breadcrumb trail of where i was last.
I think the Jimmy Choo has a more attractive attention getter then the Zappos site because of the vibrate color they use and The photo also brings in attention. The navigation on the Jimmy Choo website is a little more elobrate then the Zapos because when you go over the bar subsections come out and you can choose for there if you see what your looking for. I noticed that Zappos has there customer support up top if you need help and is in a good location if a person is having trouble locating something. But Jimmy Choo doesn’t have a help tool really, there is a contact us button at the bottom but the Zapos is running 24/7. I think Jimmy Choo is a good website if you know what your doing and what your looking for but the Zappos seems more helpful and easier to use with everything being at the top. If i was a new user and wasnt good on the internet the site i would choose that was better would be Zappos, but if i was experienced and knew how to use the search efficiently and navigate well the n Jimmy Choo would be the best site. Though i would probably pick Zappos for the winner of the site because its the one that would make you less frustrated, your getting help 24/7 of the time, and its easy to use. A site i would more likely use to search for something i neeed.
Comments off
monthly reveiw 3: shoe reveiw
Monthly review 3
Zappos and Cole haan are very unique shoe selling sites. Each has its own style and way of directing it’s user.
Lets take a look at each sites balance. Cole Hann goes foe asymmetrical balance for a good portion of it s pages, most of the products page do not follow this pre-established format. I don’t find a problem with this because most selling sites do this at least with their product pages. Zappos does something very similar with the product pages. It uses some sort of the rule of thirds
Unity is a different matter. For both sites I feel like there very little flow that directs my eyes. For both it they both have the shoe s pointing to the sidebar which may or may not help the user.
Thirdly is the emphasis. On zappos the emphasis on the home page is put on the department bar at the top. also emphasis is put on the the changing image in the center on later photos. For Cole Haan it s is different story on the home is on the photos and and images. I feel like Cole haan use emphasis bit better.
Lastly is layout I feel cole haan use it more effectively better than zappos
Zappos seemed like it still at factory setting and needs bit more tweeking. The mood ig et from cole haan is that it is hip and cool.
Both sites use these important parts of design effectively but overall cole hann has a better feel to it in the end.
Comments off
Monthly Review 3
For this monthly review I decided to talk about Manolo Blahnik and The Frye Company. I’ll start with Manolo Blahnik. One of the first things I noticed about this page was its elegance and the photograph of the hand making the shoe on the homepage. I am all about authentic, which is what it looks like you will get with this certain designer/company. The site has a clean elegant look to it and the layout is very simple. It has a small navigation menu on the right and the images pop up on the right. I was a little confused at first not knowing what to click because the links did not show that they were being hovered over or were even clickable. Once I clicked on a link it branched out to another column and this repeats for how many links there are. This is a nice feature because it shows where you have been and the links you clicked to get there if you need to go back a few steps. Another important feature for me is to be able to click the home page and it takes me there, which this site has. However, one thing I wish the site did have is a search bar. For me this is a new designer/company so the search bar was not necessary but had i been familiar with it, the search would make finding what you want easier. One other thing I would change is the color of the “Manolo Blahnik” name on the homepage, and every page after. For the homepage it is ok but it gets a little lost on the others. Changing the placement of the name would probably make the site less balanced, so changing the color would not only add emphasis to the name, but would not break the layout.
The page is all enclosed in a rectangle in the center of the page with grey background. The balance of this page is what adds to its elegant layout and really puts the emphasis on the shoes because they are mostly all bright colors surrounded by grey. With the exception of the site not having a search bar, I think the website would pass the “trunk test.” You are able to know what site you are on, as well as the page. The sections break down and the section you are in on the page is highlighted in a different color, which also helps with the “you are here” indicators. The audience of this site would be targeted to more of a high end type of person based off of the hand drawn shoes and their unique patterns.
The Frye Company was my favorite out of all the sites. The photography and soft brown leather color drew me in immediately. Like Manolo Blahnik, authenticity is the name of the game. The look of the page is very simplistic, busy (in a good, non-distracting way), and user friendly all at the same time. I love tabs. I like seeing everything all in one place and seeing what tab I clicked on. The tabs make it easy for anyone to use. The use of photography on this site is beautiful and eye popping as well as the leather-looking background. In terms of balance, the colors and filters on the photographs work very well together- looks very country. It has a very fun energy. The video on the “On The Road” page is very fun and grabs the user’s attention as well as showcases beautiful photography/videography skills with the authenticity of the leather shoes and boots. It makes me want a pair of their shoes. The tabs drop down into the different sections and the shoes you click on show up in a centered box, making it the focus. There is also a section to not only search, but refine your search. This is very helpful when you have such a big site and know exactly what you are looking for. The placement of the logo in the upper left-hand corner is noticeable and subtle (which is a good thing – it’s not invisible or overbearing) and has a hand-drawn feel to it; which adds to the site’s overall look. The emphasis stays on the products. Everything on this site works so well together; layout, emphasis, balance, and unity.
With the photographs and products showcased in the center of the page, it helps to really look at the site and be able to zoom in on the products. Without a doubt this site would pass the “trunk test.” You know what site you are on; you know the page you are on; the sections further break down to show what you clicked on to get to that point; the “you are here” indicator could maybe have a smaller navigation bar, but the section still stays highlighted in the tabs menu; and there is a search bar. The products seem like they are again targeted to someone not on a college budget, but the site altogether can be targeted to really anyone.
Comments off
Monthly Review
Explore each of your choices, then describe and compare the two sites use of Balance, Unity, Emphasis, and Layout. How do they use these principles and implement Krug’s five important “things” to make sure users see and understand the site? Is one site more effective than the other at drawing your attention, and why?
The two sites that I chose to do were JimmyChoo and Zappos.
The first thing I recoginzed when I looked at the websites is that JimmyChoo seems to be more organized and appealing to the eye than Zappos. The Zappo website is very busy and hard to focus your attention on one specific thing. JimmyChoo is focused the elegance on todays trends where as Zappo’s seems to fit the needs of the day to day grind.
According to Krugs five important things JimmyChoo’s and Zappo’s both follow the proper navigation layout. When I look at the website of Zappo’s I feel like I am very overwhelmed with options where as JimmyChoo’s is well organized and focused of specific items. JimmyChoo’s and Zappo’s clearly define the location of where you are at on the site. JimmyChoo’s is a better option for what websites stand for and should look like.
Comments off
Monthly Review 3: Jimmy Choo & Cole Haan
The websites I chose for this review are Jimmy Choo and Cole Haan. Both are widely known shoe designers. Very popular shoe designers for those who can actually afford $150 or more for a pair of shoes.
Both websites have a similar layout. Both have a similar square and rectangular site with the set up of the different photos of shoes being advertised. The colors are very simple and plain as well. Cole Haan uses white mainly, with bits of bright color, but that is very minimal. Jimmy Choo also uses very simple and plain colors, mainly using tan and white. Bright colors are not really used, minus those that are in some of the actual shoes being advertised and the high contrast in some photos. Menu is simple and appears to be in a Times New Roman font on Jimmy Choo while a more san serif kind of font on Cole Haan. Both work very well and are very effective. There is even a search menu to “Shop By” on Jimmy Choo to narrow down what you are looking for. Cole Haan does not have this, so it requires more thinking when trying to find exactly what you are looking for. There should be a search like thing like Jimmy Choo has. The more a customer has to think, the more uninterested they become, and say “Forget about it.” when it comes to finding exactly what they are looking for.
Both are also very balanced, layout wise, with keeping it simple and minimalistic. Basic, plain colors are used for the most part. The sub-navigation does not pop out in a bright color. I wish it did because it would make it stand out as Krug says it should in ‘Don’t Make Me Think’. There are some hover colors for the main links for Cole Haan, which does help seperate them. Different font sizes and varied spacing also help. Jimmy Choo, on the other hand, features more of a sub-navigation with links that are the same font size and spacing to that of the main links. However, Jimmy Choo’s search is much more indepth than Cole Haan’s, which is very helpful when shopping for something specific, as mentioned earlier.
As for unity, both of these sites are very united. They both tie together all on their own and create a harmonious, balanced, and complete whole. Even the navigation on both of those sites has unity. The navigation design for both of them is a simple, plain menu (so is the sub-menu that drops down). It helps to create unity between each of the sites and tie in to each of the layouts.
As emphasis, both sites have some elements that stand out from the others. Both sites have an emphasis on shoes and that shows. Cole Haan uses some brighter colors to emphasize the shoes within the photographs and advertisements used to show the various shoes.. Jimmy Choo uses high contrast photos and some bits of bright color to emphasize and make them stand out from the rest of the page. Neither of these sites use tabs, which in my opinion is a problem. Tabs really help to organize and utilize all aspects of the site. They also help to make various parts of the site stand out when it comes to the navigation. Krug also agrees that tabs are a very good thing, according to what he says in ‘Don’t Make Me Think’.
What is interesting is that Cole Haan does not use breadcrumbs really. So, when you’re on one page, you don’t know how you got there, or remember how you got there. That is when breadcrumbs come in, and that does not help that Cole Haan does not have them. Jimmy Choo does utilize breadcrumbs, which is a very good thing.
These principles and Krug’s five important “things” to make users see and understand the site make both of these sites very different. Jimmy Choo utilizes all of those important things and the principles, making for a very successful and well designed site. From breadcrumbs to tabs and beyond, both of these sites vary. Cole Haan is the complete opposite and does not use a bunch of these important things like breadcrumbs and tabs. It makes their site much more difficult to navigate and as a result, is a worse design.
In my opinion, I feel that Jimmy Choo for the most part is more effective at drawing my attention. The reason being is because of their very specific search and their entire layout is more comprehensive to a degree compared to that of Cole Haan. Jimmy Choo also has a slightly more colorful background to add to their layout design, which makes it stand out a little more.
Comments off
Monthly Review
I choose to look at http://www.thefryecompany.com/ and http://www.colehaan.com/colehaan/home.jsp.
Frye:
I really liked how the Frye company page was very neat, clean, and well organized. I like how simple it was to locate exactly what your looking for. Its well balanced on every page of the site. From the tabs and drop down menus to the moving picture that you can either let go through on its own or click through faster. No matter where you are on the site, theres always the Logo at the top to let you know whose cite this is. The color scheme makes the website very uniformed and professional. It matches the shoes in most cases and gives a relaxed feel to the whole cite. They have the types of shoes and accessories in a bit bigger size font so it stands out more and catches your attention. It helps you understand where you need to go if your looking for something specific. I like the layout a lot as well. It flows nicely and even the pages where its about the shoes is well organized and put together. I’m not at all confused about what I need to do to see other angles or colors of the shoes. Or even to place an order. On each separate page you can always get back to the main page by clicking on the logo at the top. And no matter where you are on the site you can easily navigate your way through to a different section whenever you please. The search bar is easy to find and easy to use. I think its smart that they have all the tabs at the top where most people look first. The sign in, checkout, all of it is right there. Some more bold than others, but it works nicely. Nothing is to over powering or confusing on this webpage.
Cole Hann:
I don’t particularly like this layout. Its nice and simple, but its a bit plain. The right side kind of heavy compared to the left side. I like that the pictures scroll and that the text is relativity the same. I don’t like how the sign in, about us, etc is found at the bottom of the page. Again it makes the bottom more heavy than the top. I think the tabs should be slightly larger or bolded to be easier to notice when you first enter the page. I do like how when you hover over the tab it has all the sections for that one selection. Like the women’s has the handbags, shoes, accessories in a tabbed list, its very organized that way. I think that if they had made those tabs stand out because they’re relatively important to a person looking at the cite, it would be a bit better. Similarly to the Frye site, the logo is on every page and is also the link to the homepage. The search bar is easy to find and use. I liked how the little links to twitter, Facebook, and such were at the top by the search bar. Its a simple layout but easy to use.
I personally found that the Frye website drew me in more than the Cole Hann. It was just more fun to look at and explore and I loved a lot of the design elements that were used. I liked the simple textured background, how I knew what was important to the site, and what wasn’t as important. I liked the color scheme and how the shoes all had different angles and colors to look at. It just flowed and worked better for me. I also really enjoyed the pictures that were shown on the homepage. That was probably the biggest thing to catch my attention right off the bat. I really liked how on each pictures they had a View Here thing so if you were interested you knew where to click to find out more about that section.
Comments off
Blog Post #3: Zappos + Jimmy Choo
Though both sites primarily sell shoes, zappos.com and jimmychoo.com have very different styles and ways of conveying balance, unity, emphasis, and layout.
Both sites obviously cater to very different audiences – while Zappos has more of a commercial feel to it with easy and obvious navigation, Jimmy Choo has more of a contemporary, fashion forward feel to it, with easy to follow but not as obvious navigation. Both sites use the four elements previously stated (balance, unity, emphasis, and layout) to cater to their goal clients and audience.
For example, both sites uses balance and in terms of their color palettes – Zappos uses mainly blues (varying shades) and creams, with the occasional orange to emphasize highlighted features, the search button, and the shopping cart. Jimmy Choo, in the other hand, uses a palette of mainly white and black with some grays and creams mixed in– clean, sophisticated, and modern.
Both sites also have consistent unity from page to page. The navigation bars at the top of each website do not change – as well the “header.” This helps create unity throughout the pages. No matter where I found myself on the page, I always knew exactly what site I was on.
Each site uses emphasis in unique ways. Zappos uses emphasis through color in a very obvious way (words changing colors from blue to orange, words highlighted with various colors within a block, etc.). Jimmy Choo, on the other hand, uses more subtle methods of emphasis – instead of a word changing a completely different color (like on the Zappos site), a word might change from black to light gray or from unbolded to bold. Overall, in this category – Zappos seems to have a more efficient and effective method for ensuring success in navigation.
Both sites are very different in terms of layout. Zappos has a much busier overall layout than Jimmy Choo – which might be due to the fact that Zappos offers many more products than Jimmy Choo (or so it seems). Both sites use a variation of tabs with subheadings and advanced searches. Neither use breadcrumbing – I definitely felt as though Zappos would benefit from adding some sort of breadcrumbing trail. When I was looking at different products, I found myself getting a little bit lost and thought that a breadcrumb trail might help better figure things out. For Jimmy Choo’s navigation, one thing that seemed a little odd was whenever I hovered my mouse over one of the subheadings (Shoes, Handbags, etc.), the tabs within the subheadings that popped up underneath the subheading are a good two or three tabs worth of space from the subheadings themselves. Why so much space between the two categories? I found that to be the only somewhat confusing part of the navigation.
Comments off
Eichenlaub Monthly Review #3
For this Review I decided to explore the sites called thefryecompany.com and colehaan.com. Both site provide customers with the selection of different shoes, handbags, and accessories at reasonable prices. I did notice that each site uses a different was at displaying information to customers and how it attempts to make shopping easy for people.
When looking over the web site thefryecompany.com, I was amazed at all of the detail that was put into making it. The site was well balanced and all of the information was organized so neatly. I also liked the background color and texture and how it resembled shoe leather. I also liked the moving pictures and how well they too were balanced and neat. The website’s unity was also good and that the site had everything that was required and that everything on the site seamed to compliment one another. The only thing I didn’t like was that the site’s use of color for the text. I though it was too light and small and it made it hard to read it sometimes. Its use of emphasis was a little poor to me because the pictures clued me in on was the site was about, but the wording again was kind of bland and didn’t really convince me to explore the site more. The layout over all was pretty good and I did like how the personal information and merchandise was organized.
When look over the site colehaan.com, I liked the sites style and its use of color and layout. The site was also well balanced and displayed the contents out in a way that I knew where they were right away. The use of a simple white background worked very well for it made the site simple and easy for an individual to follow. I still thought that the letters on the site could have been a little bigger though. The unity was also quite good in that it displayed the information so evenly and almost like a puzzle. The unity made finding the information I required so easy to find and made my navigation easier on this site. The site also displayed some great emphasis in displaying important information like stuff that was on sale or new items for purchase. The layout was overall good and that all of the information was exactly where is should have been but my only concern is that the layout may have been a little too dull and maybe even boring to customers
Both sites do an excellent job at displaying balance, unity, emphasis, and layout and used it effectively in their own way. Both sites have created their own way of navigation through the site and make it easier for a customer to shop. The site thefryecompany.com displayed did a great job in making navigation easy by putting the products in the proper categories. I was even Impressed when the site already divided men and ladies shoes witch made my search faster. The site colehaan.com did an also awesome job in creating categories for different customer needs and also divided the needs by the gender of the customer. I did notice however that some categories seamed to almost coexist with each other such as accessories. This made the organization seam less professional and displayed the information in an unorganized mess. In terms of effectiveness, I would say that thefryecompany.com wins on top because it makes it easier to draw my attention to the product that I need and the information is not too clustered in an unorganized pile.
Comments off
Site Review Number Two: Single Page Site
For my second site review, I chose to critique the website maidstonedrivinglessons.com. I chose this site because it is not a great example of a single page site. I spent more than 2 minutes trying to figure out what to do with it before I realized there was a tiny navigation menu to use at the top. The only thing I wanted to do with this site was drive the car. I tried all the tricks I knew. Then I was informed that it drives itself when you use the navigation bar. This bothers me because I thought the site would be more fun to navigate.
The site is not all bad, though. The graphics are very pleasing and the background interacts with the foreground well to give us the feeling that everything is moving on a 3D plane. It is also neat how the car drives past the same background but you don’t really notice until you’ve played around on the site for a little bit. This site could easily be improved by making the navigation links much larger and giving the use some direction so that they aren’t mashing the right arrow hoping to play driver with the little red car. This site makes me think. Me no Gusta.
Comments off
Review 2
Hey everybody!
So, for this month’s review I decided to take a look at http://www.niquewoodhouse.com. Before delving into the stylish look of this self site, a quick thought:
This guy is good.
First, you have changing palettes matching different projects. Each with very well picked colors. For the children’s/MTV ad stuff, he used a really rich yellow, while for products such as the razor, he used a basic black.
Secondly, I really love the navigation system. Instead of a normal one page (where there is simply one direction, or no direction), this guy made an entire board of images to shift between. With each animation, it feels seamless as though you’re flipping through a catalog.
In the end, expertly done and definitely a cool site.
Comments off
Monthly Review #2
For Monthly Review #2, I chose http://minimalmonkey.com/ and this site was featured on onepagelove.com.
This site’s simple use of solid colors for each posting of an article is clean and attractive. The colors help signify different post by the creator and the texture is flat and geometrical. Shading is used as an activity more then a accent. Colors pop-up more when the post is selected and surrounding post become dimmer. The site starts from the Left and scrolls right through-out the website’s time line of posts. The ’tile’-ing of each post makes everything smooth and easy to read.
Comments off
Monthly Review 2 – Windows of New York
I chose to review http://www.windowsofnewyork.com. This single-page website caught my eye because of it’s simplicity and unique topic. Jose Guizar, a graphic designer in New York City, has studied and illustrated the many unique windows he has seen throughout the city.
The Windows of New York website does not present a complicated scrolling method. One simply scrolls down to view each unique window. On any other page this may be too simple; however, I found this approach to be effective. It ties in with the simplistic look of the site very well. There is an “about” link at the top of the page, which sends you down to the site’s description. Instead of it being at the top or bottom of the page, this section is three quarters of the way down. It is followed by a couple more window illustrations. I found this to be off putting. To me it seems like a mistake. I supposed a block of text isn’t the last thing he wanted us to see. Perhaps he wanted our final view of the page to be one of his illustrations. If this was placed at the beginning, people may have moved on more quickly, not wanting to read the description first. He successfully kept our attention where he wanted it.
As you continue to scroll, there is an arrow button on the top right that takes you back up to the top of the page. This is helpful, for you don’t have to manually scroll back to the top. A menu of some sort would be very helpful as well. A list at the top of the page indicating the several locations in which he found window inspiration would be a nice touch. Page jumps have already been used in other ways around the site, so why doesn’t the designer give us an option to go to a specific location without having to scroll all the way through?
Although I would find that to be useful, having to manually scroll through all of the illustrations forces your eye to notice the beautiful contrast between each location and it’s window pair. I spend a significant amount of time analyzing each window because of their incredible detail. Paired with the simple, single-colored background, these illustrations look amazingly realistic, and pop off the screen. Not one window is like another, which, like I mentioned before, creates beautiful contrast as your scroll. The clean, geometric shapes against the background create an effective texture and add to the overall feel of the site.
To take such an ordinary object we often overlook, and make it visually appealing is a difficult task. In my opinion, Guizar succeeded simply and beautifully. He mentioned that his hope was to “never stop looking up,” and I believe he has accomplished that goal, for me at least.
Comments off
Monthly Review 2 – jiouhe.com
For my second monthly review I chose to look at http://jiouhe.com. Based on the title, I can gather that this is a consultancy service website, however since it is in another language I cannot understand any of the other text.
This site is very simple, the background is stark white with absolutely no texture. The color scheme used is a very muted collection of pink, green, blue, red, and yellow; the same colors used in the company logo. The user can only scroll up and down to navigate; clever coding makes it seem as if the page is twisting and turning about, which keeps it exciting. As the user scrolls downward, textured geometric shapes expand and contract alongside thought bubbles containing information. Since I cannot read the information, I can only assume that each time the geometric shapes change color, the content topic changes as well.
As I scrolled further downward, I noticed that every time I moved into a different category, the category name would be highlighted pink in a bar at the top of the page that could be seen no matter where I was in the site. I really liked their unique way of giving the user a site map that was subtle, yet helpful. I then realized that those category names were also links that would take me to the appropriate section; this type of navigation is incredibly helpful. Jiouhe.com is a vast site with a lot of content, but the nicely structured navigation helps make the site seem more manageable to the user.
One thing that I did not like about the website is the fact that when the user gets to the “Projects” section, the white background changes to black. In this section they also introduce a bright coral color into the color scheme. I understand that they want to highlight this section of their site, after all, their projects pages is likely the first thing a potential client is going to look at, however, I think that they could have used the color scheme already in place to make the highlighted Projects section way more effective. This section just does not flow with the rest of the page because of the poor color choices; a shame considering how great the other aspects of the site are.
Although I couldn’t even read the content of the site, I got a pretty good idea of where I was in the site by the effective use of color as a wayfinding tool. The highlighting navigational links also helped me out a great deal when I was exploring the site.
Comments off
Monthly Review
For the second monthly review I decided to look at and analyze the color, texture and navigation of the website festaitalianafrederick.com. It is a one page website that I found on onepagelove.com.
The colors of the website include a yellow-orange, red-orange, baby blue, chocolate brown, and a dull yellow-green. The first color you see is two shades of the yellow-orange in an alternating pattern with a chefs hat and mustache welcoming you to the site. Just as it states in chapter two of The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, both orange and yellow are a more informal color, which is the exact feeling I started to get when I first opened the webpage. As you scroll down or select the next section, the background is white with the text in the chocolate brown color. The brightness of the white kind of took me by surprise, but gave the effect that I should focus on what was on the section of the page. Keeping the navigation bar (the chocolate brown with white text), and a white bar with the logo on it at the top, as you scroll down the next section changes to the other colors with the two-shade pattern. I found that keeping the white bar at the top annoying and distracting because my eye continued to focus on that rather than the content underneath it. The use of the other colors were alright, the baby blue and the yellow-green seemed out of place, but using the red-orange with the blue helped to tie the blue in. The green section of the page I just continued to scroll past it because it didn’t seem to match anything else. Overall I like the colors, I just don’t think they conveyed the message that the site wanted to.
When it comes to texture, the use of the pattern in the background is subtle enough, yet noticeable and adds to the webpage. The Only thing I found distracting was that through the color changes the shapes did not match up breaking the sections up even more, halting the flow of the page. On the first section with the plain white background they broke up sections by using dotted lines, which helps make the content stand out, but it still flows with the rest of the page.
The navigation of the site is pretty simple. You can either start to scroll down or to “enter” the site click on the chefs hat and t scrolls for you. Besides just scrolling, as I states earlier there’s a navigation bar to choose what section of the page you want to go to and it just scrolls there for you. The navigation is pretty easy; it didn’t make me think that much, but more than I probably should have.
The overall look of festaitalianafrederick.com is okay; the navigation is easy, just being able to scroll through if you don’t know you can click to navigate. The colors did seem a little out of place and the fact that the pattern isn’t consistent throughout the page, just changing colors was distracting to me. It’s a simple one page website that works but could be fixed to make just that little bit better.
Comments off
Monthly Review 2: Single Page Site
I chose www.windowsofnewyork.com. The site has almost no texture. There is no movement, no depth, no volume, limited shape, no rotation, and is a very minimal website. It has a series of colored, rectangular sections, each with a illustration of a window. The colors don’t necessarily fit a color scheme, but they do illustrate division and separation. The change in color doesn’t give a sense of movement, but more of a stop-and-go feeling. The illustrations have some texture to them, to give a feeling of a 3D window, but the website overall doesn’t have any, just simple colors and few horizontal rules. To navigate, you have to scroll up and down. There are not buttons to click that take you to the next section. There is, however, an arrow that takes you to the top of the page. The site is easy to understand because of the use of color as dividers. The site’s repetition makes it easy to understand the flow of the site, and what is likely to be next whenever you scroll.
Comments off
Monthly Review #2: Ian James Cox’s One Page Site
For this monthly review, I have chosen to review Ian James Cox’s one page site. Ian James Cox is a freelance digital designer who has worked with many different companies and projects.
I feel that his site is very dynamic and creative in its own little ways. The colors work very well together and the texturing is excellent. His site is pretty much primarily monochromatic, featuring neutral colors of gray, white, and black. However, there are some little bits of color with each piece of work he animates along his site. Those little pieces of work have bright and vibrant colors, but do not seem to take away from the site. They do stand out though, which is good. The bright colors evoke an energetic emotion, especially with the BBC CBeebies where it is a bunch of bright yellow that is animated to a degree. The little bits of color really add to the otherwise neutral, monochromatic site. In my opinion, the little bits of bright color make the site more attractive and want to pull me in more. The colors are not obnoxious or extremely distracting as well.
This site also features texturing. The background looks to be a crumpled piece of paper kind of texture. It helps give a dimensional feel to it so it’s not like it’s only text against a gray background. There is one solid black line that appears drawn by a Sharpie throughout the site. It evokes a sense of movement and excitement, awaiting for what will come up next as the line whips around when scrolling. This Sharpie-like drawn line makes it look like the line is really drawn on paper with the textured background.
Animation wise, the movements are smooth and precise with the scrolling. All the user has to do is scroll downward to move the page along, even to make it go right or left. However, I do feel that the animation for scrolling has gone too far. When it started to go left or right, I automatically wanted to scroll left or right rather than up and down. Obviously it did not get me anywhere though and I figured out quickly that you had to keep scrolling downward to get it to advance. The benefit of the doubt is that if you do not feel like scrolling, there is a small menu on the left side of the page with links that you can click to do to different parts of the site that otherwise you would be scrolling down to. The buttons are very well done for the most part. I wish there was something that would happen when you hover on the links though so you know they are links. However, when you click on the links, they do highlight themselves when they navigate to those parts.
The fonts are very easy to read, and are fun. They look as though they have been handwritten with a marker so they blend well with the overall theme of the site. The site elements that make the entire site easy to scan, read, and understand the content are the illustrations/animations that go along with each piece of work Ian James Cox has done, and the color scheme that brings out different elements that he wants to emphasize.
Overall, this site of Ian James Cox’s is a very dynamic one for a one page site. It has great elements that make it fun and innovative. It is a very creative site for a portfolio site and definitely has some eye candy.
Comments off
Monthly Review Topic 2 – Cute HTML School
For the second monthly review topic, I chose to review the site cutehtmlschool.com. This site is dedicated to creating awareness for a movement that hopes to teach children to learn HTML. The project is in early stages, so while the site asks for donations there is no way to give any money. There are, however, social media links that can be used to promote the cause.
The color scheme is established on the first of the five section. There are four main colors: white, pink, and two shades of light blue. These colors are “cotton candy” colors. They give the site a fun feel and a cutesy vibe, which plays toward the kid-oriented nature of the project. This first section has a white background, with the other three colors lining the top in a bunting pattern. The colors also appear in the typography of the Cute HTML School name. Each of the informational sections is one of the three colors: first the darker blue, then the lighter blue, and then the pink. The final section mirrors the first, with the same white background and the bunting, which is along the bottom rather than the top.
The site’s backgrounds all use subtle textures, which prevent the backgrounds from becoming visually boring or jarring, while still maintaining the sort of feel a solid background would bring. The first and last sections use an array of grey dots to create texture. The darker blue section uses an ABC pattern, suggesting the educational nature of the project. The lighter blue uses a plain checkered pattern. The pink section makes use of a more intricate pattern involving small zigzags and diamonds.
Navigation is very simple and logical. Each section has a downward facing arrow which leads to the next section, with the final section containing an arrow which leads back to the top. The first button includes some animation elements, which add to the cutesy feel of the page. Since this site is mostly pitching a concept rather than an actual program, there is not a lot of information to be had. What information there is is well laid-out in bullet points. You learn exactly what they hope to achieve, what they need funding for, and what you, the user, can do to help their cause.
Overall, I found the site to be quite effective. It’s purely a mission statement at this point, but considering the intuitive design elements of this page, I would certainly trust the developers to teach HTML and CSS principles.
Comments off
Monthly Review #2
For my second monthly review, I chose to evaluate the single page Gutshof Klostern website. It can be found either by going on http://onepagelove.com/ or by using the actual URL address, http://www.gutshof-klostern.de. This site was written in German; therefore, I had to translate it to be able to read the content. For this analysis, I will be focusing on how well the website incorporates color and texture, and the overall usability of the site.
At first glance, I found this site to be creative and colorful. I was drawn in by the design and the aesthetic quality. The color palette consists of several shades and tints of brown, maroon, green, pink and blue. The maroon color was used mainly for the headings. As written in the second chapter of The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, “The darker shades of red, such as burgundy and maroon, have a rich, indulgent feel about them.” Due to this statement, I feel that this color choice was a good idea because it might help the viewers feel more indulgent about buying sweets. As for green, the chapter mentioned that it is associated with the environment and symbolizes growth and freshness. This color works well because it helps give off the idea that their products are fresh and organic. It was used to represent leaves throughout the page. Pink was used in moderation for petals and some text. For me, this color symbolizes romance and sweetness. I am assuming holidays are some of their busiest times; therefore, this color was a good choice as well. The one color I was not thrilled about was blue. Returning to the chapter mentioned earlier, it says that blue has a way of decreasing appetite because it is not a common color found in food. When scanning through their page, I found the blue font and butterfly to be out of place with the rest of the elements. Finally, the color brown was used the most in the website. Like most neutral tones, it does a good job of unifying all the colors together. Besides doing a decent job at choosing the right colors, this website also utilizes several good textures.
Texture was one of the first things I noticed about this site. The main textures used for the background were wood paneling and burlap. There were also a variety of other smaller ones added to the plants and food products. The wood paneling was used in several areas to create a rustic, natural feel to the page. By angling this texture, the designer was able to create depth of field. I like this effect because it is common for websites to appear flat and boring. For the rest of the page the background is beige burlap. In a way, this texture works because it does not overpower the content. However, I am little confused on how fits into the theme. As for the plants, my only issue is that some of the petals, leaves, and coffee beans have a blurry look to them. I figured this was done on purpose to continue the idea of depth of field. Personally, I feel that was not the best way to go about it because the blurry look appears fake and it detracts from the design. Overall, the designer attempted to use textures well, but there are a few changes that could be made to improve the design.
As for the usability of the site, my response is about the same. The designer did a good job on creating suitable navigation, but there were a few issues with readability. For navigation, viewers have the option to either scroll downwards or press the tabs at the top to jump to each section. Both ways worked smoothly. The designer used many different fonts throughout the page. I found the one particular calligraphy font to be difficult to read, and it clashed with the font used for the tabs. In addition, I feel the brown button used to show the contact information would be better placed somewhere other than the bottom middle of the page. It covers up the content as the viewer scrolls down. These problems are minor and can easily be fixed.
The designer of the Gutshof Klostern website did good job at capturing the attention of the viewers. For the most part, the color palette and textures worked harmoniously together. The overall usability of the site was good as well. It was mentioned on the website that it was still under construction. Therefore, I am sure some of the problems I have mentioned have already been noted before.
Comments off
Grooveshark
I decided to do the second review on the Grooveshark page. On this page, as you scroll down, the iPods have movement on the screens. The first iPhone the music time moves and on the second iPhone the song selections on the screen move. There is also an iPad that stays still but the words on the page move over it. As you scroll to the bottom of the page, you understand what they are promoting, music. Music is all they incorporate on the page. The subtle but huge phrases on the page makes everything easy to read. There are no brights colors anywhere, everything is subtle but they emphasize what’s important by enlarging everything. At the very end of the page there is part of an iPhone showing, just enough to get the explorer bar showing Grooveshark as a website. I think they got their point across very well and used typology and color together in a way that isn’t overwhelming but sticks in your head anyways.
Comments off
Monthly Review #2
Festa Italiana is a one-page web site that is set up pretty well. All you have to do is scroll down and you get all of the information you need. There is also a menu where you can skip to which ever section you want, and can still scroll through the page. The menu also stays on top of the screen, so you can skip to any section at any time.
The color scheme of the site is a little bit mean. Each section has it’s own color scheme, which is fine because you know where you are. One thing that is consistent between sections is the diamond pattern, which ads texture to the site, as well as consistency.
It is fairly easy to read and understand content on the site. Each section is headed with what it is about, and has information regarding the section. All you have to do is scroll down, so it is very easy to navigate. One thing that bothers me is some sections say, “Check back for more details.” This bothers me, but it really isn’t a design flaw as much as it is an information problem. Overall, it is a well designed site and is very easy to use.
Comments off
Monthly Review #2
For my monthly review, choosing a site to review for a single page site, I chose the weathertable app website. Although this website is not very long it perceives enough information about the app itself to completely get across the information that is needed.
The website chooses to navigate from the top to the bottom. I think if the site navigated from the left to the right it can still be just as eye pleasing with a few minor tweaks. The way that there is a picture in the background within the first section of the website with the hand actually holding the phone with the app working on the phone is very appealing. This is great to look at when you first visit the site. It makes you want to continue to look and see what the app is actually about. As readers we scan the page not thoroughly look through the page at first, so the way they have the bolded statements about the app is well laid out so we can understand what makes the app unique.
The use of text and color works well through the website. There is no mismatching of colors and overall the page is kept simple causing no confusion at all which is something I like. The color scheme which is kept simple works well and keeps a sense of cleanliness throughout the page.
The way the images are on one side of the page and the text is justified on the other is a major plus. This keeps things less confusing and to us, easy to read. They also have a link to download the app clear as day and easy to find which is a good thing because you wouldn’t want it to be hard to find where you have to download it, instead it is isolate just enough to grab our attention.
Comments off
Monthly Review 2: One Page Site
The one page website I chose for my monthly review was http://richandkacie.com which is a website for the couples wedding. When I went to the webpage the illustration centered in the middle of the page really dragged me into viewing more. The illustration is line drawing of a bouquet of sunflowers and inside it hear with both their names, and the date of their wedding and what city it is being held in. And below the illustration in a dark gray text is their names and the date and the time their wedding will be held. The color palette of this webpage has is a light gray background that has a texture to it all the way through with a darker gray text, and yellow accents here in there in different places. I think the color pallete they have really works and the background has a faint texture to it so it doesn’t over power or take away from the information they are trying to get across.
To navigate this webpage they have you scrolling down and the first thing that you come to as your scrolling is a yellow a ticket graphic and inside is a the info of where, when etc. of the wedding. The next thing you scroll to is two pictures of them and below the photos, both Rich and Kacie have in two columns things where they talk about meeting each other and so on. The next thing you scroll two is a section that talks about her bridesmaids and groomsmen and how they did this I thought was really neat. They have little arrows that you click on to that go to a different one and they are a little card that each bridesmaid or groomsmen filled out with different questions and a photo attached to it with a cute little paper clip graphic.
After that you scroll down to their gift registry and they have each place they are registered in a yellow ticket again and it has the store company logo on it in dark gray and below a in dark gray a link that says view registry and if you click on it, it links to their registry list at each store which I thought was such a neat idea. The next thing you scroll to is an area with info about hotels around where they are getting married with price info etc. for their guests to stay at. Then we scroll down more and come to a section photos of the two of them that you can go through by clicking little arrows again. And lastly we scroll down and we are provided with directions and a map from google to where there wedding is located at, and at the very bottom is a little illustration like at the top saying thank you for visiting rich andkacie.com
I found this site to be very well designed, the color palette to be nice and work well with the whole page I found nothing in the color palette that caused things to be hard t read or anything. The navigation was easy and took you to where you needed to go. I really liked how they did their gift registry, the bridesmaids/grooms mens info and how they had a section of photos of just the two of the. I honestly didn’t find anything with this site that I would want to change or was weary of except for maybe in some areas like the directions, hotel accommodation or the About them section the font could be a bit bigger for people to see better.
Comments off
Fiesta Italiana
When I first looked at the one page website Fiesta Italiana it looks fun and playful. I feel they designer did a good job structuring the website. They separated what was important and did not make it all confusing to navigate. It was east to find out what to click right when you got to the homepage because it jumps right out at you showing emphasis that you should click this button. Giving it a playful structure for even a kid to understand that is what u need to click. I like the navigation bar because it makes it easier to get to pages but they also leave to option for you to scroll up/down. Also you can decipher what information is important because the bold it out,and make it the header, or sub heads. Also they have a good navigation bar that follows you throughout the site to take you back to the homepage. The only thing that I would say is a little weary is the Habitat for humanity link because unless you go over it you cant really tell its a link because the colors of the text. They also have good amount of white-space usage on this website. The footer of the webpage leads to the company and shows their portfolio and other stuff.
I think the color on the first page is a real attention grabber because its yellow and its a warm color that attracts our eyes. It also gives off good vibe like your happy to see this site, but only thing i have to say is looking at to for a little to long makes it a little overpowering on the eyes. But i don’t believe the color overtakes the image. Right when i looks at the color of blue it gives you a calming feeling and make you fell that the content on this page it easy to understand and will not take to long to understand. In there entertainment page you could tell that this business is still at a growing level with the color they choose as green. I think they choose a lot of simply colors because this is for a child and a parent to go on and it makes it visually pleasing for the kid and easy to navigate for the parent. Also a lot of the illustrations are more child like drawings so i have the feeling even if the parent wasn’t with the child its still makes it east for the kids to use.
I have to say with their texture is very simple and repetitive but changes color from page to page. They make the shapes very horizontally lined, and flows to each page nicely. The shape of the diamond is geometric and is nice. I think the webpage could have done fine without the shapes but the shapes give it more value and appeal to the viewer. In the end i think this website works pretty well but has a few things it need to work on like the links to make them show out more on a few pages. Though overall it has a nice feel to it.
Comments off
Monthly Review Number 2
The one page website that I visited was extremely creative. It was made to help promote this guy’s business. It was creative in that it didn’t scroll up/down or from side to side, it scrolled with the page. The background looked like a crinkled up piece of paper with a line scribbled on it. The page followed the line going down, across, in a circle, etc. It was very easy to navigate and it inspired me to do a site similar to it in design.
Comments off
Monthly Review Topic #2
The single page website that I choose from onepagelove.com was IanJamesCox.com. The color of this page is a simple black and white concept, with appropriate color schemes at each stop to match the work of all the different websites he has done. What really drew me to this site was the texture of the background. To put it simply, the background is a wrinkled up piece of paper, and it really gives the viewer a feeling of looking at a piece of paper instead of a computer screen.
The tricky, yet unique thing about this website is the use scrolling it has. While you travel in all kinds of different directions when navigating, once you get used to it, it works like any other site. If you scroll downwards then you move forwards to the end on the page, and if you scroll upwards you scroll to the beginning of the page. You can also scroll left and right, with the right functioning as scrolling down, and vise versa for the left. For those who don’t want to scroll, there is a navigation key in the upper left hand corner that has links to every part of the page.
I think that the simple idea of following a line is a fun and creative way for users to navigate through the site. Everything is clear, eligible, and easily understood which makes for an effective website.
Comments off