ARTM2210 Intro to Web Design
Just another Intro to… siteArchive for Monthly Review
Blog Post #2: One Page Love Review
For my “One Page Love” monthly review, I chose to analyze a one page wedding website from http://nobodybabybutyouand.me/. Though I am not typically a fan of wedding websites (I’ve always viewed them as a little pointless), this one stood out to me. It was tasteful, simple, and cute, with the personality of the couple reflected from every possible angle, from color to texture.
The color palette of the website is somewhat limited. The main color is an off white canvas color, with lots of yellow and black thrown into the mix to add a little dimension and contrast. Yellow is a very visible and energizing color that often symbolizes happiness. Because of its attention drawing qualities, yellow was the first color that I noticed when I opened the web page, and is used in the majority of heading information in one way or another. For example, the initial heading of the web page is “Sarah Butsch + Sean Collins Are Getting Married.” Though there is not any yellow incorporated into the initial heading, two yellow arrows draw the viewer’s eye towards the black text heading, with sub headings sitting along each arrow. Yellow is also used to highlight the second heading of the webpage in the “We’re Getting Married” section. There is also a small yellow heart between an animation of Sarah and Sean that draws the viewer’s eye towards the couple, confirming that the site is, indeed, all about Sarah and Sean. Yellow is also used as a background color, seemingly painted on the canvas as a watercolor (most of the paintings are hearts, with the occasional tree thrown in.
Black is also used throughout the website, mostly in text and in a heading that appears as the viewer scrolls down through the site. Black symbolizes strength and elegance (and seems to “go” well with the off white canvas background and bright yellow accents).
The final color used in Sarah and Sean’s website is an off white grayish beige color (I’m not sure how else to describe it). Because white symbolizes cleanliness, perfection, and purity, one could concur that off white symbolizes slight uncleanliness, imperfection, and impurity (just a guess). This could inadvertently be pointing to the fact that no couple is perfect. Every couple has their ups and downs, their imperfections and their uncleanly corners. But what truly matters is their happiness together (symbolized by the color yellow) and the strength that they find in each other (symbolized by the color black).
Another important element used in this one page site is texture. There are so many awesome textures happening on this one page. The first texture I noticed as the canvas like texture background of the page. This texture could symbolize a multitude of things, such as: the couple’s artistic nature or the idea of the couple’s relationship being a masterpiece that is still being “painted” (so to speak). Thought I do not know if these of these ideas are true, they are very relevant possibilities.
The second texture I noticed in this web page is the watercolor texture that seems to be “painted” on the canvas. Everything on the page has a very artsy, corky feel, including the use of watercolors. There are two main items depicted with the watercolors: hearts and trees. One small tree towards the middle, one large tree at the bottom, and a multitude of hearts in between. There is also a large blot of yellow watercolor texture used to group the photos and accommodations sections of the website, which does not really make any sense. The photos and accommodations sections do not seem to be related in any way, so I’m not sure why the designer chose to group them. Maybe they connect in the mind of the bride and groom or in the mind of the designer.. but in my mind, I definitely do not see the connection.
As a whole, the canvas texture unites the website while the watercolor texture breaks it up into various sections (except for the photos and accommodation sections). Both the use of color and texture work together to create different sections and headers that have unity.
As far as site content and navigation is concerned, the site is very easy to navigate and content was fairly easy to find. There is a header at the top of the page that remains at the top of the page as the viewer scrolls down the site, with categories that correspond to those seen on the site, including our story, the wedding, photos, accommodations, register, and RSVP. My favorite part about this site is the fact that friends and family who were invited to the wedding can RSVP on the website. How cool is that! What a unique and orderly way to get people to respond to a wedding information. The RSVP portion asks for the guest’s name, email, number of guests, names of guests, with a section for a private message to the bride and groom. All in all, I was able to navigate this site without much thought and now have an understanding of who the couple is.
This one page website’s use of color, texture, content, and navigation all work together to create a very aesthetically appealing site that gives the viewer an idea of the couple’s personality and tastes without overloading on information. As a whole, I would deem it very successful not only in style, but also in navigation.
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Monthly Review 2: Paige Neat
MONTHLY REVIEW 2:
I chose to observe the Carlos Sousa website for the second monthly review. The site uses both texture and color to emphasize its contents. The navigation on this website is crucial and creative. Multiple design elements make the site easy to scan, read, and understand.
The first screen on www.carlosousa.net portrays great usage of texture. Beneath the text and other contents is a subtle map. The streets and text of this map become a pattern since the map views the ground from a distance. This pattern provides texture for the website.
Another screen on this site features an autobiographical segment on Carlos Sousa. This page has a slight texture as the background. This texture consists of multiple shapes fit together. Though this pattern is not bold, it provides dimensional texture for this portion of the website.
Sousa’s site also utilizes color to achieve a successful design. A simplistic color palette was used. Black, white, and various shades of green were chosen to form a successful color palette for the entire website. This choice was successful for this site because it emphasizes the subject matter. It also brings each page together with unity.
Since Sousa’s website is a single page site, the user must have an efficient way to navigate between sections. The first screen does not explicitly say what to do to get to the next portion of the site, but the scroll bars are brightly colored to draw attention. I found that this was somewhat confusing at first, but the top to bottom scroll bar was effective at properly navigating to the next portion of the website.
Multiple design elements make the site easy to scan, read, and understand. The website exemplifies a grid design. The separate boxes on the site contain various information, and the grid is a useful way to organize this content. The site also shows unity through its simple color palette and similar shapes. Rhythm is also visible on this website in its textures. All of these elements come together to form a good design.
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biweekly review 2:one page overveiw everylastdrop.co.uk
Water is an invaluable resource and everylastdrop .co.uk illustrates how much we waste in litres albeit. The site is full of color and at first glance is lacking in color.
The pastel color seem to be through out and give some very detailed illustrations.
We follow a red headed brit through his day as we scroll. As we go panel from panel the background and our friend the brit fall flawlessly into place. It is quite magical to see it happen. We constantly see how much water is wasted on everyday activities such cooking food taking baths and showers. It gets it message across very well. I feel like I should be doing something about the problem.
However I do find some problems in the site. I feel the pastels water down the message. I fell like the site could have you darker colors and ccould have come across a lot stronger. I feel the colors are just to bright for such a serious message.
This is not the only thing that I fid wrong with. I find myself asking the question does detail replace texture. The answer for me is no. The detail does not look like you can feel it with your hand a key characteristic of texture. The site could be little more interactive and give more facts but other those little gripes I find myself satisfied by the site.
This is very interesting site. It important message gets across well through the text. The scrolling and transition between the pieces of information are practically seem but tend to be slow in some part leaving me to feel a bit awkward.
