Final Review

May 1, 2013 at 1:15 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

For our final review, I have chosen to critique my one-page site. This was my most successful project, and the project I learned the most from.

The balance of my one page site I believe was very successful. Each page or section of the story was a box that was centered in the middle of the page. This made it a focal point, and the user can easily figure out what is going on. Each page was designed to have balance and unity. I tried to have the story come across without any confusion. However, I don’t know if the story was completely understandable. The website itself works, but I could have improved each page. I tried to make to take a some what complicated story and dumb it down, but I probably should have gone even farther with that.

I emphasized Aristaeus, who was the main character in the story. I had him on almost every page, and emphasized what he was doing, and the emotions he felt through the story. Having on each page also unified the site, and kept the story flowing.

The layout of the page is balanced and centered. Each page is basically the same, and when navigating everything works out. The color of the page is a yellow/gold/brown scheme, to emphasis that Aristaeus is a bee keeper. I made the background a bee hive wall as well. Some people said it looked more like a giraffe than a bee hive. To remedy that I’d have to change the color, and add more texture to it. I think the texture and color of the page matches the story pretty well. The texture works throughout the website. It is simple and doesn’t overwhelm. I tried to keep everything simple.

The main improvements I would make on this project are: getting the story to come across easier, and the background being less of a giraffe. To make the story come across easier, I suppose I could add more text. I tried to avoid using text because the story is greek mythology, and children don’t understand that language. I could probably paraphrase it. Adding text, and fixing some of the pages would help the story come across. As far as the giraffe background: just changing the color a bit, and adding texture would probably do it.

Lessons learned: Keep everything organized, and make sure you know what code is. I learned a lot about coding in this project, and I ran into a lot of problems because I wasn’t completely organized.

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Blog Post #4: Personal Site Review

April 30, 2013 at 9:50 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

Because it is freshest in my mind, I will review my group’s shoe website – Simplicity shoes.

I feel that Simplicity Shoes was successful in many areas. The site contains a good amount of balance. Colors balance out the page, for example. The homepage seems to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Almost everything is lined up to avoid distracting gaps or hanging corners. Of course, there is always room for improvement. I wish the navigation lined up with the end of our header image, and I wish the Facebook and Twitter icons lined up with the right side of the page. Going back to the navigation, I wish the buttons were smaller to match the bottom navigation.

In terms of unity, I think our site is fairly successful. Our colors are uniform, our type is mostly uniform (except for the head title and price of the women’s and men’s pages), and our photography is both uniform and cohesive. The photography also matches the feel of the site we were going for – simple, and clean. An off white background keeps it simple, but not too “classy” looking.

I also think our group did a good job of using emphasis within our site. However, the top navigation bar could have probably used a bit more emphasis (but then again, maybe it works because it is so big). But we did put the biggest emphasis on what was most important – our product. With the site’s colors and theme being a bit more subdued, the photos pop off the page in terms of color and simplicity.

The layout plays a HUGE part in how the site is perceived by onlookers. Our homepage, to me, feels modern, yet simple (which is what we were going for). The lookbook and about us pages also feel fairly modern, as do the women’s and men’s pages. I do think they could be a little bit more consistent in terms of spacing, font, and color usage, but overall (for a beginner class) I like the overall finished product. I do wish we would have pushed it a little farther, though.

I have touched on color in the pervious few paragraphs, but I want to emphasize again my love for the color palette we chose – mostly grays, blacks, and whites with pops of color in the pictures of the shoes (and Facebook and Twitter icons). I feel as though the color scheme was one of the most successful portions of our website.

In terms of texture – we did not have too much texture throughout our site, except for our background – which definitely helped. Originally we were going to go with a simple gray or black background, but I am happy that we chose to go with a subtle, dark background. It makes the page pop a little bit more. Though a plain color may have been technically more “simple,” the textured background’s subtleness adds to the overall theme in a very different way than I thought it would.

Navigation. Kelly and Brady absolutely killed the navigation (in the most awesome sense of the word) ! Again, going into this site not knowing much about navigation, I think they did superb. Especially for the women’s, men’s, and lookbook pages. Everything seems so intricately linked together, and I think it turned out great. However, I wish we had some sort of breadcrumbing to help designate exactly where a person is on the site. Right now, if you are on a particular page, it’s hard to tell exactly where you are on the site. However, the top navigation definitely helps a user find his or her way back to where he or she wants to be.

Overall, I think our site is very effective. The use of colors, unity, balance, emphasis, layout, and navigation all form together to create a site that is cohesive and interesting to look at. However, there are many improvements that could be made. There are many things that I wanted to do that I couldn’t figure out. But all in all, I know that we all worked extremely hard on the site – and for an intro class, I would say it is pretty sweet.

As a side note, I feel as though this project taught me a lot. Doing a multipage site has given me much more insight into how much work goes into sites that I visit everyday. I cannot imagine how many hours have been put into sites like Facebook, Gmail, and Google. Though it was so incredibly frustrating at times, I have found that facing a problem and pushing through it instead of moving past it without trying has been the best way to learn in this class. Looking back, I wish I would have pushed myself a bit more to do things that I was uncomfortable with. But I have many more web classes left, and I am sure I will have MANY more opportunities to learn even more in the near future.

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Final Review

April 30, 2013 at 9:15 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

For my final review I chose to critique my one-page site, which was about the story of The Ugly Duckling.  This project was the one that I was most happy with throughout the semester. I think I used the element of design in it well, with improvements in a few areas.

For Balance I think I accomplished this well throughout my site. For the title page of my folklore, I have three ducks, grass reeds on each side and title in text above it and felt that it balanced out well together. For the other pages I think the background with a some being a barn with hills, and a sun, or a river balanced out well with what was going on in the foreground in each page for instance in some I had a nest with hatching ducklings, the ugly duck running away, swans swimming in the water with the ugly duckling looking on. I also think the placement of my text boxes works well in balancing each page.

