ARTM2210 Intro to Web Design
Just another Intro to… siteArchive for Student Work
Globalissues.org and Me
The website related to my issue that I visited was globalissues.org at http://www.globalissues.org/issue/67/nuclear-weapons. Its color scheme was mainly white and a very dark gray with some light blue highlights and some red text. The title bar at the top of the page has a linear gradient that takes it from the light blue of the title to the white that dominates the article. Sections of text have red titles, which may be intended to warn of the seriousness of the topic.
Depth is shown any time the author quotes a source, as the quote is placed in a box that casts a slight shadow on the white background. It also turns up in the buttons at the top of the page, which feature text with a slight drop shadow. Hovering over the button will darken it so that it looks as if it has been pushed in.
Almost all of the relevant information can be found in one column so it’s pretty much impossible for the user to get lost. Links to all of the page’s sub-sections are provided at the top so you can jump right to what you want to read. Three of the article’s section’s apparently got too big and were given their own pages, so there is a break in the middle of the article that’s basically half a page of nothing. This edit probably could have been handled better.
As far as navigation is concerned my website will be largely similar except the column will scroll horizontally to make it into a timeline. My website design will be simple but I will try to make it more relevant to the subject material by using colors that suggest a nuclear wasteland environment. It is my hope that the animation first seen when you enter the page will help this website stand out.
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McDonald’s vs. Sheetz
The two burger chain web sites I chose to compare were McDonald’s and Sheetz: McDonald’s because it seems to be the quintessential American fast food brand and Sheetz just because I like it.
The McDonald’s website felt kind of like a handcrafted scrapbook, with some of the lettering scribbled messily, colored circles that looked like they had been cut out imperfectly, and a background that reminded me of paper. The site is navigated by a bar on the left of the screen that expands when you scroll over it. They keep their logo in the same spot (upper left) on every page, which helps create unity. They have a page dedicated to their ‘values’ such as improving animal welfare standards and practices and making green restaurants, which helps me to understand what they’re about. Their promotion page for Spicy Chicken McBites is interactive and engaging.
They really seem to keep unnecessary words off of their page, which makes it easy to use. One thing that threw me off though was that the bottom half of the search bar has letters that are gray, making the buttons seem unusable at first. I can’t figure out why they would do this.
Sheetz’ home page only uses about a third of its space, with a giant red border around the text box that grabs your attention. Once you click on your first subtopic, however, you are taken to a very different page, with either dollar bill, asphalt street, Sheetz logo, red striped or brick wall repeating backgrounds. This design seems disparate thanks to the constantly changing background. There doesn’t seem to be a color scheme, or at least not one that’s present on enough of the pages to make them feel like part of a whole.
It also seems harder to use since the information categories are distributed across two directions, with topics going horizontally across the top and subtopics going vertically down the left side. McD’s navigation was much easier because it kept everything together. Overall McDonald’s has the better website because it was simpler and more visually consistent.
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Bi-Weekly Review 3
For my bi-weekly review, I found the 2012 Presidential Candidates website, http://2012.presidential-candidates.org/.
While looking through the website, the navigation seemed easy at first with everything on the side bar or top. It lists the parties and views for the candidates. They listed everyone who is a declared candidate for the presidential election which does give the viewer an idea about who is running.
The color of the website is very dull. The only thing that stands out on the site is the name of the site at the top which is blue and on the side bar, the Profiles and Issues headings. The background is gray and really has no texture at all to make the viewers stay on the page.
The site has a lot of information to give the reader, but it is so compacted with different candidates and links, the reader can get lost in the site and not find what they are looking for. My final project takes the top candidates from the Republicans and Democrats parties along with the Independent candidate and compares them side by side for the reader to get quick information about the candidates. The reader will be able to see the candidates’ views on tops like health care, abortion, and social security quickly to help them decide on who to vote for in the election in November. My final project gets the information out there without looking through pages and pages of websites and having the reader getting lost.
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What does Facebook know about your behavior?
Facebook KNOWS ALL!!!! I’ve always been told once you tell Facebook.. it’s stamped for life, so make sure your comment or status is appropriate so that it does not come back to haunt you later on.
Facebook knows if your married, have kids, where you work, your friends, your birthday, and depending on what you blog from… it may even know your current location. Facebook also knows the products you prefer as well as what type of music you listen to. If you think about it, especially with Facebook being public, you should limit the amount of information you share. Not just among friends and family but with Facebook alone. Even though you’ve made your page private, others still have access to your information. I’ve heard of cases where the police use Facebook to catch criminals and I’ve even seen instances where people have lost their jobs because of post to Facebook.
Not only does Facebook know ALL of your business… but if you attempt to delete your page… first, the option to delete is not easy to find… but most importantly, your page is not deleted… Its just deactivated which says to me… WHOEVER can still access your information!!
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Burger King and Wendy’s
I chose these two websites because they are two of the biggest burger chains in the world. These websites exeplify balance, unity, emphasis, and layout. The layouts on both websites are very well thought out and took lots of planning. One thing that both websites put front and center is the food. They advertise the new specialty food and make the viewer want to try it. Such as on the Burger King site they have a huge vibrant picture of their new sweet potato fries, They also show their new fozen lemonades and their summer line of BBQ sandwiches. Wendy’s also has huge vibrant pictures but it isn’t to show off their seasonal line of food. They show off their berry almond chicekn salad. But they also show how they are committed to fresh beef for the burgers. They are both set up the same way with their navigation bars at the top to get the viewer to the menu and beyond. The user doesn’t have to think about how to find anything because it is all laid out at the top in big letters to help them get around. The theme is also very unifying as it looks the same no matter where you go on the website and has a consisten look to it. They are balanced well as it looks like it is laid out with thought. The wendy’s site has more balance however as no part of the page has more dominating it than the others. These websites are all thought out well and clearly took a lot of time and effort to make them so easy to the viewer. The viewer does not have to think or even try to look to find what they need to. It is all right there for them to see and very user friendly.
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Burger King vs. Wendy’s
The two burger chains i chose were Burger King and Wendy’s. The visual hierarchy between the two are relatively the same, there are some differences though. Burger King’s homepage puts a noticeable emphasis on their products by having the pictures the largest thing on the page. The first thing they want customers to see if the food. Wendy’s is very simular in that concept except they have more obvious clickable’s and instead of having a single picture like burger King, Wendy’s have that, but with a fixed background behind everything. Both pages are split into halves but personally the wendy’s site attracts my attention more because of the use of different colors and added headers, its more visually exciting. Burger King’s is again very simular, but with a less variety of colors and headers.
Wendy’s has more headers and under those, there is smaller writing for the details about that product, where it came from, how it is made, etc. Burger Kings has the same, but little or no details about the product. Both are set up with links across the top, but Wendy’s site you can scroll down to see what else is there while Burger King’s site is just one page with no scroll.
Overall, both these sites are very simular, but it’s the smalls things that make a difference between a more visually exciting webpage.
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Burger-Weekly Review
The two burger chain websites I have chosen to review are White Castle and Sonic. Comparing the visual hierarchy, Sonic has a very strong emphasis on photos that customers upload to the site. They make the photo the entire background of the home page with the tag line “This is how you Sonic.” Sonic’s site has very little noise to not conflict the photo, leaving all navigation relatively small and fixed to the top and bottom of the page. The site does feel pretty balanced with a slight weight to the right side of the page. The only improvement that I would make is to the clickable tabs. There is no real indication that certain things are clickable or separate tabs without prior knowledge of a typical website layout.
White Castle’s site is separated into thirds. The emphasis is focused in the bottom third of the home page, promoting new products. I feel this was a good design, to see the new products square at eye level one must scroll and expose more of the site. White Castle also allows customers to upload photos to the site, consuming the middle third. There is more noise to the White Castle side, but necessary and organized. There are several obvious clickables with headlines like Learn More and Submit.
Overall I feel that Sonic has a more interesting site with high customer engagement. Also when opening the site your faced with a promotional pop-up for summer smoothies at Sonic. This promotion has what I thought was an endless scroll of anything from interesting facts about summer, to flavor combinations, and other entertaining phrases.
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Bi-Weekly Review 2
For my bi-weekly review, I compared Burger King and Sonic’s web sites.
First comparison of the web sites has me picking Burger King over Sonic. Burger King has a colorful and more attraction to their website than Sonic’s. The food that is offered is shown in the middle of the page plus you can see the layout and links to navigate the site a lot better than Sonic’s. Sonic’s layout is harder to see because they have a picture in the middle of page that makes the links small and hard to see to navigate. Sonic also does not show the viewer what they offer.
Navigating Sonic’s site does have a few features Burger King’s site does not. Sonic has a trivia page while Burger King only has company information and locations. Sonic also offers viewers to join a Sonic Fan Club plus sign up for a MySonic card to attract more people to their locations.Sonic has merchandise available for customers to buy also.
Sonic and Burger King both have a menu and what is new on their sites, but what makes Sonic stand out is that they have a nutrients link so viewers can look before they go out.
Overall, Burger King has the easier layout at first glance but Sonic has the more information and user friendly site for viewers.
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Wendy’s versus THE KING!
The two burger chains I used were Wendy’s and Burger King. While both sites have unity, emphasis, and similar layouts, if I had to choose which site I think is better at first glance, I would go with Wendy’s.
In comparison the sites both open with similar layouts. They both have slide shows of featured items with the company’s logos in the upper left hand corners. Even though the layouts are similar, Wendy’s layout fits the screen and Burger Kings layout is only half of the screen. While the half of page does not take away from its usability, it’s very boring and un-inviting. The menu bars across the tops are similar except, Burger Kings’ bar actually looks like buttons where as Wendy’s only uses the hover technique. A new web user may never find these buttons because they do not appear to be buttons.
Wendy’s site is very balanced with not only the use of images but with the use of color. Burger King’s site is not balanced and the colors are very dull, which screams “FUNERAL HOME” not “BURGERS!!!… Come eat here!”
When you click on the menu options of both sites they both use drop down boxes. Wendy’s drop down options are more direct where as Burger King’s basically gives you the entire menu in small print, forcing its visitors to read. When you select menu on the Wendy’s site, it gives you image thumbnails of pictures for you to choose from. You can also choose from the list of items or choose by clicking a picture, which is a very nice feature as you can just about click anywhere.
Overall, Burger Kings site requires your reading glasses which is something that folks tend to stare away from while using the Internet, Wendy’s makes it pretty simple for you. In example, under careers on the Wendy’s site, you pick your area of interest; you are then re-directed to find a store near you that is hiring by simply entering your zip code. On the Burger King site, there are a bunch of boxes to read before you go on to the next step.
Lastly, Wendy’s prides itself in their responsibility to their customers. There is so much emphasis on it that they included it in their menu bar at the top of the page more then once. That says to me that you are going to receive a good quality hamburger when you frequent their establishment. The Burger King site touches briefly about their commitment to premium ingredients but they do not make it a big deal like Wendy’s.
In conclusion, after reading Klug’s, five important “things” to make sure users see and understand, I am certain that Wendy’s is the better site. Wendy’s has: the more prominent things at the top of the page, each subtopic listed under its topic is related, there is great hierarchy, they use conventions and they avoid the use of needless words. Although the background is a little noisy, it is inviting as they use images of their quality ingredients. Wendy’s has the better site hands down!
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TicketWeb.com
When purchasing concert tickets off of TicketWeb.com the process can be summed up in 5 clicks of the mouse. In my case I knew the venue and the date of the show I want to see through a separate website, Mr.Smalls.com. When choosing to purchase tickets online, TicketWeb first list the events and in this case I chose Sleigh Bells on July 18. This click takes you to the main page for the even and list the general admission price, amount of tickets, and the delivery type. Delivery types listed are UPS 2day, General Mail, and Will Call. In my case I chose the general mail option and was given the option to add to cart or check out directly. After clicking check out a small survey appears as to how one found out about the show and if you would like to receive more information about future events. Next is the billing information page. If you are a member to the site your information is filled in automatically, otherwise punch in the numbers and billing address and click preview order. The final page overviews the order, highlighting the number of tickets to be purchased and cost including service fees. The final click is to confirm order. After reading and going through the process, I understand the variables and complicated options that goes into making the process simple and easy. The search bar makes it easy to navigate exactly where you want to go and likes to Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace allow one to share the information to others.
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CCS.com
The process for purchasing a skateboard can take a little time, depending if you build your own board or not. Personally, I like to build my own board because I can choose whatever i want to be on the board. In order to do so, you have to first look for a deck you like. Then every other step after this can be done in any order. Overall, you got to scroll through and find at least five different parts in order to build a complete skateboard. This can take time, especially if you dont know which parts you would want right away. After you’ve chosen all the parts necessary, it is now time to go through the checkout process. To checkout, click the shopping cart, where you placed each item you needed. Once you are in the shopping cart, click checkout and the following screen will show five steps in order to complete the order.
When you order products online, the store needs to know where to send it, so at the checkout screen it will first ask for the mailing address followed by billing address and shipping methods. After those three steps are complete, it is now finally time to pay. Since it is an online order, you have to use a credit or vista card to purchase anything. Type in the card number followed by the expiration date and security code then continue. Finally, the last page is a confirmation page, click submit, and you just paid for a product online. To be safe, i usually print out the recept and have it e-mailed to myself incase of any problems with delivery. Depending on which method you choose, your product will be sent to your residence in a certain amount of time, usually within 7-14 days.
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Nick G Review 1
I went to barnesandnoble.com to look up the book Star Wars: Darth Plagueis. There was a search bar right at the top of the screen so I saw it immediately. ‘Darth Plagueis’ came up as a search suggestion by the time I had typed in ‘Darth’, so I clicked it. There were two results: the book and the audiobook. Positioning my mouse over the book’s cover revealed a ‘Buy Now’ button which I clicked and was asked to fill in my information so it could be shipped to me.
I was only three pages in by the time I had found the book I was looking for and had it in my shopping cart. At no point was I forced to think about the process at all, really. The search bar was where I expected it to be and there was plenty of white space so that all that stood out to me was the search results. I recognized each page as part of the same site and the main page used proximity successfully to separate books into different categories such as bestsellers, staff picks and Father’s Day gift ideas. Overall I thought it was a well-made site.
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Amazon.com
The process to find and purchase an item are within 5 clicks on amazon.com. If one knows what they are looking for all they have to do it type the item in the search bar. it should then be as simple as scrolling through the first page and finding what the item is. Then the item is clicked on and it takes oneself to the product page where there are reviews and specifications. Then in the upper right hand corner there is an add to cart button. If one is already a member with their information saved it is then two clicks away. Once in the cart all that has to be done is to click checkout and it then goes to a payment information page. If the payment information is saved and has not changed all that is needed is to click order and the process completes. A lot of work had to go into making such a simple process. It can allow someone to buy a product in a minute or two if they know what they are looking for. After that it sends a confirmation email. This process is very easy and is probably a reason as to why amazon is so successful. To offer such a streamlined process is what makes customers keep coming back.
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Bi-Weekly Review 1 Amazon Critique
Jenifer Moore
Amazon.com
Based on “Don’t Make Me Think”, Amazon.com is a user-friendly website for making purchases. The page is made up with three column navigation: the left column is your shop by department area, the middle column, which includes your search bar and Amazon’s top selling items and the right column, which includes the upcoming holiday and ideas. The bottom portion of my page contains rows of my recent browsing history, which helps out because I may have done a search earlier in the day, found what I wanted and closed out to purchase at a later time.
Moving forward, the product I choose to purchase on Amazon was my required text for this class. It was easy to find because as soon as the site loads, the search bar is at the top of the page, very easy to find and it did not require specifics as I just typed in the title of our text and a drop down list appeared to assist in searching for everything that had that title or name attached.
Once your selection appears in the user-friendly drop down box and you are re-directed to your selection, you can almost click on anything up to and including the book cover to select your item. The far right column shows your shopping cart so that there are no surprises at checkout. Although your buttons within the shopping cart column do not illuminate as you pass them, they sit up as if they are buttons making it easy to find.
After selecting your item and adding it to your cart, the next page displays your shopping cart and in BIG GREEN letters at the very top… you are advised: what items are in your cart, what the cost of your items are, what your gifting options are, whether or not you qualify for free shipping, and your editing options
The most satisfying feature to me is that the next page either gives you an option to sign-in, sign-up, or the ability to continue without a password. At times, if I am forced to set-up an account I am discouraged and I almost never complete my order. The button on this page is also a nice feature as it advises that you are signing in using their secure server for your credit information. I am already a frequent flyer so my account comes up with all of my shipping and billing information.
The next page is a bit redundant but it verifies your shipping options, your shopping cart and once again it gives you gifting options. The next to the last page takes your credit information. Another nice feature is that the site retains your payment information as well as your gift card balances and your payment is as simple as a click. The last page gives you one last chance to view your order making certain all is in place and the last click is placing your order. After your order is placed, one last nice feature is that you are automatically sent an email that confirms your order and any tracking information.
Overall, Amazon.com is very user-friendly and there is not much thinking to it at all.
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Bi-Weekly Review 1
Barnes and Noble has an easy site to navigate and purchase items. While I was going through the site for a CD to buy, the search engine at the top of the page made the CD I wanted to show up fast and easy. Clicking on the item lead me to another page where it talked about the CD’s price, information and reviews another customers had wrote about it. The page also has a button to press to purchase the CD. The button lead me to a page where I can enter my billing address in along with buttons to go back and continue shopping or to continue to pay. The continue to pay button leads me to a page to enter the payment method along with shipping. To continue the next button leads us to the billing and payment page to make sure everything is correct, once I checked everything I hit the button to put the order through where the last page confirmed my order and had a link to send where I can print it out for my records. The site was really easy to use and user friendly.
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Final review
I spent a good 6 hours myself coding our final project. Not all of those hours were successful however. It took me a lot of time to figure out the code for various things such as the rollovers. I attempted to use some jquery but it did not work. As a group i would say we spent at least 7 hours just working on ideas both outside of class and in class. I struggled trying to code our website and it shows. I feel that the website did not meet what we wanted it to be. What we had planned looked good and would have been quite a nice website. But we did not realize how limited we were by using our logo as our background. We also tried to do things that none of us had any idea of how to do. If we could do it again i think we would need to ditch some of the fancier ideas and stick to something more within our abilities.
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Restaurant/Club
The smiling moose. Their website is laid out well. It is easy to find the information you are looking for. Their navigation bar at the top states everything clearly and is easy to find. The composition is well done. They have their contact info at the top right and is easily noticed when navigating. The navigation is easy and very understandable. Since it is a restaurant and an entertainment venue it is very similar to what we want to do. I liked the cycling images and the text and graphics look great. I love the composure of the website and think it is a good website to take some tips from to improve ours. Since it is essentially the same thing we want to make with our business this website speaks the most to me.
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Final Bi Weekly
Hours Spent
Research:2 hours
Design:4 hours
Coding:30 minutes…(then gave up)
We spent about 2 hours as a group coming up with the idea of a club/restaurant. In which we decided items such as the menu, color scheme, name, and other elements of the site and establishment. I researched some different bar to get a feel for what kind of environment they had and to see how they were designed. This was beneficial when I was designing the Logo and buttons for the website going off of the color scheme we had originally chosen. With the design it featured many different elements for just the logo. Including use of the colors and the font chosen, to change it to accommodate the theme. Dreaweaver hates me except for during the finals.
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Influences in our Final Project
When creating a final project, there were many sites used as influences in the decision on how to approach the final. Almost all fashion websites have a plain white background because they want the focus on the clothing rather than a busy background.
One of the major influences used was Nastygal.com. On the final project, the homepage had a slideshow and this was influenced by Nastygal.com Nastygal.com had nothing more than a slideshow on the hompage to display, what kind of outfits the company had. The hompage is the most important page to draw the viewers in and taking the time to make sure that the colors and everything was just right. Nastygal.com was the guidances for the homepage. A different jquery code was used, but the influences from the site where there.
In trying to find a place for a logo, it was a hard a decision. Continuing to visit fashion websites forever21.com came about. Their logo was simple and put on the upper left hand of the websites. This worked very well for the site and again the focus was on the clothing. Everyone reads left to right so being able to see the simple logo first does not take away from it. Logos are important because it helps viewers be able to recognize the site and when deciding on how to place the logo it took many consideration but following what forever21.com did was the final decision.
In creating the graphic of a girl on the white background denim.gasjeans.com was a factor. In seeing a model have the same background as the website it pops out and feels like the model is in the website. denim.gasjeans.com is an amazing site with beautiful jquery, but they were used as a reflection of what could make a model pop on the page and make it seem life like.
For the blog page, the influence was just the way a blog is displayed. Simply with someone one writing and than a picture to display what the writing was about. Pages such as tumblr.com and blogster.com have many fashion writers within the blog sites.
In creating this final project searching the internet high and low was a start but after seeing other types of fashion websites, taking a different spin on them was the challenge. Making a website always has influences but not making them your own is the challenge. This project really helped learn coding well, and it was a great learning experience!
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Review 5
Bi-weekly Review 5
PulpFingers,com is a company that designs iPhone, iPad, and iPod apps. Navigation through this site is extremely simple, as the primary nav bar is located directly at the top of the page horizontally under the logo. Being a one page site, the user has to manually scroll up the page to get back to the nav bar once they’ve hit the bottom. Being that the page isn’t too long, this is a minor inconvenience. The slight texture makes the page interesting despite it’s limited color scheme. I did notice that any header is a off white color, making navigation even easier. The tiny bit of jquery used to animate links here and there make Pulpfingers an overall appealing site.
cargocollective.com is designer ALen Pavlovic’s personal site. The primary nav bar flows vertically under his logo, and remains on the page no matter where the user navigates. Also, the images to the right of the primary nav serve as a secondary navigation method using graphics from each project. This made diving in and rooting through his work easier as I knew what i was going to expect from him as an artist from the get go.
pelicandesign.ru/ is Vitaly Iiyasov’s personal website. Navigation once again flows horizontally across the top of the page, and remains in place on each new page. The site is clear cut and visually interesting, as the first place the viewer is taken to when typing in the address is the portfolio page. Navigation back to the previous page requires hitting backspace or clicking the back nav arrow, which I found a little inconvenient. Also, there was no way to navigate to the next larger image when a smaller one is clicked, which disrupted the viewing experience.
morethan20.com is the awesome site of photographers alyssa and rich. Navigation runs across the topmost border of the page, which scrolls down to the section specified. The fact that it’s a Peter Pan reference caught my attention as soon as I saw the name, and the paper like texture and color scheme worked perfectly with the idea of their company being casual, fun, and whimsical. I’m pretty sure i’ll keep this site in mind when it comes time to make my own photo site.
duggard.com is a vintage store run by James Graves, Casey Spitnale and Mackenzie Barker. Navigation is as simple as can be as there are only 4 links to click, and they remain horizontal above the content of the store, about us, and checkout pages. Simpleness of the site makes it very user friendly, which is what most look for in an online store. There’s nothing extremely flashy about it, and they do a great job of bringing the vintage inspiration that fuels their products into their site.
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Bi-Weekly Review 7
For Our final group project we chose to do a fusion restaurant that included a beer and ice cream based menu. When comparing our website to other beer and ice cream sites, i think we did well at accomplishing our goal of simplicity in the style and design of our website. Im going to review my two favorite beer and ice cream sites.
Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream– The first thing you notice when you enter their site is there use of animation and vibrant colors. They use a horizontal navigation bar that stays at the top of the screen on every page you enter. The navigation bar also incorporates some very interesting roll overs. The website is also very children friendly. There are a lot of pictures that would entice kids to look around more. Overall the website is very affective, as it is very user friendly and is easily navigated.
Blue Moon Brewing Company– Blue moon has one of the most interesting and visual friendly website. The whole site is flash based (Im Pretty Sure). We the user first opens the site they are required to put in their date of birth to verify they are 21. After that, the website loads like a book, and the navigation bar is vertical along the side of the book, as if they were tabs. When someone clicks on a tab, it will turn the exact number of pages to get to the tab you click. The website is very well thought out. The only downside is the tabs are somewhat hard to read, but the looks over weight that downside. Overall it is one of the best beer sites “I” have ever seen.
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Klavon’s Ice Cream vs. Bittersweet
Klavon’s Ice Cream is a local Pittsburgh ice cream store located in the Strip District. The Klavon’s website is has a three page format that contains all of the information as well as images on the first page, and menus on the second and third. The homepage’s background is a tiled, monochromatic (brown) version of their logo that is also placed in the top left corner in black and white. The top of the homepage contains contact information as well as an address for the store. Underneath the heading information are two brightly colored rectangles (red and yellow) to catch viewers’ attention, one being change of store hours, the other being a button for a menu that leads to another page. The next section of information has brown text (slightly darker than the background) and a gif of moving candy next to the text. Then there is a slue of different sized images placed in the center of the homepage, with more gifs and brightly colored buttons underneath. The small red button on the right side is a second menu with ice cream flavors. The bottom of the page has black text explaining the history of the store as well as regular store hours. It is difficult to navigate Klavon’s page, because the menus are not easily accessible. Instead of being placed in an easy place to find, they are thrown sporadically around the homepage. The information is not placed well for viewers to easily find, because it is sectioned off randomly and lacks organization.
The Bittersweet homepage sections off each page with a button and an image. The entire page is on the center of the screen and placed on a simple white background to help show each image. Clicking on either an image or button will allow users to go to the section of information selected. It is easy to navigate to different sections because the buttons on the bottom are placed in the same area on each page. Also, the logo button on the top takes viewers to the homepage. The information is sectioned off into smaller categories so it is easier to read. Each section uses the same typeface and color against a simple white background for clear legibility. However, there is no visual hierarchy to show importance of the text for each page. Each page has all of the information placed in the same area for consistency.
The layout of the Bittersweet homepage is easier to navigate than Klavon’s. The information is sectioned off on each individual page along with the homepage for Bittersweet. Klavon’s website seems as if it is a single page layout at first, but then viewers have to dig around to find there are two separate menu pages located within the homepage. The Klavon website spreads the information throughout the page without showing users where to find particular things someone visiting a local ice cream store’s website would hope to find, such as flavors, history, store hours, etc. However, the initial store information placed on the top has bigger text than the rest of the page, so if the viewer is having too much trouble navigating the page and becomes frustrated, they can call the store. In comparison, information on the Bittersweet page is easier to find than on the Klavon’s website.
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Sports site 2 us open
Sports site review 2
I found the US open tennis site through a search, it was rated one of the best sports sites for 2010. After looking at it and using it i can see why it is good. There is a good amount of information however it is all clearly layout and organized. There is a lot of information but it seem to fit well in a nice clean style that is clean, there is also nice good use of photos in the background and main page. News is quick and easy to find through the moving gallery on the main page.
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Sports site post 1
Sport site review 1 Pittsburgh Penguins
This site is well run and has a lot of feathers for the user to us such as flash video of game highlights and locker room media. One thing i do not like about the Pittsburgh Penguins site is that it seem busy and has a lot of information to go through. Also the ads are all of the place, it takes away from its potential clean look. It should be noted that all NHL sites seem to follow a set of guidelines for basic design features. Although from that the sites can be further customized.
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Bi-Weekly Review 7
http://www.nineonninepgh.com/index.html
Nine on Nine is a European-style restaurant located on Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The website is very modern and sleek. Simple whites and grays are used, with an orange added in to certain links as well as the logo through the site. It is overall very simplistic, yet stylish and complex at the same time. The horizontal navigation at the top contains links to “home”, “about us”, “menus”, “event planning”, “news and events”, and “reservations”. The contact information is on the bottom right corner of the container. There are images on each page, in the center and to the right that are uniform throughout. The high tech aspect and cleanliness of the website give the visitor the idea that the restaurant is very cutting edge and fancy.
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Final Review: Jam Base
JamBase is a music base website that has features including artists, shows, articles, photos, festivals etc. This website has valuable resources for users looking for information about the music event. One of the first things a viewer may notice is that the advertisements and show-finders pick up their location and display the concerts closet to them. For example, the website says Pittsburgh Pa currently. This is an easy way to capture the audiences attention because they see something relating to them.
The navigational of the site is set up with a navigation bar across the top. These options include artsist, shows, articles, photos, contests, forums, and festivals. Once the visitors click on a new link, there is no breadcrumbing to show you how to get back. The home page is disorganized because there is too much information crowding the site. There are boxes including show finder, newswire, contests, and advertisement over-filling the page. The layout would benefit from more space in between the entire site.
The overall design on the site feels dated. The color scheme is a monotone gray with small accents of blue and orange. The accents are not noticeable enough bring up the overall grey tone of the page. The page is reminiscent of an old Microsoft Window color scheme. Some boxes are rounded while others are not. The website does not feel modern enough.
Specifically looking at the festival page the color scheme changes to a green. This does not match the color scheme on the home page. There is a feature festival section that includes jquery of the picture that visitors can click on. The rest of the festivals are listed in list that continues multiple pages. Visitors are given the option the search for a festival which would make it easier.
Overall jambase.com is a valid website when looking for music information about live concerts.. The website looks to be design by a web designer with out any graphic knowledge. The layout, color scheme, and overall unity need to be improved.
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Daouda’s Final Bi-weekly review
For our final project, my group and I are working on a website for the RMU basketball team. Thus, I decided to analyze a college basketball team for my final review. Having spent more than 8 years in the DMV area (DC Maryland Virginia) I decided to pick the Maryland “Terps” basketball team. The website color scheme is mainly black, red, yellow and white, referring to the university colors. The background is an extreme close up of the flag on basketball arena the floor. The main navigational tools are on top, they have drop down menus, at the bottom of those there are more navigational tools. The homepage is really crowded with information and ad. The homepage is really crowded with information and ad, it make it hard to navigates, it I would be more efficient if there were less noise on the homepage
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Nakama
http://eatatnakama.com/pittsburgh/
Nakama is a japanese steakhouse and sushi restaurant. It offers some of the best hibachi around Pittsburgh, and is the first choice for most Pittsburghers who love hibachi. The home page has a large picture of the restaurant, and a menu on the left with the primary navigation. The background has a grainy wood texture. On the top left is navigation for the restaurant locations, as well as social networking links. The company’s logo is watermarked over the image of the restaurant. The “Menu” page offers external links to each of their menus. The site is very user-friendly, while keeping a sleek look throughout and giving the impression that it is indeed a high class restaurant. Most asian cuisine restaurants are sometimes hard to read because they get lost in translation, but this is not the case with Nakama since it is American owned.
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P.F. Chang’s
P.F. Chang’s is a popular and affordable chain of Chinese Restaurants. The P.F. Chang’s website attempts to evoke a feeling of the far east with a use of rich texture and color that makes the viewer feel wealthy and warm.
An immediate flaw noticeable on the website is an abrupt ending to the bottom of the page, at least when viewed on Google Chrome. There is a bar at the bottom of the page with a red fabric texture that is very interesting but it stops and the rest of the page is simply filled with a burgundy color. This is an easy oversite but a company as large and well funded as this should be able to afford to ensure such small flaws do not interfere.
The website otherwise is quite elegant. The colors are rich and warm and the use of burgundy and tan give the impression of Chinese design qualities. The navigation on the website is simple and straight forward but doesn’t really lead the viewer to any particular areas of the site but instead lets the visitor wander around. It would be useful to have a situation in which there is at least a little bit of bread crumbing that gets the viewer to the intended material.
Overall the P.F. Chang’s website is elegant and has a strong Chinese feeling but it is plagued by a few small, but annoying bugs. The bottom of the page issue and the lack of any bread crumbing makes the viewer feel a little lost and like one is viewing a less then professional website.
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The Sewickley Hotel-Brock Switzer
The Sewickley Hotel is a tavern style restaurant in Sewickley, PA. The restaurant features a variety of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner from many different nationalities. Much of this website links a user to pages outside of the website itself. For example, the “directions” link takes a visitor directly to google maps with the address of the restaurant typed in. Another example is the menus which take the user to a PDF file with the menus that can be saved and/or printed. This feature is both convenient and at the same time distracting and makes navigating quite difficult. When visitors to the site are forced to leave it with several links and then press back to get into the site again it is easy to get distracted and lose interest in the content on the main site. A simple fix would be to have the menu actually present on the site but provide patrons the option to go to a printable PDF version at their leisure. The map could follow a similar solution in which the “directions” link on the page takes a visitor to an actual page on the site with information as to the restaurants location but also has a link on the page that the user can click on to bring up the adress in google maps.
Another problem this website faces is that the content and links are very small and do not expand to fit the size of any window. The size makes it somewhat difficult to read and makes it feel less complete and professional. Simply repeating the background and expanding the content area slightly would make the site feel more open and free as well as give off a sense of completion and professionalism.
One very positive aspect of this webpage is the color pallet. It feels very rich and deep with reds and oranges. The homepage text mentions the “warm and cozy” atmosphere that the restaurant offers and the color pallet helps add to that sense of warmth and friendly environments.
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