The colors are a little t o bright for the message and there is a lot of texture missing from the site, which is apparently replaced by fine detail.
In retrospect, the site does what it needs to even with the few flaws it has. The message is something that should be heeded and I feel like the what makes the site should reflect the message in spades. This site just does not do it.
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Bi- Weekly Review
For this Bi-Weekly Review I chose to do Jiouhe single page website. When I visited the website I knew it was a single page. At the top of the website where the header is there are buttons one is a logo that looks like a tree, then there is a service, team , project and contact button. The background is all white at first and then the name shows up in grey/ light pink color, then it says scroll down/key down in a yellow font. As you scroll down different colored circles appear slowly, each one has a different text with it. At first, its pretty much all over the place but when you leave the service part its takes you to the right to start introducing the team. Blue diamonds appear and as you scroll down the diamonds flip over so you can see pictures of the staff its starts out to the right and then slowly changes to the left. Once again it takes you to the right to show you their projects. The way they have the projects set up is on a timeline moving from the right. A light coral color box highlights the projects for every month. It scrolls to the right for their contact information in light pink. I really enjoyed looking at this website it is a very fun single page website. Every time you would scroll the buttons at the top would be highlighted with a pink box so you know what your looking at. The colors worked very well and they gave you a sense of direction.
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Eichenlaub Monthly Review # 2
I chose everylastdrop.co.uk for my web site . This site talks about how much water a person uses each day in the United Nations. I chose this site because I liked the graphics that were used to make it as well as the use of colors. This site took a lot of work to put together and took great skill to get it to transition the way it does.
Navigation of the site is preatty easy as the site helps to show witch way to move and how far you have to move. Having to scrolly down is also a big help as it helps to display the information and point that the site tries to get across. The site also makes great use of transitions of the pictures on the site and how they move from one topic to another. I also liked how the bottom of the site is organized and displays information about more info on the site as well as a quick link back to the top.
I noticed a theme to the color that is used for this site. I noticed that I used the same combination of color scheme throught the site. The site seams to use an analogous scheme as the colors seam ajacent to one another and you can tell the difference between the colors. The site also uses the use of colors that are close to comparison as when we see lighter shades of blue, green or even pink. This site seams to use this color style for the purpose of displaying texture and the design of shapes that are in the site. The similar colors in a way are prehaps used to show tints on glass, the shadow that is cast by the sun, or the outline for certain shapes. What I find most amazing about the color of the site is that the color seems to change to another color right before our eyes and with little jumps. It makes the transitions seem less real and less fake.
The texture and shapes that are used in this site are pretty standard, but are important to point out. I like how many objects share the same kind of shape but can still be told apart. I also like how it uses a combination of geometric and freeform shapes in unity and displays the picture. The depth and volume of the site is however maybe a little too flat. All of the images that we see on the site appear to be flat and we can’t seem to tell the difference with the space between objects. I do like the way that we see a man going through his daily routine. The rythm and flow he goes through is very straight forward and doesn’t skip a beat or get off track. Minimal texture use seems to work well for the site but I think that maybe just a little might be good at bring out more detail of things so we understand them more.
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Monthly Review 2 – http://everylastdrop.co.uk/
For my second monthly review, I chose the one-page interactive site http://everylastdrop.co.uk/. The first thing that drew me to the site was the graphics. They are cartoony, playful, colorful and easy to understand. The layout is simple where you can either scroll yourself or click on the arrow in the bottom-right hand of the page; I chose to scroll myself. I like that when you scroll, you can see the images slide into place and they reverse if you scroll upwards on the page. It is easy to understand and each “scene” has a different message relating to the concept of “Every Last Drop.” Little side notes pop up and give short facts about the concept and there is a short video at the end. The little blurbs of information are enough to keep the user interested, without being too lengthy that the user goes to another page. To add to the layout, the colors of the graphics are playful and not too distracting and keep you interested to keep scrolling to the bottom; and everything has its own place.
Texture is used often on “Every Last Drop.” There are lines making up all sorts of different patterns from shower curtains to the lines on the road. The graphics are colorful, aesthetically pleasing, and mainly consisting of basic shapes. The color palette is also very pleasing and basic, consisting mainly of pinks, blues, yellows, and purples. Blues are among the most popular color on the site, which adds an intelligent, calming feel to the web page. It also is associated with water, which adds to the site’s message about conserving water.
The overall message of this single-page-site is effective through the use of color, line, and content. The graphics illustrate a clear understanding of what the site is about and it communicates well with the user. The scroll is easy to use (and find for that matter) and it navigates smoothly to the end. Lines create a subtle, yet noticeable texture and the use of basic shapes I think add to the site’s list of benefits in regards to making it easy for the user to understand what is being illustrated. The content is also easy to follow and easy to scan until the user reaches the bottom of the page where the video will play. Overall, I enjoyed the “Every Last Drop” interactive site and would visit it again.
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Bi-monthly review 2 : single-page site
I chose to evaluate the Italian website for the movie Warm Bodies. (http://www.warmbodies.it/)
The site’s color scheme consists of mostly red background and elements, with black and white accents (primarily the text and some paint smears and painted-stencil style hearts), which also shows up in the photo elements. The clothes the characters are wearing stick with a red, grey, and dull brown scheme – the only major violations of that here are the male lead’s blue jeans (though they are dull enough to not be noticeably outside the scheme), the female lead’s blonde hair (also blends in well), and the daisies being presented in the photo at the end of the page. The primarily red scheme suits the movie excellently, as red elicits thoughts and feelings of both passion and love [Principles, ch.2], relevant as this is a romantic-comedy type of movie, and the adrenaline of a horror/action setting[Principles, ch.2], particularly the zombie outbreak setting of the movie. I also like how the yellow daisies stand out from the color scheme, as yellow is associated with both happiness and energy/activity [Principles, ch.2] – the happy/lively feeling this gives off is a great way to contrast the romantic-comedy story against the hoards of undead that surround it.
The background has a hard texture to define – it seems kind of paper-y in my opinion, with the folds you can see on it in some places. Then, there are a lot of paint effects in red and white – mostly some basic smears of paint with text and images set on them. I really enjoyed the painted-stencil style hearts with the pain drips as a fairly direct but still stylishly subtle, non-overpowering indication of the love theme. The movie title is large and centered at the top, which has a nice feel because the large image of the male lead is also centered right below it, so it flows down well. The other text and elements are placed on the page in relation to this central image of the lead and mostly alternate from being on one side of him to the other, with the exception of the Gallery, which is centered right over his legs. Again, this creates a good smooth flow. After using Google Translate on the non-title text (so, not Galleria, Il Cast, Il Film, or others that were clearly sections or content terms), I found that “l’amore prende vita” translates to “love comes to life” and “l’eternitá éun attimo” translates to “forever and a moment” – I love the use of these little phrases in the page, because they are so relevant to the zombie love story theme. The font choice also goes along with the painted-stencil theme. I appreciate that choice, because it has a good kind of grunge-y feeling that fits well with the zombie outbreak setting. Speaking of zombies, one particular lineup of zombies is used, each time with a red color effect, 5 times throughout the page – the header background, the full lineup pictured on the background behind the male lead’s legs, and the three backgrounds of the cast name cards in the bottom section. I really feel it would have been better to only use the image behind the lead’s legs, because the positioning kind of gives this manufactured perspective that makes it seem like maybe the lead has stepped out of line of the other, mindless zombies, emerged from the pack, and regained his mind and individuality (a primary plot in the movie), a perspective and implied meaning that is helped by the other zombies’ red coloration, causing them to blend in to the background, as opposed to the lead’s full coloration, which makes him stand out very much. I’m not really a fan of the image’s use in the header and name card backgrounds – it kind of feels like overdoing the use of one image, and I think the designers could have found alternatives that were at least as good if not better. Even just using more paint smears for the name cards would have worked fine. Below the lead’s feet, there is a thick red line which creates a new, distinct section of the page for the photo of the leads together, another heart, a repetition of “l’eternitá éun attimo,” and the cast name cards. I enjoy that they created a new section at the bottom that has a full scene feeling to it, showing the two leads together in a semi-romantic position for the first time on the page. The cast section could have been offset from the main image of the male lead, in my opinion, to kind of go along with all the other informational sections. But, even if they would have fit up there with the other content, that would cause the need to fill that side of the lower section with something else, because I definitely like the current positioning of the leads and the heart, and it would feel unbalanced with the other side totally blank.
I have a few comments from a single-page site standpoint. I like that there is a stationary (in that it stays with you as you scroll, on the top, side, and bottom of your browser window) header, sidebar of social media options, and footer. If a visitor doesn’t feel like scrolling through the page, the header has links to jump to each section of the page. I must say, other than the cursor change upon hovering, it is a little difficult to tell which text throughout the page is a link and which is just text, but that is also affected by the fact that the page is in Italian, in which I am not fluent. Also, the text elements – some of them, at least, move independently from th images as you scroll. So, if you watch the text when you scroll, you will see it move up or down in relation tot he image. I found it easiest to see this with the title and the text, “dai produttori di Twilight” moving in relation to the male lead’s head. It doesn’t necessarily bother me, but it is noticeable. I also noticed that if the browser window width is changed, most of the elements will shift over appropriately, but at a certain point in shrinking the window width, the far sides will be cut off and and can’t be revealed again through side-scrolling. It is a flaw that would probably not be noticed by many, but come to my attention while trying to fit the webpage and the Word document I’m typing in side-by-side on my screen. As mentioned before, I like the way they chose to lay out the page and the way it all flows nicely along with and around the central image.
The site has some technical flaws – small and barely noticeable – but ultimately I enjoy it for its design. The colors and textures (red, white, black, grunge-y paint), as well as the content choices (hearts, daisies, male lead seeming to step out of the zombie crowd) capture the themes and feel of the movie excellently, and the single-page design works beautifully.
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Jack Threads website review
Jack Threads is a clothing site for men who want to dress nicely for less. With tailored clothes and inexpensive shoes, Jack Threads is rarely visited without a purchase.
You are required to sign up, which is usually an issue for me, but they show examples of a what’s inside and it’s enough for me. They have the option to sign in with Facebook and that tends to make the process easier, but I chose to be less public went for the e-mail sign-in.
The tabs are straightforward. Clicked tab is highlighted light grey with the others in dark grey. Each tab page has content to scroll down. Each following option is dominated by Imagery and a small amount of info indicating a sale or designer. Lots of transparent boxes with easily readable texts that don’t take away from the images. They almost do too good of a job of enticing you, I’m scrolling down and I want to click on watches under $25 but right under it I see shoes for under $30 and I have to decide. Too many options works out in their favor because I would have ended up buying both. All I had to do was enter credit card info and shipping address and I was done, they already had my info when I signed in. I downloaded the app, which they advertise on the side of their page, and now I never have to log in and they continue to steal my money with addictive products.
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Shopping On Amazon
I recently visited the large commercial website Amazon.com. On this website, an individual can find almost any product they want. From books, electronics, movies, and CD’s, the website can safisfy hundreds of commercial consumer needs. In my opinion, the site is very useful for online shopping. Amazon is easy to navigate, narrow down your products, and eventually make the purchase.
Today I was shopping for rare, hard to find movies and DVDs. First, I typed in the search bar the title of the film I was in search of, titled The Man From Nowhere. Even without narrowing the search to “Movies” the first on the list was the DVD I was looking for. The website even goes as far as to recommend other products that may interest the buyer, further provoking the consumer demand.
Shopping online can be a fun and interesting process. A website such as Amazon contains hundreds of thousands of items consumers can buy. The site provides a detailed description of the contents and even has sophisticated package tracking systems. Since sites like Amazon have so many products, the creators thought of a sophisticated way to find the exact product, or model you are looking for by copying and pasting the barcode in the search engine. The search engine I found was easy to navigate, with many advanced search options that make it easier to find your product faster.
Creators of websites such as Amazon are even smart enough to write a program that recommends similar products to online consumers, increasing sales and time spent on the website. When adding the item to the cart, you are offered different options such as, add to wish list, or add to cart with free two day shipping, and other such offers that persuade a sale. Online shopping is becoming so sophisticated, yet so easy, that in years to come, strip malls will be a thing of the past.
Nick E.
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Monthly_Review
For my monthly review I have chosen to analyze newegg.com. The home page is very clean, sporting their logo in the upper left along with a search engine. To the left it has a categories table listing all the different categories of items that they sell. The eye catcher here is in the body of the page where newegg has done a wonderful job to catch people’s eyes. There is a slide show on top showing sponsored ads and deals they have, and below that they have their “Shell Shocker” deal, “Featured Daily Deal” and their “Eggxtra! Eggxtra” deal. They have a great use of specialized fonts and use of bolding to make certain words stand out amongst the pictures. The “Eggxtra! Eggxtra!” deal is a cleaver play on words that plays into their brand and I personally feel is easy enough to understand what they are trying to say, ‘extra’. Two helpful little tables they have below the categories table are the “Shopping Guides” and “Shopping Tools”. Working with computer and the components that make up a computer can be a daunting task, but newegg does a great job of helping out the consumer, which could help build trust. The search bar looks and works great. Navy blue with white search boxes, it has a categorical search and a keyword/model#/item# search. I decided to search for Intel’s new Ivy Bridge processors. When I started typing, I was pleased to see an auto fill feature which is nice because it’s quicker and seeing all of the other words and you type letter by letter may also lead you to other products that you did not even know about. Newegg could possibly have one of the better search queries in the business. I searched “ivy bridge” and my results show up with pictures, rating, brief technical description, any deals that go along with that product, the price, and a quick “add to cart button”. On top of those great features, to the left there is a “Narrow Results” table that can help you pin point the exact model. Since there are so many variations in computer parts, they’ve added a 5 item comparing tool, which I’ve used and is extremely useful. It helped me make an informed decision about components. I’ve chosen to add the i5-3570k to my cart and check out, the button to the right of the picture is clearly a clickable button and you can tell since they used shading to make it seem as if it’s a physical button. After hitting in, it directs me to a confirmation that I have added it to my car and also has a “May We Suggestion” section highlighting items that might go along with the product I just added and also products tailored to me based off of past searches. Directly above the picture of the item, they have navigational buttons to lead you either back to your search query or to your shopping cart to check out. The shopping cart is one of my favorite because it has a lot of functionality to it. With this one page, they cut out one if not two pages from the checkout process. In the shopping cart you can delete an item, add more of it, calculate shipping, actually select a delivery method, and they also have a table with the “Newegg Promise”. Overall, newegg makes a difficult and frustrating thing such as technology easy as possible. The web site is intuitive, clean, and visually stimulating.
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Monthly Review Number One – OneSaleADay
For my monthly review I chose to review a site that seems to have poor design and usability, 1saleaday.com. When you get to one sale a day’s website, you are bombarded with many different items from different categories that are all on sale. This gets confusing to the user because you’re not sure where to look or what to click on. This site makes you think. You spend a lot of time wondering if you actually want to continue with the purchase of the items on sale.
When I clicked the add to cart button, I was hit with even more things on sale that had nothing to do with my remote control helicopter. Sunglasses, watches, and jewelry all compete to be put in your cart as well. To the right of the item you selected, you have the typical login to purchase area which is seen in most carts. The shopping cart on 1saleaday.com could use some simplification. It’s overwhelming even to a seasoned internet veteran.
Although the site is overwhelming for me, they do make some effort towards usability. They have a banner at the top of the page that says free shipping, which lets the user know that the price they see is what they will end up paying. This allows the user to have faith in the company. There are also colored tabs at the top of the page with different categories that the user can choose from. As you click through them, the main category is the biggest object on the page, but they still really want you to buy those sunglasses.
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Jake Niehl reviews Aint it cool News.com
Hello all!
During my adventures on the inter-webs I have found only a few things that particularly bother me. In no specific order they are the amount of cats online (they’re lurking everywhere!) and bad site design. This leads me to one of the more obnoxious websites I visit on a daily basis, because I am a masochist. Aintitcoolnews.com is home to hundreds of movie geeks, like myself, who wish to find neutral, non-opinionated solid reporting. Instead we find ranting and raving based on what studio decided to help out the writers.
Enough about that though. Let’s talk about design!
AC, as I will now refer to it, is riddled many problems. First, I’m pretty sure a commandment is “thou shall not design a site with bright orange as your primary color.” AC has a palette of brown orange, white and pale pale blue that makes your eyes scream like a monkey in a barrel going down Niagara falls. It’s just not easy on the eyes.
Secondly, AC can’t seem to understand that a site of nothing but toolbars does not make an organized layout. AC often looks like the old testament in grocery list form. Good luck trying to find a new story/update. Usually they will have a bright red outline around an updated story but good luck finding it amiss the brown orange and other colors.
On top of everything else, there is a small animated gif at the top of the page on repeat forever. Forever ever? Forever ever ever? Yes, Virginia, forever. Add in the aforementioned colors that make slick web design (apple, NHL.com, any website with any other palate) cry big crocodile tears. It looks archaic. I understand that “technically” they are a blog, but with how many viewers AC has there is no reason for poor design as such.
And since I’m such a nice guy here’s three easy ways to fix your crappy, ugly website!
1. Pick colors that are appealing. If you really like orange, how about a nice auburn orange? Or maybe still with blue and silver. Silver screen? Huh? Get it? (It’s so clever!)
2. LESS TOOLBARS. Information should be easy to access and you need to lead us through your site. Think of it more as a 7 course meal as opposed to a gas stop buffet. One makes you want more and more, the other gives you irritable bowel syndrome.
3. Finally, if you really need a gif at the top, make it go maybe once or twice. Having a constant moving image while trying to read information is about a pleasant as gasoline to the eyes. It’s a never ending twitch that burns with the intensity of 1000 dying stars.
So, to recap. Redesign your site, AC, so that it doesn’t look like ass.
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1st Bi-Weekly Review – WWEShop.com
The e-commerce site I chose was www.wweshop.com. Upon the first visit, it seems a bit busy, but the navigation bar helps a lot. It clearly defines the possible categories of narrowing down your search, and the search bar itself is simple. Possible choices are searching by superstar, product type, package deals, new items and sale items. Hovering over either one brings up a drop down menu with more specific options. Once I narrowed down my search, I got a list of products that fit my criteria. I clicked on the product I was interested in, the size I wanted, and then “add to cart”. A drop down screen came from the cart icon at the top. It had a button to checkout right then and there, or I could just continue picking items. It is very easy to find what you’re looking for on the site, and it’s also easy to find stuff you wouldn’t have thought to look for. The buttons are clearly labeled, nothing makes me think too much. When I think about it, I feel like it would be incredibly difficult for me to design a site like this. It looks like a lot of work went into it, and it was very difficult to code, but is very user-friendly.