For unity I also think I showed this well in my site. I the elements of each part of the story were balanced and went well together in the colors, graphics, backgrounds and text I used. I feel that each page goes together well but the site as a whole goes well together and gets the story of the ugly duckling across well especially to children.  For Emphasis I also think this was accomplished well.  I tried to put more emphasis on certain graphics on each page that were the important part of the story for instance on my second page I have a gray speckled egg that is bigger and is not hatching like all the other eggs and in the story that is a big thing because the momma duck doesn’t remember laying that egg and it is different from all the others.

For layout I think I did well with this aspect of the site but there are always room for improvements.  I wanted my layout to scroll horizontally rather than vertically because I wanted it to feel like a storybook. I also divided my “scenes” of the story into different pages next to each other so again it would feel like a book and you would just scroll through them.  I also laid out some of the pages so they had the same  hills,farm and sun while the foregrounds changed.

For color I think what I had worked well, I used mostly simple bright colors to make it kid friendly the only thing I used a gradient on was the sky and the hills. I wanted to keep thing simple so things wouldn’t be distracting and take away from the story. For texture as with color I wanted to keep it simple so for some things it is just plain shapes for instance the river and the ground in front of it is just rectangles with color. While behind the river I used a gradient to try and give the sky and hills texture. The barn has texture in it with all the lines and graphics that help to make it look like a barn. My ducks have a little bit of texture to it with the shape making it look like wings, the feet, eyes and beak. On the title page the grass reeds have some texture with the watercolor stroke I used and the water marks help to give it the feel of a river. Lastly for Navigation this is the one thing I would change about my page and wish I had done better. I wish I had put in navigation buttons to help move from page to page instead of having to keep scrolling left to right to get to the end.

Improvements I would want to make on this site would be to add navigation buttons for one thing. I feel that navigation buttons would really help especially if little kids were on this site. I also would like to add maybe a little bit on animation to some of elements like the ducklings, the ugly duck, swans and mama duck. I also would change the the size of the text in some of the text boxes and make those look better. Lessons learned from this project that I can apply to others is navigation and scrolling, using fireworks for photos and how that can help bring things together. I also will use divs in my future projects to help make things easier to find and organize.

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Final Monthly Review

April 24, 2013 at 11:40 am · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

For my final monthly review, I chose to critique my single-page folklore site (The Hare and the Tortoise).  This is the project I am most proud of and think I used all of the elements of design well.  I balanced each image of the story/page with its background.  The characters continue to walk down the center of the page to show time elapsing as the sky changes colors.     Unity was an important part of this project because the characters had to work with each other to tell the story of the race. The colors had to work well together when the characters were moving, they also had to work together. One of the most challenging things about the illustration of the story was the color of the tortoise not running into the color of the grass. All aspects of the site worked well together to create unity throughout the navigation, the individual pages, the fonts chosen, and the illustration.
The main focus of the site was the Hare and the Tortoise. Therefore, the emphasis was focused towards the two characters and their movements. The animation of the tortoise was most important, because he was the main character I was focusing on. The animation with him was a little tricky because I had a little bit of a problem slowing him down, but overall I think that the emphasis on him turned out good. I also used a black slate in the back of the title screen with both characters moving so immediately the user would know which aspects of the site to focus on, which also helped to show emphasis.
The layout of my site was focused on individual pages or sections so that it would read like a book as you scroll.  The layout of the center square is in line with the center of the screen and is fixed so that when you change your window, the image does not scale or move.  Directly to the left of the image is the navigation bar. The color of the navigation bar ties into the color of the Title text. I have the page set up so that you know what to focus on and the nav bar is there to help direct you to the next page.
The color of my site is very bright. The targeted audience for this project was little kids and what better way to grab the attention of a kid than bright colors with simple graphics and animation. The colors reflect the “kid” style and also grabs the attention of any user that stumbles upon the page. I also added shading into the characters to show some depth so it wouldn’t appear to be so flat. The shadows were also added to show distance. I kept the shadows very general so as to keep up with the simplicity of the site. The texture of the site also works into color because the main texture is within the characters. The hare has some added “scruff” and the tortoise has some added darker green colors.  The grass also has texture in it to give it more of an outdoorsy, racing kind of feel. I did not add texture to the ground, other than adding some rocks, because I did not want the ground to take away from the characters, because they were the focus of my site.
In terms of navigation, I thought that the navigation bar, taking you to different sections of the page worked best for this assignment. It is bold, bright and draws just enough attention that a child would know to click on it. Also, at the bottom of the page I added a link that would take you to the actual full story of The Hare and the Tortoise, because again, I kept the text simple.
As a whole, I am proud of how this website turned out. Some of the critique I got from classmates suggested that instead of the navigation bar being a block color in the back, it should be an image, ie a carrot. One thing I thought that was really helpful was the use of my navigation and I applied it to other aspects of my work, such as my homepage.
http://mediaweb.rmu.edu/~sasst44/Hare%20and%20Tortoise/

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Final Review

April 24, 2013 at 11:27 am · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

For this review I’m going to use my final project. My groups website was very well balanced. We made sure that if one section had a box somewhere, like the look-book link, we added another one on the other side that would link to somewhere else. Unity wise we made sure that every layout that was going to be similar was done with the same coding. The pages were basically in the center, the navigation bars (top and bottom) never moved. The only main difference was what is shown in the body of the work. Our layouts we tried to keep simple and easy to follow, yet kept it interesting. Our background (minus the shoe pictures themselves) was the only real textured used. