Final Monthly Review

May 8, 2014 at 4:02 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

For this review I have chosen to compare my groups website, Ethel’s Laceups, to the website we got our inspiration from, Walk Over. Walk Over’s website for antique shoes is a very clean and well set up website. Everything is to the point on where the buyer would want to go and how easy it is to navigate through the website. Very similar to my group’s website, the home page is set up the same with a slideshow of shoes, a textured background, and drop down menus for easier navigation. The color usage of Walk Over is very precise to the products they are trying to promote on their website. The whites, light browns, grays, and blacks really give the website a vintage feel to it. They also stay consistent with their color choice through out the whole website which make it look more clean to a buyer’s eye. The colors also compliment the shoes that Walk Over is selling. Walk Over’s website does use a bit of texture through out their website. They use wood panelling which is really apparent in their homepage, as it is the background for their slideshow, and then very subtly through out their website behind a faded white background. In comparison to my group’s website, we chose a similar layout and stayed consistent with our colors throughout our website. We also used a drop down menu for easier navigation for the customers we were trying to sell to. We did use a texture  for our background, which I thought complimented our website and also really helped catch the eye of the specific target market we were trying to build the website for. I believe our website will stand out because of how well the navigation is set up and also how the website is designed for our target market. We set up the website so that we would be able to catch the eye of women around our age, which is 18-25, and I think we were able to do that pretty well.

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monthly review 4

May 1, 2014 at 6:36 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

For this review I chose walkover.com. I have heard of this website previous due to my cousin who is a vintage clothing designer in LA but then I came across this website when I was looking for vintage shoes inspiration for our Soley Shoes website. Walkover was started in 1758 by the Keith family shoe makers. The main thing that I liked about this website is the fact that they pride themselves on being made in the United States even to this day. However, they didn’t start making women’s vintage shoes until the 1990’s. The website has a color palette that is definitely vintage, simple and clean. The colors they used were white, black, a rust orange and a tan. The color palette never takes away from the shoes themselves. When you hover over a shoe there is an orange box that shows up that says the name, price and view details where you can click to view more and view the shoe bigger. The shoe photographs themselves are on white background and are on their side and gives emphasis of the shoe. That was the idea we had for our shoes was to have a white background. Through the website there is a type of wood paneling texture as the background. I think wood makes it feel more vin gate because it gives it a old feel and appearance. The site was easy to navigate though and can easy find things quickly. There was a drop down navigation bar at the top as well as a footer with links. Overall, the site was well composed, classy and detail-oriented. After looking at this site think we could add some things to make it look more classy. I think our site displays vintage more.

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Monthly Review 4

May 1, 2014 at 6:31 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

When working with this final project we chose a website called Walk Over. We had a lot of inspiration with this site. We chose to do a slider like the site. We also tried to take the photos like they did. The color schemes were similar; we chose colors that looked older and flowed together. The shoes pictures were a success. Our site was very easy to get through everything had something linked to everything. The site was very professional looking and we wanted our site to look like that.  The colors of the site were consistent with every page and they looked like an actual site. The only thing that should have been changed was the slider to make it more consistent with the rest of the site. This final project was very interesting.

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Monthly Review 4: Us vs. Them

May 1, 2014 at 6:08 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

For this final monthly review we were to choose a website that relates to our final project, and compare how much better it is than our project turned out. Our project, dubbed Kicks for Cause, is a charity foundation that takes gently used shoes and sells them at a reasonable rate. All of the proceeds go to a different charity that is rotated through each month. If we had more time, we would probably implement a fun contest sort of thing where, if you donate a certain amount of shoes, then KfC would give out rewards for cooperation.

The site I will be comparing to is toms.com, a well known charity organization.

Now, at first glance, I notice that the layout for our project actually turned out very similar to how toms is laid out. We unfortunately did not have enough time to do as much as toms, but with what we had we were on a pretty good track to an ok website. Both sites showed a very simple color palette, and navigation was also quite easy to use. Both sites also contained mostly images,with only bare minimum text to explain what is offered.

Time was against us for this project, but I feel like we could eventually have a website as visually pleasing and usable if we kept working on the KfC site.

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Final Monthly Review – Frye Company Vs. San Fran Kicks

May 1, 2014 at 5:43 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

For my final monthly review, I decided to focus on the Frye Company site to evaluate and compare to my group’s site, San Fran Kicks. One thing that stands out of Frye’s site and is something we chose to adapt to our site is the use of subtle colors and textures coupled with large images that can speak for themselves. Frye does this with full screen width images of models wearing the products in eloquently designed settings. Text is then super imposed over these images to highlight products and special offers. As you drill down into sub pages, however, the Frye site reverts back to more traditional grid based layouts.

Color wise, the Frye site is very subdued aside from the images. The sites text and header is composed entirely from black and shades of brown that combine to give it an earthy, rustic tone that generally matches it’s products. San Fran Kicks, on the other hand, uses mainly black and white with an orange for accent the more modern, active type of shoe we are selling.

The navigation on Frye is one area I think could use some work. I feel it tries to do too much without properly separating areas. Customer options, information about the company, and product navigation are all stacked on top of each other in horizontal nav bars that don’t follow any specific grid from one to the next. That being said, it does provide links to a ton of content in a relatively small amount of screen space. San Fran Kicks, on the other hand, does slightly less but more clearly with its navigation. It features only two horizontal nav bars, one for customer info and the about page, and one for product categories. The product one is, as it should be, much more prominent and draws the users’ eyes. The other nav bar is kept to a corner where it can be seen by any user seeking it but doesn’t interfere with the balance of the layout in any way.

One area where I think the two sites are rather similar is texture, especially when it comes to shape. Both sites use hard lines with only occasional shadowing to make sharp squares and rectangles to form there layouts. This does different things to different styles. For instance, in Frye, this layout design perpetuates the bold, rustic, almost regal design of the site, especially combined with the subtle rough grainy background texture. The San Fran Kicks however, these hard shapes emphasize the clean, sharp design used.

Overall I think Frye has a stronger aesthetic. The design never seems unsure of itself as San Fran Kicks does at times. On the other hand, San Fran Kicks does a better job of guiding the user around the site. The cleaner design and more simplistic navigation means the user is never lost when they just want to look at shoes.

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Fuss: Final Monthly Review

May 1, 2014 at 4:19 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

For my final review, I will be comparing the website www.nike.com, the official Nike website, with my groups final website project, JNS Shoes With a Story. I will first discuss the Nike website’s use of color, texture, and overall navigation.  Nike’s use of color, actually ties in a bit to their navigation.  The sites color in general, is a light grey and white, with a lot of white space around the area that showcases the shoes. This use of white space gives a very clean feeling. On the sidebar, there is a section for the user to select the color of shoes they would like, which navigates them to a page containing shoes only on that general color, which I found to be an interesting use of navigation. Other than the texture of the shoes themselves, the site does not have much use of texture.  The lack of texture adds to the clean feeling of the site as a whole.  Some of the imagery used in the site, does differ from this lack of color and texture, with well shot high definition photos that are vibrant both in color and texture.  I found the navigation of the site to be of a very high quality, and extremely user friendly. The top navigation bar is easy to use, though I had a problem with the drop down menu staying dropped down no matter what. Other than that small problem, the navigation was very smooth and usable. When being guided through the content, I felt as though I knew exactly where I was going and what I needed to do to get to the next step and purchase the pair of shoes I was looking for. I only ever felt a slight bit of confusion when I would first go to the “men’s” “women’s” or any other category page because they were first covered in pictures, though I quickly found my way to the shoes.  Once finding the shoe I wanted, using the cart was very easy.

The Nike site has a somewhat similar feel to the Nike site, as both go for the clean and usable feel.  I believe our site would stand out from the main Nike site due to our use of color. The large pictures that we used on our homepage were also very similar to the Nike site itself.  Our site definitely lacks in functionality in comparison to the Nike site, but if we were to make this site into a real business, I believe that we would be able to use Nike’s site as a guideline to make our site very functional and successful while still using the quality and clean feel we were looking for.

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Monthly Review 4-Zachery Calloway

May 1, 2014 at 3:22 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

While doing our website I was constantly looking at DSW.com,  The website was clean and fresh looking.  We knew that we wanted to have a clean and modern looking website as well but, we also wanted to have the feel of vintage because of the shoes we were selling.  The people at DSW are clearly shoe lovers.  Their use of color gives a modern feel, for a modern shoe company.  They used neutral grey’s so they didn’t draw the eye away from what’s important, the shoes.  In all the pictures they used they had more colors that drew your eye to them, but it worked because they were  the focal point of the page at that point.  I feel that their simple design and use of neutral colors shows the type of business they are, simple yet modern.  There is also a great deal of emphasis on the shoes with large vignette’s that draw the eye to the shoes.

The texture at DSW.com is also very simple.  They only used it in the background of the pictures, and on the sales boxes.  The texture that they used reminds me of a painted drywall.  Its very simple but just enough to add detail.  This little use of texture makes the pictures have depth to them.  I think that the lack of texture throughout the website was a good choice for DSW.com.  If they would have use more it would have distracted the viewer from the shoes, which are the main focus.

The navigation of this website was straight forward.  They have a simple navigation bar that gives you main categories:women, men, kids, sandal shop, athletic, etc.  I feel that having a butting for a “sandal shop” is a good idea because it is beach season and customers are looking for new sandals. So the fact that they have that as a main button in there navigation bar allows us, the customer, get to what we want faster, rather then dig through a bunch of sub categories to find sandals.  Once you get to one of the main shoe pages, such as women, the bread crumbing is placed allowing simple navigation backwards through the site.  They also placed the sub category navigation bar on the left hand side for easy access to what you want.  They also have a featured section that showcases: new arrivals, top rates, luxury, and also shows sandals again.  The site has a lot of redundancy allowing the user to get somewhere via multiple routes.  I think this is a good thing because the user is able to find something faster than searching through multiple pages.

I think that compared to this name brand shoe site Soley Shoes needs a lithe help.  DSW has clearly spent a lot of time designing their site and adding things that allow the customers experience to be greater.  Our website is good for a little mom and pop store in Pittsburgh but the vision I had for our company was to expand, and in order to expand we would have to constantly update our website.  If I were to change anything for the better it would be the layout.  DSW has a larger width to their site which gives them the extra space for a sub category navigation bar.  I think that would be the next step for Soley Shoes.  Also filtering the shoes by size, color, brand, etc. would be a nice touch.

Overall, I believe that Soley Shoes has some improvements if it wants to play with the big leagues, but for what I envisioned the store to be at now, Soley Shoes is doing a great job.

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Final Monthly Review

May 1, 2014 at 11:14 am · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

Brandi Calhoun

www.shopruche.com

For the final monthly review, I chose an online store called Ruche. My group actually found this website at the beginning of our project and was going to use it as a vintage-feel inspiration, but came up with other ideas. Though this website offers other products besides shoes, it has a very vintage feel to it, which was one of the ultimate goals of our final project.

Ruche uses a very pastel, pale color scheme throughout the site. The majority of the background is white, but with hints of some peach and turquoise to make it pop. The “Ruche” logo is a vintage-y script font with some pale leaves in those colors behind it. This scheme makes the website simple, yet attractive.

There isn’t much texture to the website, except for the leaves here and there. Overall, it is a pretty “flat” website; no shadows really, or dimension to any specific parts. Also, the navigation is pretty simple. The main navigation bar gives you multiple options, like new arrivals, clothing, shoes, and accessories. Under each category are also sub-categories to help the consumer find exactly what they want. It is easy to get to the shopping cart, located in the upper right hand corner. It even offers a rollover of the shopping cart, so that you can glance at what you have put in there so far.

One thing I noticed right away about their website that we fixed on ours was the inconsistent background for all of the shoe images. They range from a neutral tan-gray to white. We made sure that the white background in all of our shoe images remained the same through the photoshopping. Also, our website could be a little bit more organized when it comes to types of shoes, or colors of shoes, since it is primarily women’s vintage shoes. Some of the font on both websites is a little bit small, which may not be a huge problem, but may help older customers a little. Overall, I think our website turned out to have a very vintage-feel to it and looks very clean and easy to navigate. We could have some extra options, like Ruche has, including a blog, a search bar, a sort button for the shoes, sub-categories, new arrivals, etc. Our website does, however, have a little bit more texture to it and has more dimension; shadows, outlines, etc. But for now, I think our website stands out for the most part. It is different, clean, attractive, and easy to navigate.

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Monthly Review 4

April 30, 2014 at 11:12 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

I feel that http://www.sneakerhead.com/nike-retro-lifestyle-shoes-p1.html is similar to our website. It takes vintage sneakers and refurnishes them to re-sell them to the public. The colors are very neutral to the eye. Mostly black which makes it easy to look at and the textures on the wood paneling add a sense of style to an other wise solid background. It looks very organized. It has all the categories on the left hand side, which makes it easy to fid the brands you are looking for. Bu also organized in much broader categories across the top if you have no preference.

If you search by a certain brand, you can search by your size. When you clock on a shoe, it has a pretty brief description of the style of the shoe. The check out is very clean an organized and nice to look at. It also had this really cool thing called sneakerfolio which took you back through past sneaker releases which I thought was interesting. I think if we had the time, something like that on our site would have added something more to look at and made the customer stay a little longer.

It similar to our site, because the site we produced was a company that refurbished nike shoes to re-sell. However, ours is a much more concentrated version of that.

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Monthly Review #4

April 30, 2014 at 2:27 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

For our final shoe project, the site that I looked to for our layout was none other than http://www.allenedmonds.com/ it was one of the sites that I talked about in the last monthly review. It’s use of dark colors and minimalistic feel was what attracted me to it. The dark colors, gave the site a mature feel, which I wanted my site to be like. The layout is pretty clean, which I liked a lot. It has the basic everything that a site needs, which is the logo in the corner that will connect the viewer back to the home page, a workable search bar, and a indication of when a consumer buys a product, he/she will know how much is in the “shopping bag”. And at the bottom, I guess you can call it the footer; there is a list of links that will show you to each page, without having the consumer try to find the page, through buttons.

The only texture, isn’t from the structure and base of the site, but by their products, and imagery. The imagery used are rich with the colors of nature and the patterns that decorate the shoes (clothes and their other products also makes up the texture) makes the site more interesting.

The search bar of JNS is not as complex as theirs, Allen Edmond’s search bar actually extends and gives you options when you start typing (almost like google), which I think will really help a consumer, if they’re searching for something basic, like ‘dress shoes’ different options pop up giving the consumer a range to choose from. My only concern is that the product page, isn’t really as attractive as the homepage, perhaps it’s the drop down field, or the surplus of information, but if I was a consumer, being enticed by the mature homepage, getting to this point in purchasing, I think I would feel a little disappointed honestly. They had a theme going on, and the feel of the product page, just feels cheap and completely lacks luster.

Past this point, once you add it to your bag, I think it’s really neat that once your cursor rolls over the shopping bag icon, a clear picture of the item you put there, and information, along with the price, and total, and quantity will be shown, and I feel that, it really gives the consumer an idea on what they are purchasing, and the maximum products you can really see is two, and the rest they tell you that it’s in the bag. In my opinion if it was only going to show you two of the products, then I think the feature is unneeded.

For JNS, I tried going for a similar feel like Allen Edmonds, we used the same dark color concept and structure, except instead of using a golden color like Allen Edmonds, we instead used a dark navy. Our site stands out because our shoes are bright in color, and the colors of the shoes doesn’t really clash with the site’s dark colors either, together with the site, it actually feels unified, it doesn’t feel cluttered or overwhelming. Our site in comparison is much simpler in comparison with Allen Edmonds, it has a structure that can handle additional shoes, (even in odd numbers) it’s a relatively clean and simple site, and that was what we were going for. Allen Edmonds, might just be a tad bit overwhelming, but they organize their information and options in a way that the consumer can understand and navigate. Consumers will like JNS for simplicity and easy navigation; it’s straight to the point, clean, and simple.

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Final Monthly Review

April 24, 2014 at 4:14 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

The website I chose that was related to or final project is Vans.com. The overall feel of Vans and the company we created are very similar. I feel like our website, because it uses background images and uses colors that compliment them, has better unity than the Vans sight color-wise. I also think because we use scenic background images that it gives the sight an overall better texture. The sites are similar in that we use very bold type and Vans uses many bold shapes throughout the site. One element the Vans sight does very well in is navigation. The nav bar has a large drop down when you scroll over “mens”, “womens” etc, that shows all the sub categories and  a “shop by” option all without going to another page. Whereas our site you need to click on Mens or Womens to see the products. All in all the Vans site’s navigation makes up for its bold, blandness, where our site is the opposite.

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Monthly Review #4 – Madison Kozlowski

April 23, 2014 at 6:59 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

One of the websites that my group spent a lot of time looking at was that walkover.com, a site that sold vintage shoes that began as a family of shoemakers in 1758. In the beginning stages of our project we stumbled upon this site searching for vintage shoes and realized that we liked many things about it, eventually pulling a few ideas and techniques from the site.
The sites use of color is extremely simple, in fact there is very little color at all – and I think that is what the company was going for. There is more of an emphasis on the actual shoes that are being sold than the color scheme presented on the page. There is a lot of white, with touches of light browns and grays, as well as orange, which stands out tremendously against the other colors. Their photographs of the shoes are mostly always presented against white. To me, the simple design and color scheme is a reflection of their business and company culture – a great emphasis put on the quality of their shoes. The texture used on the site is very simple as well. The only texture that seems to be present is that of wood. Throughout the site I encountered two different types of wood paneling that appeared, one light and one dark. I think that this texture seemed to give the site a type of rustic and old appearance, while still maintaining a plain and clean page. I found the use of one very small gradient, but for the most part the wood backgrounds that were used was the only sense of texture.
The straight-forwardness of the site was shown in its navigation techniques as well. These too were very simple and easy to understand. There was a navigation bar at the top, and a useful footer at the bottom with links to other information. Drop down menus were used in the main navigation bar that sequentially opened more detailed destinations that could be clicked upon. I thought this was very useful, especially for a shoe site, where there are a plethora of different shoes to choose from. Instead of just clicking on boots, the menu extended and gave more specific kinds of boots (i.e. winter boots, leather boots). The logo was used as the home button, which is becoming a more popular tactic, but some people are not aware that you can click on a logo to return to the Home page. It is not an obvious button and I think that an actual “Home” button on the navigation bar is important. Your site should be easy to navigate and you don’t want users to have to use the tedious back button on their browser to get back to where they first began. However, I do think that the site does guide the user through the content nicely. A good amount of information is presented on the home page, enough so that it isn’t overwhelming. All of the tags are very detailed and easy to understand. An improvement to the site might be to add a feature that shows similar shoes, or “shoes you might like” when a specific shoe is clicked on. This might catch people’s eye and take them to a product that they otherwise may not have found. Overall, the site was well composed and detail-oriented.
Like mentioned above, my group took a few ideas from this site, but I do believe that our site stands out more than walkover.com. Ethel’s Lace Ups is a site only for women and it is obvious when you view the homepage. When I looked at the homepage of walkover.com, I thought the site consisted only of men’s shoes, but they had a women’s collection as well. I think it should be very obvious what a site sells by what is on the homepage. I think the overall feel of our site is more welcoming than Walkover’s and has a warmer color scheme. I think our site displays a more vintage feel. The minimalism of Walkover’s site reminded me of the more modern style. Overall, I think Ethel’s Lace Ups site is more original and provides a more vintage approach to the web than walkover.com.

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Monthly Review 3

April 21, 2014 at 3:51 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

The differences between the Zappos and Manolo Blahnik websites couldn’t be greater. While one, Zappos, has the primary purpose of selling online, Manolo Blahnik encourages visitors to their site to primarily engage with the company via social networking and inform potential customers where to buy their shoes in person.

Zappos has a website that is very busy, with lots of content, links, and navigation areas. The “above the fold” content (to use an newspaper term) displays the primary categories to shop by as the most prominent navigation, as well as secondary categorical navigation on the left to shop by the categories women’s, men’s, kid’s, or gifts. Also prominent at the top are the logo (complete with alteration for the holiday) a search bar, clearance link, and navigation to log-in or get live help.

Where Zappos seems to go awry of the fundamentals laid out in “Don’t Make Me Think” is in consistency of navigation throughout, and the search. The search bar becomes more confusing with text inside “Shoes, Clothing, Bags, etc.” and the links listed underneath. “Search By: Size, Narrow Shoes, Wide Shoes, Popular Searches.” It makes you wonder how you must search. Can I type in a size, or do I click the size link underneath? If I’m looking for Converse Shoes, do I type in “Converse” or “Shoes”? Further down the site, the secondary navigation on the left side does not stay consistent, with all of the heading items being links, “Shop Women’s” “Shop Men’s” “Shop Kids” “Shop Clearance.” Right below “Shop Clearance” is the heading “Specialty Shops.” However this heading does not link anywhere, but “Specialty Sizes” right below it does again. Where Zappos does well is the logo, search bar, primary navigation staying consistent throughout, as well as the page name being clearly laid out for each page.

Manolo Blahnik seems to have a completely different purpose to their website. My guess would be that they are trying to sell to a more select group of consumers, and are trying to keep the value of the brand high by only offering in store purchases as opposed to online purchases. In this way, the website is laid out to more prominently connect with them through social media, perhaps in order to feel that you’ve “joined the club” or are part of the group in the know. To that end, the website has very few links, and is a minimal and elegant design. Aside from the three social media links, only 3 other links are presented on the home page, “Home” “Contact” and “Where to Buy”

Manolo Blahnik has no indication on any page about what page you are on. This may not be much of an issue because there aren’t many main pages to explore, but as mentioned in “Don’t Make Me Think” if you arrive at a page other than the home page from a search, you would have no idea where in the site you are. Further issues arise on the “Where to Buy” page. A block of text addressing counterfeit labels, and lists the official locations to buy Manolo Blahnik shoes online, but there is no way to tell that the text has links in it. The website does attempt in a small way to breadcrumb on the submenu on the “Where to Buy” page, by having the text of your selection (where you are looking to buy) in a slightly darker gray color. However, it’s so faint that it barely registers. Completely missing is any sign of a search, with the only way apparent to get additional information being to send an email through their contact page.

Zappos and Manolo Blahnik seem to be targeting customers in completely different ways. While Zappos want to make as much information available as possible so the widest amount of people will be able to find what they’re looking for, Manolo Blahnik seems to be an exclusionary brand, that only a select group of people have access to, and that is conveyed through their site.

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Monthly Review #3

April 10, 2014 at 7:05 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

Sadie Schweinsberg

Monthly Review #3

I first looked at www.jimmychoo.com. It’s very classy and elegant and gives a feel of sophistication. It uses a lot of grays and blacks. There are a lot of panels that dictate the different categories of fashion they offer. The pictures differ from darks and mysterious to bright and flashy.  There is a sense of balance because it has a grid like pattern but its asymmetrical with its panel placing.  Its very interesting to watch the images scroll by and look at, let alone looking at the rest of the site.

The other site I looked at was www.zappos.com. The two couldn’t be more different. While jimmychoo uses dark colors and gives that sense of sophistication, Zappos uses bright relaxing color that give the appearance of picnics and summer. It gives off a much more relaxed feel and layout differs much. While jimmy used an asymmetrical grid, zappos uses a symmetrical grid layout. The products they offer differ much as well. Their categories are much more laid out as well making it easier to navigate from the beginning.

If I had to choose one I liked better, it would be jimmychoo because I prefer the darker colors to that of Zappos.

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Monthly Review 3

April 10, 2014 at 5:43 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

The differences between the Zappos and Manolo Blahnik websites couldn’t be greater. While one, Zappos, has the primary purpose of selling online, Manolo Blahnik encourages visitors to their site to primarily engage with the company via social networking and inform potential customers where to buy their shoes in person.

Zappos has a website that is very busy, with lots of content, links, and navigation areas. The “above the fold” content (to use an newspaper term) displays the primary categories to shop by as the most prominent navigation, as well as secondary categorical navigation on the left to shop by the categories women’s, men’s, kid’s, or gifts. Also prominent at the top are the logo (complete with alteration for the holiday) a search bar, clearance link, and navigation to log-in or get live help.

Where Zappos seems to go awry of the fundamentals laid out in “Don’t Make Me Think” is in consistency of navigation throughout, and the search. The search bar becomes more confusing with text inside “Shoes, Clothing, Bags, etc.” and the links listed underneath. “Search By: Size, Narrow Shoes, Wide Shoes, Popular Searches.” It makes you wonder how you must search. Can I type in a size, or do I click the size link underneath? If I’m looking for Converse Shoes, do I type in “Converse” or “Shoes”? Further down the site, the secondary navigation on the left side does not stay consistent, with all of the heading items being links, “Shop Women’s” “Shop Men’s” “Shop Kids” “Shop Clearance.” Right below “Shop Clearance” is the heading “Specialty Shops.” However this heading does not link anywhere, but “Specialty Sizes” right below it does again. Where Zappos does well is the logo, search bar, primary navigation staying consistent throughout, as well as the page name being clearly laid out for each page.

Manolo Blahnik seems to have a completely different purpose to their website. My guess would be that they are trying to sell to a more select group of consumers, and are trying to keep the value of the brand high by only offering in store purchases as opposed to online purchases. In this way, the website is laid out to more prominently connect with them through social media, perhaps in order to feel that you’ve “joined the club” or are part of the group in the know. To that end, the website has very few links, and is a minimal and elegant design. Aside from the three social media links, only 3 other links are presented on the home page, “Home” “Contact” and “Where to Buy”

Manolo Blahnik has no indication on any page about what page you are on. This may not be much of an issue because there aren’t many main pages to explore, but as mentioned in “Don’t Make Me Think” if you arrive at a page other than the home page from a search, you would have no idea where in the site you are. Further issues arise on the “Where to Buy” page. A block of text addressing counterfeit labels, and lists the official locations to buy Manolo Blahnik shoes online, but there is no way to tell that the text has links in it. The website does attempt in a small way to breadcrumb on the submenu on the “Where to Buy” page, by having the text of your selection (where you are looking to buy) in a slightly darker gray color. However, it’s so faint that it barely registers. Completely missing is any sign of a search, with the only way apparent to get additional information being to send an email through their contact page.

Zappos and Manolo Blahnik seem to be targeting customers in completely different ways. While Zappos want to make as much information available as possible so the widest amount of people will be able to find what they’re looking for, Manolo Blahnik seems to be an exclusionary brand, that only a select group of people have access to, and that is conveyed through their site.

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Monthly Review Three

April 10, 2014 at 5:41 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

The two sites I decided to describe and compare are Cole Haan and Jimmy Choo. I decided to go with these two sites because I have shopped at both stores and I am familiar with their products. When opening both of the sites I could easily figure out what site I was on. Both of the logos and/or company name is on the top of the page. Jimmy Choo has theirs on the left side and Cole Haan has theirs in the center. Both sites have a black and white color scheme. I think this relates to Krug’s point on minimizing noise. There isn’t any busyness. Having a simple black and white color scheme doesn’t take away from what the website is trying to sell and show you. The simply background isn’t overwhelming. It doesn’t take away from the shoes and other products. Each of the sites navigation bar lets you hover over the item, like women for example and gives you a drop down menu of the categories under women. Also, you can simple click on women as well. It then brings you to another page with all the women’s categories on the left hand side. From there the sites get a little different. On the Cole Haan site on the ride hand side next to all the categories, it has pictures promoting a friends and family event. Then if you scroll down it has pictures of handbags and shoes with links under them to shop specific categories like their new woven collection in shoes. There is some pictures bigger than others, there is two pictures the size of one. This layout breaks up the page a little and gives it balance. Now, on the Jimmy Cho page, once you click on women for example, there is all the categories on the left hand side just the the Cole Haan page. They have one big picture at the top that says “new arrivals, shop now”, then underneath is three smaller pictures side by side that say “shoes, accessories and handbags.” This gives the pages clearly define areas and helps users find what they want quickly in many different areas, which relates to Krug’s fact about make it obvious whats clickable, there is no wonder on where you need to go next. Each of the sites has different sizes of pictures. In Cole Haan, it has emphasis on the family and friends sale because the picture is larger than the rest and Jimmy Choo has more emphasis on new arrivals. Both of the sites have a clean and classy layout to them. There is nothing extra or not needed, no distracting pictures or tons of boring text. Both of the sites have the same high-end, classy feel and design because they are both high end and classy products.

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Fuss: Monthly Review 3

April 10, 2014 at 5:26 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

Two companies that sell the same general product can have two extremely different websites.  Both can work well, but depending on the style of the company the results can be very different.  Manolo Blahnik and Zappos are both shoe companies, but are extremely varied in what type of shoe they sell.  This large difference can be seen directly in their websites.

Manolo Blahnik is a very interesting site that’s main strength is in its emphasis.  When first opening the site, the color is very eye catching and interesting, and creates a great point of emphasis for the website.  Unfortunately, past this initial interest, this site does not have many strengths.  The balance on this site is not working well at all.  On the home page there is an over abundance of open grey space below the main graphic.  Usually this is not bothersome, but because the main site navigation buttons are below this blank space at the bottom, it creates an unbalanced look.  The unity between pages is decent, though there are only three different pages to navigate to.  Besides the over extended blank space, the layout is not completely terrible.  Having the main site navigations at the bottom of the page is ineffective overall.  As they are the main way to travel through the site, they should be at the top or left side, obvious and easily accessible.

Zappos is a much stronger website overall.  Emphasis actually may be the only real weakness on this site.  The site gets to be a little bit cluttered, which takes away from the emphasis on any certain item.  The picture slideshow showcasing the shoes changes quite quickly and does not allow a person to focus on one item.  Balance on Zappos is working quite well.  Despite having so much on the site, taking away from the emphasis, it keeps all the madness well balanced.  The layout of this site is what keeps it well balanced and saves the user from being lost by the clutter.  The classic navigation bar at the top, with a list to the left for each page makes navigation simple and quick.  Each page throughout the navigation is well unified with the whole site, making it easy to navigate.

While Manalo Blahnik is good at drawing your attention in at first, Zappos is overall a much easier to use and functional site.

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Monthly Review 3

April 10, 2014 at 4:41 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

http://www.manoloblahnik.com/

http://www.thefryecompany.com/

How do they use these principles and implement Krug’s five important “things” to make sure users see and understand the site?

The Frye Company

The balance of the Frye Company is more structured.  There is a better balance to the site.  It has more symmetry allowing the site a better visual appeal. The site feels whole and the different sections complement each other.    The emphasis of this page is on the slightly opaque box over the picture.  The layout of this site has a very structured hierarchy.  It allows the user to easily find what they want.  The site follows Krug’s 5 Things very well.  It has a distinct hierarchy on every page.  The pages have a clearly defined area that allows the consumer to find what they want. When something is clickable the mouse turns into a pointer.  There is a lot of noise but I think it still works overall.

MANOLO BLAHNIK

The balance of the Manalo Blahnik website is off.  There is too much empty space.  The colors are all different and the shapes of the images don’t flow. There is no unity in this site the empty spaces are confusing.  There are only three buttons that don’t allow you to very much navigation and do not provide much information.  There is emphasis on the shoe in the center of the home page.  My eye was immediately drawn to that.  The layout of this page is dreadful.  There are only three buttons at the bottom of the page.  When you click on these buttons you won’t be able to ever order shoes from this site.  There are links to other pages that allow you to order.  This site does not follow Krug’s 5 Things very well.  There is no set hierarchy to the site just the three buttons.  All of the links change the mouse into a pointer which shows that it is a link.  There isn’t a real distinction in the areas of a page either.  Overall this site was designed poorly.  Especially for being such an expensive shoe.

Is one site more effective than the other at drawing your attention, and why?

The Frye Company is definitely more effective as an overall effective website.  It allows the user to actually order the shoes online.  It also has more design features that would make me want to go to it instead of the Manalo Blahnik site.

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Monthly Review 3: Shoes Everywhere

April 10, 2014 at 4:40 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

For the third monthly review, we were told to analyze two different shoe company websites and compare how well design elements and Krug’s “five important things” are used. There were six different websites we could choose from. I ended up choosing zappos.com and thefryecompany.com simply after looking at their home pages. There was such a stark difference in the two sites I figured that finding stuff to compare would be easy. Turns out, in my opinion, I was right for once.

Zappos.com is the amazon of clothes, shoes, etc. From the homepage you can see how clean and organized the website feels. As you browse through some of the pages; the menu, search bar, and logo are at the top of the page. On the left side of the page there are also some subsections of some of the menus, which I think is nice. If I simply want to look at women’s shoes, I can easily click on this instead of using the menu or the search bar. The search bar worked surprisingly well for me. Like Amazon, the search bar will attempt to fill in your search for you. The search bar also accepted some pretty vague words; I was shocked that it accepted colors as a search for some reason. Once you decide on your search, the items pop up and, from there, you can narrow your search down via the “sort by” button or by the left hand subsections (which have now changed according to your search). Overall, it is a fairly straightforward shopping website.

Thefryecompany.com website is a lot more design oriented than zappos. The first thing you notice on the homepage is a rotating set of photos of people. Okay now, I realize that this is in fact a shoe/accessory company. But for some reason these photos threw me off a bit. They were highlighting the people wearing their products instead of just showing off their products. One thing that really bothered me was that, when you try to refine an item you’re looking at, there’s not really a clear indication of where the options are located. Turns out, you can find it by clicking on a little upside down arrow (carrot, whatever it’s called) thing. I did not even notice this the first couple times I tried narrowing down my searches. This website, while pretty to look at, made me a bit annoyed when I tried to do simple things.

Both of these websites are actually pretty good in their own way. They each have the basics: a menu that follows you, a search bar, a nice theme/color scheme, and good sectioning of items. I did prefer zappos.com a lot more than thefryecompany.com though mainly because I feel like it took zero effort to find exactly what I was looking for. I suppose I just prefer function over style.

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Monthly Review 3

April 10, 2014 at 3:31 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

For this monthly review I decided to compare the sites of The Frye Company and Cole Haan. Layout wise, they take a relatively similar approach to getting your attention and then displaying your products. Both start with a landing page that uses large text and images to show off their products and any featured sales or debuts. Once you go into an internal page (whether it is a list of products or a page about the company itself), they switch to a more traditional design on a one column layout. This layout means that everything below the top nav bar comes across as simply and straight forward.

Here’s where one difference arises. While both have relatively clean looking content areas on the pages, The Frye Company has a much more busy top nav than Cole Haan. Both use a series of stacking horizontal bars but Frye has several more and adds another as you drill down into products to narrow yours search. While Haan has one bar of products and one area above that for “utilities”, Frye has a bar of product categories that expands as well as several bars of utilities. Another way Haan handles the eventual increase in navigation elements is by having the tools for narrowing down your search appear to the left of the products, instead of in another top bar. This brings me to the topic of balance.

Overall, both sites do a pretty good job of achieving visual balance. The pages that use large images do so in a tasteful and logical way and the pages full of thumbnails fill out the space nicely without appearing cluddered. I do, however, thing Haan does a slightly better job. It never seems top heavy, as Frye sometimes does.

When it comes to unity I would say Haan gets the nod again. The design on Frye seems to struggle to decide on a consistent alignment. As a result, even though all of the elements have great color and typographic unity, they often don’t quite seem to fit. Haan does a good job of handling this. There are still several types of content visible on the site, each requiring their own way of being represented, but because the content is more clearly separated, there is the same sense of conflict.

As for having Krug’s 5 things to make sure are always on the page, both sites do a good job in their own ways. They generally accomplish this by keeping the top nav section consistent across all pages. It is worth nothing this is done even on less traditional pages (about us, blog) by having the content sections of those pages use unique designs or layouts. On both sites, these sections contain navigation, search, login, and site ID. This use of Krug’s most important elements makes sure the user is never lost or wondering how to get back home.

Overall I like both sites and plan on using them as inspiration for the final project. I would, as I’ve said before, give slight preference to Haan for its cleaner layout and user interface.

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Monthly Review 3

April 10, 2014 at 2:08 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

I chose to investigate the Jimmy Choo website, and the Manolo Blahnik website. Both websites are very classy looking and easy to navigate. However, the Manolo Blahnik website is very misleading. You cannot actually shop on the website. You can simply go “Home,” which is a beautiful graphic of a shoe and links to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram; you can go to “Contact,” or you can go to “Where to Buy,” which only shows the consumer places in each region that sell Manolo Blahnik shoes. It does show 4 particular websites that you can purchase Manolo Blahnik from online, but those are the only places available online, not even from the Manolo Blahnik website itself. Also, besides the fact that there’s a graphic of a foot/shoe on the homepage, that is the only emphasis placed on shoes on the website. Every page of the site is unified between colors and clean styles though and there is very little noise and distractions on the pages.

The Jimmy Choo website, on the other hand, has several more options to explore on the website. The homepage is a bit busy, with all the images and different links, but is way more effective than the Manolo Blahnik website. You can actually buy shoes on the Jimmy Choo website. No matter what page you go to, they all have the same high-end, classy feel and design. Different sections of the site (i.e. women, men, collections, bridal boutique, etc) are clearly defined and easy to navigate and define clearly where you can click. For example, under “Women,” there are square images for “Shoes,” “Accessories,” and “Handbags,” and underneath them, it says clearly, “Shop Shoes,” so you know to click there if you want to shop for shoes. There is a little bit of noise, or distraction, but I don’t think it necessarily needs to be taken away. The abstract looking image in the background of all of the other boxes is a little bit distracting, but at the same time it adds more character to the website. The pages are well balanced with different sized boxes and images, and emphasis is placed where it needs to be placed, like on “New Arrivals.” Overall, both websites are effective, but the Manolo Blahnik website is just not fit to be a shoe website.

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Monthly Review 3

April 10, 2014 at 1:53 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

The Zappos page seems very store-like. It looks as if it was designed primarily for shopping ease. There is not really a design oriented theme to the website, compared to the Jimmy Choo site which has a strong design theme. Each page is very simple and focuses on images primarily  compared to the Zappos pages which a loaded with information. I feel the Jimmy Choo site uses a “less is more” design concept and the black and white colors make it seem more luxurious. The Zappos has a very dominant search and navigation bars succeeding in making it much more simpler to navigate and shop than the Jimmy Choo site.

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Monthly Review #3

April 10, 2014 at 1:50 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

http://www.colehaan.com/ is a site that I think has a sort of classy feel to it. The site doesn’t use a lot of colors for their site, but the images of shoes and people, are what gives the site, the additional colors to stand out. The images themselves are taken so beautifully, its just what the site need to stand out even more; the pictures combine the use of texture and minimalism that makes the boring black and white seem so refined and interesting. Everything is centered and placed in a module grid, and it’s because of that symmetry that attracted me to this site. It’s orderly and easy to navigate through; their use of white space really gives the site a mature feel.

http://www.allenedmonds.com/ is also quite similar to ColeHann except they use much darker colors to make their site interesting. The rich use of black and gold, like ColeHann makes the site and their product give off the impression of maturity and class. It’s easy to navigate through their site, and like the other site, it’s also placed centered and their information is in a module grid, which means that each information line up perfectly with each other, nothing is out of place, which gives the site a clean and organized look. I wouldn’t change anything about it.

If I had to choose which one I like better, I think I would go with AllenEdmonds only because I like the dark mature look, it goes with the male dress shoes that they have for their product. It’s a very clean site, and overall the simplicity is what I like in a website.

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Monthly Review #3 – Madison Kozlowski

April 9, 2014 at 2:17 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

Out of the five websites that were provided, I chose to examine jimmychoo.com and allenedmonds.com. Both of these websites excellently displayed Krug’s 5 important factors of a website, as well as the principles of balance, unity, emphasis and layout.
Krug outlined five important factors that all websites should utilize: Visual hierarchy, proper use of conventions, breaking pages into clearly defined areas, making clickables obvious and minimizing noise. Both websites used these tips in effective ways. The Jimmy Choo and Allen Edmonds websites display a clear visual hierarchy. Jimmy Choo’s navigation bar is set at the top in a fixed position, even upon downward scroll. The navigation bar includes the different sections of the store, a search bar upon a few other things. The Allen Edmonds website is set up almost identical to Jimmy Choo besides the chosen aesthetic features.
Another component that goes hand in hand with visual hierarchy is the factor of breaking pages into clearly defined areas and conventions. Again, both websites display this nicely. Allen Edmonds basically has four set sections on its homepage; the previously talked about navigation bar at the top, a slideshow of pictures with clickable navigation, a promotional section (which I am assuming changes on a regular basis), and a footer including a lot of information that can be clicked upon. Jimmy Choo’s page is set up relatively similar as well, with four sections. The only difference is instead of a picture slideshow, the middle, or bulkiest part of the homepage, is split into different sections as well. The set up of each website’s homepage influences the use of emphasis and layout. Emphasis is put on specific items that are placed on the homepage. For example, the Jimmy Choo site has a small div for the sole purpose of counting down until the release of the Choo 08 Collection.
Krug’s fourth factor of making clickables obvious is also well-used. Roll-overs have been placed in almost every place where a clickable is located. There is a color change, a mouse cursor change, or a popup that happens when you mouse through the page. In my opinion, I think that the Jimmy Choo website did a better job of making it extremely apparent when you are able to click on something. Allen Edmonds website was a little more subtle with the rollovers, but they were very consistent.
Allen Edmonds consistency contributed to the sites overall unity and balance. The site was very simplistic. The homepage was basically a continuation of a single vertical rectangle that you could scroll through to view the information. The header and footer were the same color, making a beginning and end point very obvious. I think the color scheme and pictures went well with the products the company sold and the time of the year. Jimmy Choo had more content on its homepage but it was still organized and unified. Like Allen Edmonds, the header and footer were the same, and the different content boxes were linked by their shape and their white color.
I do not think one site is more effective than the other. I was more drawn to the Jimmy Choo website, for obvious reasons, but I do think that both websites are equally effective to their target market.

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Monthly Review 3

April 3, 2014 at 5:50 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

The home page of Zappos seems fairly easy to navigate. They include multiple ways to search for shoes. The search bar is very prominent, possibly because the users for their web site use it more frequently than other forms of navigation. They also include an additional mini search bar that allows you to choose between looking for wide and narrow shoes. Below that is a smaller bar that allows a user to search for a brand by first letter. The side navigation bar lists Mens, Womens, kids etc. Some of this information is repeated in the top navigation bar. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the page you can search for a brand by its full name. Since there is so much navigation at the top of the page Zappos chose to put a search bar at the very bottom which seems a bit counterproductive. Upon selecting shoes, womens, then loafers categories, a breadcrumb trail appears below the main navigation. Convenient options to narrow by color, brand, size, occasion, material, theme and accents appear in the side navigation. Handy as it is it almost seems a bit overwhelming. When selecting by brand name in the smaller search bar the webpage layout completely changes. Once a specific product is selected it changes back to the websites normal navigation. The website have decent balance although it is not as good as Jimmy Choo.

Jimmy Choo conveys a higher class of shoe with lots of fancy clean design. The hierarchy of the website is apparent. The website is not as cluttered as the Zappos leaving fewer options to choose from and making navigation more direct. After selecting pumps from the womens drop down menu a page appears with pumps and side bar navigation. This side navigation also offers material, size and color ect. Similar to Zappos. But instead of laying out all the options available in the bar it shows the categories (size, color etc.) then offers the sub categories. Even though this adds an extra step, the webpage appears more functional. Jimmy Choo also uses bread crumbing but gets slightly lost from the background color. This website has a lot of unity. The colors complement each other well (grays, black, white). All the elements are neutral and have a clean feeling giving the pages good balance.

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Website Review, Monthly review 2

February 27, 2014 at 5:45 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, spring 14

Analyze a Website

The website I will analyze is Asimov- Les Lois de La Robotique, a simple commemorative website to the book and author. The website starts with an “A” and a 45 degree square in the center of the screen. The Lines making up the outline of the A are loading lines. This helps keep the viewer interested in the abstract movement of the design while the page loads. The home page has the words Asimov in White with a black, blue and gray picture of space in the background. The blue color adds to the feel of openness and intelligence. The color effects on the home page give it a feel of exploration and possibility.

There is navigation on the right side that is distinguished by diamonds with numerals in them. The page you are on is distinguished by a white center on the button on the diamonds. There is also an arrow on the bottom middle of the screen to show you to scroll down to the next sections. On the left corner of the screen is an information diamond that brings up a small screen that can allow the user to like it on twitter and facebook.

The first page is laid out with circular forms of designs representing gears in the top left corners that turn in opposite direction. The font is similar to the home page. The background resembles a concrete floor look giving the page some depth.

The second page also has circles moving in the top left corners. The Background is different. It has a small grid with lighted dots moving along the lines of it. The dots move in a pulsing fashion giving it a heart beat feel to the background. This is fitting in the sense that the book I Robot was about how technology developed to the point where machines acquired a higher intelligence resembling human behavior and thought.

The last page has large gears interlocked together moving in the center of the page. Each page has a brief description of parts of the book although it is in a different language.

Each page remains consistent enough in color to give it unity. The home page color is consistent with the website but the style of the background is completely different. All the pages seem to match the feel of the book and the color scheme is appropriate. The variations in the background of each page add little more texture to the website. I really get the feel of calculation and structure that a robot would have (even though there are no representation of robots on the website). I like the design and navigation. Its easy to follow.

I don’t like the load time for the website. It is just long enough for me to think ‘this isn’t going anywhere.’ Also the website made Firefox crash multiple times. Out of laziness I kept going back to write about this website instead of a different one. Once the page was reloaded, not everything would show up. Just about every time I clicked away to write this review up and clicked back, some element of the page was missing. I would then risk reloading it and having it crash firefox again. Since it did this so many time I would say this site is very dysfunctional although a good try. Its also very simple. I think maybe adding a few more elements or information wouldn’t be a bad idea.

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