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Monthly Review 1 – Sephora
For my monthly review I chose to take a closer look at the Sephora website. The search bar was the first thing I saw when I got to the Sephora homepage, which was perfect since I was looking for a specific item from a specific brand. My problem was that I did not know the exact name of the product; I only knew some the qualities it had. I knew the brand name and I knew they were a set of two limited edition eye shadow palettes featuring Disney’s new prequel to The Wizard of Oz. When I started typing inside the field, the search bar tried to guess what I was searching for based on matching phrases to what I had typed and products they sell. What I was looking for didn’t pop up in the list, so I put the keyword ‘Disney’ at the end of Urban Decay (which is the brand name). The two eye shadow palettes I was looking for were on my screen in a matter of seconds; nothing else popped up along with them. Before I clicked on the palettes to add them to my cart, I got curious as to how accurate the search actually was on Sephora. So this time I simply entered ‘Disney’ into the search bar; I got nine items that matched my keyword. Although nine items total on the site contained the word ‘Disney’, only two also contained the phrase ‘Urban Decay’, and the site knew that. I do a lot of shopping online and there is nothing more frustrating than when I search for an item or product specifically by brand name and a keyword and other brands pop up in my search. I love that Sephora’s website has advanced filters that show your search results and not a thing more. From here I clicked back in my browser to see my original search results again, I was only interested in one of the two palettes, The Theodora Palette, so I clicked it and was taken to the product information page. As I was looking at the picture of the palette, I saw a lipstick and an eyeliner along with it, which I did not previously know of. My first thought was that I needed to double check; I was happy to find that right below the product picture was little text filled section titled “This set contains”, and it did indeed come with those additional products mentioned. Although I had a minor question about the product, the site already had my answer right in front of me; I did not have to think about where I would have to go to find my answer or read a huge block of text, by simply skimming the product information page I found what I needed instantly. Adding the product to my cart was easy; the ‘add to basket’ action button was an eye catching bright red, opposite off the rest of the site, which is strictly black and white. When clicked the button, a pull down menu hovered from the global navigation for a few seconds showing me that my palette was indeed added to my cart. It also gave me the option to head straight into my cart and checkout. I chose to ignore this menu until it disappeared and continued shopping around on the site. This time I went to the other main search option, a drop down menu that listed all the brands Sephora carries in alphabetical order. I wanted to see what other products Urban Decay sold, and the menu made it simple to find the right place to look. After clicking on Urban Decay from the drop down menu I could choose to filter by face, skin, eyes, etc.; from each of those filters came more specific filters that narrowed down the product choices even further. I would say that overall the site is setup to allow shoppers to easily find exactly what they are looking for. I had no problem figuring out what was clickable and what was not on any of the pages. The site is simple and straight to the point; I don’t feel like content on the pages are overwhelming and competing for my attention, it is very well balanced.
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Monthly Review 1 – Zappos
Upon opening Zappos.com, I immediately noticed the search bar. Front and center on the page, the product search bar was easy to find and simple enough to use. The search button was the first to catch my attention, for it was a bright orange. The only other button on that page was the “My Cart” button. My eyes were drawn to both of these areas, and a connection was made. It was clear where I was meant to search for the product of my choice, and where it would live after I added it to my cart. After these assessments, I entered my search criteria – “Ugg boots” – and hit search.
My search results showed up instantaneously, but the first page of options were mostly children’s shoes. This; however, barely slowed me down, for I knew just where to refine my search (probably because of my online shopping problem). For a user who has never been in this situation before – a likely scenario, believe it or not – will have a little more trouble with this minor hiccup. Nevertheless, the user will find the options on the left of the page to narrow their choices and click on “women.”
Once the products page was updated, I scrolled down the list a bit and found the style of Ugg Boot I was looking for. I was taken to the specific product page, where the price was displayed in a large and appealing font, along with options to choose a different color and then choose your size. Right underneath these options was the “Add to Cart” button. It was easy to find, obviously, but I noticed that it was not the same orange color as the cart button at the top of the page. Maybe the site designers wanted it separate? I don’t understand why that would be. That is perhaps the only question I asked myself during my shopping experience. Maybe I noticed this because I am a designer, or maybe it’s something the average user questions. In my opinion, why leave that to chance?
Overall, I found that Zappos.com is an effective and easy-to-use site. I searched for the product I wanted, refined that search, customized the product’s color and size, and added it to my cart in less than two minutes. It would be difficult for me to explain how to make it easier to use. Like I mentioned before; maybe it was easy for me because this is something I do a lot, or maybe it really is that easy.
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W1 Monthly Review.
I chose The Clymb for my monthly review. The Clymb is mainly an outdoor store that has timed sales of popular brand companies for skiing, hiking, surfing, kayaking, biking, skateboarding and more. The popular brand companies change daily. The Clymb is a very user friendly website.
The color scheme of the website is black and white. It has images of the popular brand companies that show what they have on sale at that time. They have all the different categories at the top in white, bold font, along with an all sales button that drops down and you can pick what gender it is for and the level of experience. The layout is very simple.
When you are searching for a product you want you click on the image that the brand you want is on and it will connect you to all of that brand sales that they are having. For example, I clicked on the heart of winter, snowshoes, skis & more image. It will connect you to their sales and there are two drop down boxes that appear one is for view by category and the other one is view by size. For the category I put women’s ski’s. Then it came up will all the women ski’s they have on sale. I decided to go for the Kastle MX 98 twin tip skis. When you put your cursor over the skis and box pops up that says add to cart in bright blue. It shows you what you have in your cart and a picture of what you are about to order. They have ship unlimited items for just $7.98 in italic and it shows you how much money you have saved in a large font. Then you proceed to the checkout now button.
After shopping on this website I like the layout of the clymb than a lot of other websites that I visit. The color scheme is easy on the eye and the layout makes it easy to search what you are looking for. Overall, the clymb is a very user friendly website.
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Bi-Weekly Review 1- Champs Sports
For my monthly review I chose the web store owned by Champs Sports. Upon first glance of the website, I noticed a pretty busy layout, but needless to say it wasn’t hard at all to navigate through the website to find what I wanted. I would normally use this website to look for shoes, but Champs doesn’t just sell shoes, so they’ve sectioned out every brand with it’s own logo and clickable link so that the user may click on it and go to all the merchandise that, that specific company is selling through Champs Sports. For me, this made things MUCH easier because now I can just shoot straight for the “Air Jordan Logo” for example, and find the pair of Jordan shoes I want. After clicking the “Air Jordan” link, I am greeted with a nice simple way to further narrow my search results by, Jordan Shoes, Jordan Clothing, Jordan Accessories, Jordan Sale, and a Top Sellers list. So I click on Jordan Shoes, and can further narrow my results by clicking what type of shoe I am looking for, whether it be Casual, Basketball, Training, New Arrivals, and a Sale link. Considering I want a newer pair of Jordan Shoes, I Click on “New Arrivals” and can now choose between Men’s shoes, Woman’s shoes, and Kid’s shoes. I can THEN filter my results with choosing a “product style” if I wanted to, for a certain sport like baseball for Jordan cleats i.e., by size available online, by price, and by color. Again I can really get in depth with how far I wish to narrow my results. Personally, when using Champs’ website I usually know what I am looking for and can type in the shoe I want and find it instantly if it is available. But for people who don’t know what they might want, the search and filter results that Champs provides is outstanding in my opinion. It provides a lot of help with people who may be “picky” or need something a certain color or whatever it may be; Champs’ website makes it VERY easy for anyone to filter what they may want and in that case I feel that Champs’ website is very easy to use and is easy to find a product, and easily put it into your shopping cart with no trouble or confusion what so ever.
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Monthly Review 1: Barnes & Noble
After the assigned reading of Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think,” I reviewed a large eCommerce site and used his thoughts as a reference. I chose to examine barnesandnoble.com. On first entering the site, I noticed the design was clean and simple. The color palette was limited, which helps prevent the viewers from being distracted or overwhelmed. However, I do think their site was verging on being too simple and could be uninteresting to customers. From there I began to analyze the usability of the site. I searched for products by acting as two different customers, one who knew what they wanted and one who did not.
As the first, I found it very simple to use the search bar. The thinking was done for me because I only had to type a few letters before my product appeared. According to Krug, this is an important factor. I then placed that item in my shopping bag without much difficulty. My only issue was that once I hit the continue shopping button, it took me back to the main page. I find it tiresome to have to restart my search, especially if there were several items I needed in that area.
I then began my search as customer who did not know exactly what she wanted. I noticed that the product categories were not alphabetized or in any kind of order. This problem continued as I went farther into the site and was frowned upon by Krug. I believe this issue made my search more time consuming because I had to read through all the tabs. My first instinct was to look for a place that will recommend products to me. Instead of one area, I found many, including: B&N Top 100, NY Times Bestsellers, Trending Books, Best Books of the Month, Recommended, Best of 2012, Award Winners, Bestsellers by Subject, and Barnes & Noble Classics. Except for a few, small differences, these buttons seemed like nine ways to show the same items. After wasting a lot of time, I was able to find a product that I wanted.
I found the Barnes & Noble website to be decent place to search for products, but still could use some improvement. From the assigned reading, I remember Krug mentioned that customers should be able to tell right away whether or not a button is clickable. I did notice that while using the site, I would have to run my mouse over areas to see if it would light up or not. To make their site easier to use, they should make the buttons more obvious, decrease their amount of tabs and place the tabs in some kind of order. Overall, this review helped me to better understand how important it is for a website to have easy accessibility.
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Monthly Review Topic 1 – Ticketmaster
For my monthly review, I selected Ticketmaster, a popular website for purchasing tickets to sports games, concerts, and other events. Ticketmaster was helpful as soon as I logged on to the site, detecting that I was in the Greater Pittsburgh area. This automatically narrowed down the number of options I would have to go through drastically. It also had a list of popular items for my area, which led me right to the item I was looking for: Tickets to Pittsburgh Penguins games. After clicking on the sidebar option, I was taken to the options for games, helpfully laid out in calendar format with home games differentiated from away games. I selected a home game for the date I wanted and I was taken to a layout of the CONSOL Energy Center, marked of with sections and color-coded to indicate ticket availability. Highlighting a section gave a price range for the section. I picked a section and the layout zoomed in to that section. I was then able to pick my individual seat. The checkout button was nearby.
Overall, I found the Ticketmaster site to be incredibly helpful in making ticket choices. I was able to quickly make my choices, and the whole website was organized to make finding the tickets for what where and when that much easier.
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Monthly Review Topic 1 – Payless.com
For my review of an eCommerce website I decided to look at the Payless.com website. Working there I look at the posters they use in the stores and judge the layout and design from the perspective of a graphic designer, and I thought why not do the same with their website. Only in this instance I’d be looking at it from the perspective of whether or not they have a user friendly website that doesn’t make me think.
I have gone on the website often enough to see the new shoes that come out and come up with a sales pitch to tell customers, but after going back on and buying shoes myself I found myself thinking more than I really wanted to in just a few instances.
When you first open the site the first thing you notice is that they are having their BOGO sale, they have a few slides after that that show deals for women’s, mens’, and kids shoes. If you scroll down there are links to designers, athletic shoes, and wide with shoes. Seeing one of the slides had women’s flats on them I decided to go look at the flats and just clicked on the slide, which brought me to all the flats that they have and began to look for shoes that I like. Above every shoe picture there was a little tag that said if the item was on sale, the tag was red, included in BOGO, the tag was an orange color, or if it was an “every day value” shoe, a green tag. Trying to keep to the point of view as just a user I realized not everyone would know what “every day value” meant; I’d assume that because there was no BOGO tag that these were excluded from the deal but not be entirely sure. If I wanted to narrow down my search for shoes I can choose the size, price, width, brand, and color by easily selecting from the categories on the left of the page. Deciding that since it is still cold out I wanted to go look at boots. Quickly glancing at the side where all the categories were there was no clear way to choose a different style of shoe beside clicking on the link “women” at the top and going from there. I chose that and it took me to a page similar to the homepage but it had the categories underneath a slide show of deals and I chose the Boots category. I chose a riding boot just to see what the ordering looked like; it had a large picture of the item and underneath you could choose to see it in a different color and angle. On the right side of the page it had the brand name, name of the boot (I had chosen the Zoey Riding Boot) a rating of it, the sale and clearance tag with the old price in gray and new price in red. The numbered steps for you, choosing the color first, then size, they even had a chart to view, next you chose the quality and then “add to bag” button in blue with white lettering that stood out on the entirely white background. I added this to my cart and since it was BOGO clicked back to look for more. This is when I realized next to the category you were in there was an arrow button that if clicked, a menu of the women shoe categories would pop up and was easier to navigate by. After adding another pair to the cart I was ready to checkout and clicked on my cart in the top right corner and it brought me to my cart where it showed me the prices with BOGO applied and just had to choose shipping and put in my credit card.
Overall, there isn’t much color on payless.com, which I can see that it makes the shoes stand out, and for the most part it followed Steve Krug’s advice to not make me think with just a few small things in the way.
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eBay
For the monthly review, I chose to review eBay. Yes, it is not quite like Amazon but it has the same concept; search for what you want, bid/buy, and receive eBay has grown to be very user friendly from when I first remember coming across it. The way that there are categories right on the main page is an enormous plus on eBay’s part because if you came to the site to just look for something there are many categories and sub-categories within those main categories to find something specific EASILY. The way bread crumbing works on the site also is a plus because you can easily find your way back to categories that you were previously at.
The search bar itself is such a helpful tool. The way you start to type something in and suggestions pop up to help assist you in what you’re searching for is very user friendly. It even shows what categories the items are in. That can also lead to items that can interest you even if you weren’t looking for then. Also not to mention on the main page you have a bunch of additional things that add to the brilliance of the website like daily deals and browse history and suggestions which makes it much easier on a customer to find something they previously were looking to purchase or look at.
When looking to purchase an item, everything is once again, very user friendly. Once you find the item page you would like to buy or bid on there is a large blue button to catch your attention from the rest of the page. It is not overwhelmingly large, it is just right. Once you would like to buy something it takes you to the payment process which takes you step by step to make it easy as possible. I love eBay, there is not much difficulty to it at all and anybody can go on it and figure it out if they have never been on it before.
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Monthly Review: Eastbay.com
I don’t really shop online too much except for some obscure items I may need. Really I’ve only ever bought anything from Amazon.com. I don’t want to review Amazon.com. So I decided, I could use a new pair of shoes. Why don’t I hit up an old grade school standby Eastbay.com? Since I was a kid “Eastbay” catalogues were always at school. A new issue would come out and that’s all kids wanted to read about, the new shoes and exclusives that would be available.
I’ve been using computers probably since I could talk. So immediately upon the page loading, I see no real issues. That being said, I’ve become numb to the incredible amount of ‘wrongs’ a web designer can bring to a site. So I have to take in the site objectively.
Now, upon loading the page (In a new perspective) the site is not much to look at. A bunch of information is crammed in at the top, a 1-800 number, a help button along with my account and recently viewed tabs. Interestingly enough there is a live chat option available too. Directly underneath these tabs are more tabs. And under those tabs are…you guessed it, more tabs. But at least these tabs have cool sub-menus. The third sets of menu tabs (white text on grey) are actually very helpful towards the navigation of the site. From here the user will be able to navigate to the brand they want, the sport they want or the type of clothing they want. There’s a sliding menu/banner with featured items that the user can click also slightly helpful. Overall the main page looks like a hamburger with the meat lettuce tomato and condiments surrounding the buns. Up top are a cluster of buttons and a flashing sliding menu. In the middle are various picture links to best selling apparel or just localized items. At the bottom are another smorgasbord of buttons and links to click, all in small black type that I don’t even care to read. I’m looking for shoes, why are you making me read things?
The search bar is at the top of the page. I’m looking for “Jordan Retro 9’s.” One of the many styles of Jordan brand shoes, if I were looking to buy a pair I’d buy this type. A quick entry and search leads to a simple layout of results, a mix of clothes and shoes. On the left is an extremely helpful menu; the user can filter their search with an abundance of options, from sport, color, price, gender, age, product type and rating (from other site users). This is probably the smartest feature of Eastbay.com. After filtering my search results I came to find that they currently don’t even offer the shoes I’m looking for besides for infants and toddlers.
I don’t really want to say Eastbay has a bad website. They have sufficient information available, but the means in which it is presented are a little confusing. The layout is far from interesting. And on top of that they don’t even have the product I wanted.
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Monthly Review: ThinkGeek.com
For my first monthly review I decided to look at ThinkGeek.com. When I first visited the site, I thought that everything was fairly easy to find and to navigate through. I personally appreciated the visuals the site provided since most of the eCommerce sites are usually pretty dull and boring to look at. For me personally, that makes a site more difficult to navigate through because I get bored with it. Everything has a place on ThinkGeek.com. The name of the site is easy to see in the upper left-hand corner, the “hot items” are in the middle of the page where it scrolls through so the viewer can see them easily, the “shop-by-depatment” links run down the left hand side of the webpage and the search bar is located at the top. Because most other sites are set up like this it was easy to look through the site’s items and to search.
The navigation was also fairly simple. The accumulation of the links you click on show up in a bar above your current search which shows where you have been on the site (Home > Interests > Big Bang Theory >). I think this is a great feature for any site because if I want to go back a step or two it will tell me exactly where I was and direct me to the page I want to go. I had to think very little when using the site. I didn’t have to wonder if something was clickable or un-clickable; I could find where to look for things either in the search bar or among the categories along the left side; it wasn’t too busy that I wasn’t sure what I was looking at; I was able to move things to my cart easily; and there wasn’t a lot of text which made it easy to read and more engaging.
When adding items to my shopping cart it was very self explanatory. Some sites have you go though so many hoops just to complete an order. ThinkGeek.com was straightforward: once you add an item to your cart it takes you to the “purchase” screen where you can either enter your shipping address and credit card number, or you can continue shopping. If you continue to shop, the shopping cart remains in the upper right-hand corner and it tells you how many items that are in your cart and what your current bill is. It’s easy to get caught up in online shopping so I personally like this feature so I don’t go too overboard.
When looking at and navigating the site, it makes me realize how much work goes into making such a functional site. Just creating a home page, with plain text only was time consuming, and it makes you realize how much work and time goes into popular websites like ThinkGeek.com. If a website is not user-friendly or too confusing to look at, users will usually refer to another site that is better organized and can easily help them find what they want.
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Monthly Review: American Eagle Outfitters (ae.com)
For my e-commerence site review, I chose to do AE.COM which is American Eagle Outfitters website because one I love to shop there and two there headquarters are downtown in the Southside. Upon visiting the website the first thing I noticed was the color scheme and visual aspects of the website. There website uses whites mostly, but there are hints of yellow and navy blue throughout it too. At the top of the website there are 3 tabs that can take you to each of their stores one for american eagle, aerie and the aeo factory. To the right of that is sign in if you have an account, ae rewards, my favorites, and my bag which holds the items you put in it. Below that is the american eagle logo and below that are tabs for Men, Women, Footwear, College+Pro and Clearance. The rest of the site has photos where there are links to there new arrivals in mens and women’s clothes, footwear and so on.
Placing items in your bag is easy on ae.com. So i added a pair of jeans to my bag and after you hit add to bag and it adds the item to your bag you go to the box that pops up at the bottom of your screen and shows you all the items, lets you remove them easily, enter codes/discounts. It tells you the exact price you will pay including shipping and tax and has a tab to go to checkout. To close this tab all you have to do is hit the down arrow in the corner and it disappears to the bottom and you can continue shopping and click on it whenever you want to checkout or edit something in your bag.
I think american eagle does a great job in designing their website so things are easy to find and navigate. One thing I love about their website is that the checkout process isn’t a hassle but very easy to do and because of that I have ordered a lot more of their website instead of always going to the store and hoping they will have what I want. I like that the website isn’t overbearing in their color scheme it is pleasing to the eye and simple, which helps in making it easier to use. So overall I say that american eagle’s website is easy to use and makes it easy for me to buy and get what I want.
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Monthy Review: Musicians Friend
Musicians Friend is a website I use when I need new equipment for my guitars, or when I need accessories for miscellaneous things. It is fairly easy to use, and I am always able to locate the items that I need. On the home screen I knew exactly where to go, as there is a link for guitars right at the top. I could then narrow my search when scrolling over the “guitar” link. There are sub categories where you can choose electric, acoustic, and other things to narrow what you are looking for.
When I clicked on guitars, it gave me a list of 20 guitars to choose from, and options to view more. Another easy feature is the links on the left side that help you narrow your search down to a specific guitar/item.
The search bar on the site is also very easy to use. All you have to do is type in exactly what you want, and it gives you a page of all the things your search matches. From there all you have to do is find the item you want, then click on it. After that, there is a very obvious button beside the picture of the item that says “ADD TO CART”. I found there wasn’t much thinking involved besides choosing the item that want.
Musicians Friend is a very easy site to navigate, and a good place to get music equipment fast and without much thinking.
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Monthly Review : Amazon.com
I choose to review Amazon.com, a website I have bought so much from without ever realizing how easy it was to do. For me, the first thing I see when you get to the site is the large search bar, waiting for me to type anything in it. Recently, I have bought a microphone, and without knowing much about them I just typed microphone into the search bar and it gave me hundreds of results. Even before I got the results, the predictive text feature already gave me several new search ideas. Anyways, on the results page, I think that everything is displayed neatly and very well organized. Everything has a picture, title, and a description, which makes the site very user friendly and easy to navigate. A lot of the text doesn’t look like it can be clicked, but just from using it I know that it is. For example, many people don’t look at the rating that items get, or even the sellers profile, they just look at the description and base their decision on that. When customers finally do make their choice, its pretty clear what to do. Click the big “Add to Cart” button the designer is tempting you to click. Overall, I think this site does a good job to attract and keep customers due to the clean, usable, professional feel of everything they have to offer.
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Monthly Review: Amazon
When i first visited Amazon it was very visually appealing and easy to make the viewer see things they might be looking for. The search bar is really easy to use and you do not need to use and keywords to find a item like in the example of the book. The search bar makes it easy to narrow down you search options by using the down tool menu. The color of amazon was nice and was not to flashy, and everything on the homepage was legible and easy to read. I like how i put in a few words like Role playing in the Video game section search and it brought up many games that are considered role playing and taking out any games that were not. I love how they have on the side menu other consoles that also may have role playing games if you can not find it in the section your in. Also the number of role playing games are beside each console so you know how many you will be seeing when you click on that link.
When i put in a ISBN number for my Adobe illustrator book it did an amazing job taking me to the book and i didn’t have any trouble finding the book. Also Amazon does a great job insuring to tell you what the best sell prices are for the items, or what people are selling the book for a good price. I like how Amazon makes the website easy to use and the keywords are not hard to use as long as you might know what category the item will be in, but i still believe this website has little frustration on people.
Overall the sight is one of those sights that does not take much to learn about. About anyone could use this sight and not blame the website of themselves for not being easy to use. There were no times when i used this site that it took me more then a millisecond to think. Everything on the site was accessible and so easy and Convenient to use. I will always use a site that takes minimal thinking over any website that makes me stress over it!!
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Monthly Review 1: Amazon.com
Being a Media Arts student requires you to have different editing softwares of your choice. My choice has always been Vegas Movie Studio. Recently I decided to upgrade my software and decided to buy it through Amazon to see if it was cheaper. To start off, any of these sites are fairly easy to use. It has a common search bar and if you want to find a certain product in a certain category, it has that function too. All of these websites have the main search bar with a category option to expand the search.
Amazon made it real easy for me as well, and required not much thought process. As long as you know what you are looking for, the site is easy enough to use. As far as buying the product, Amazon gives you a step by step process of entering in your shipping info, selecting a credit card to use, and making the final purchase. It even has a confirmation step to confirm what you are ordering is correct.
After making the purchase Amazon sends you an email to the email address you have entered in, allowing you to review your purchase once more and cancel any orders you may have not wanted.
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Amazon Review
The prominent eCommerce that I chose for the first review was Amazon.com. Once I was on this website, I searched for a particular book. Locating the exact version of my product was simple when I selected the appropriate search specification options. I then placed the chosen product in my online shopping cart. As a customer, the process of choosing and placing and object in my virtual cart was thoughtless. The site was organized, with each product cross referenced into multiple search categories. This made searching for this particular literary work a quick and stress free task. Placing this product in my online shopping cart was even easier with just the click of one button. After witnessing the complexity of designing even a basic webpage I cannot even imagine the meticulous and intricate work that must go into making this process simple for customers. The simplicity of Amazon.com for its customers reflects the hard work that must be required by the website designer.
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Monthly Review #1: ThinkGeek
For my review, I chose to go on ThinkGeek, a website for the inner geek. I personally love the site. Has some great stuff at some awesome prices. I can never get enough of looking around that place. There is always something I want to impulse buy from there because everything is so cool that they sell.
Anyway, onwards with the review itself. When it comes to the overall appearance of the website, ThinkGeek has really outdone themselves.The colors are more on the dark and duller side, but their logo and the main interface that lists the items is lighter and brighter. There is some good contrast going on. It makes for some great appeal as well to attract consumers to come and shop. The font is easy to read and appears to be Arial. Even the small text is easy to read with the Arial font being used.
ThinkGeek itself is a pretty organized website overall. I decided I wanted to search for some Portal 2 merchandise, a hoodie or tee to be exact, because I am a huge Portal fan. At first, I thought it was a little difficult because you can shop by interest, but it doesn’t list every interest, and Portal was one that was not listed. In order to find it, it took extra thought to find the category closest to it. When I looked at the buttons and menus on the left hand side of the site, I kind of had a little bit of a thought overload because there are so many different little side menus and buttons and none seemed to be what I was looking for. Their buttons could be more simplified to make finding items easier.
As the book explains, buttons need to be more defined and simplified, otherwise it takes away from what we, the consumers, are trying to get accomplished and makes for some complex thought. This was what was starting to happen with me, so to avoid this, I went to the search bar and typed in Portal 2, pressed the Enter button, and away we go. The search bar itself is very good. It even pops up with a mini menu with items related to what you are searching for before you even press the Enter button using keywords you type in the box. I think that is very nifty. Also, when clicking one of the items listed in the mini search menu, it will take you directly to the page for that item. That is wonderful I must say. Takes little extra thought for me to search and click through pages of items to find exactly what I am looking for.
After finding a Portal 2 hoodie that has a turret on it, I clicked the ‘buy now’ and off to my shopping cart it went. Overall, the site makes it generally easy to find the item. However, if you do not know exactly what you are looking for, it can be a bit difficult to find the general range of items that you might be interested in. One might know he or she is looking for a t-shirt, but finding the t-shirt from the right category within apparel can be quite tedious and difficult in some cases. It can take some playing around to find where you need to go, but once you find it, you are good to go. The mini menu using keywords on the search bar is wonderful and an excellent pro to finding just what I want on the site. However, the buttons and sidebar menu can made it difficult if you do not know what category you want exactly because the item you are looking for may or may not be where you think it is.
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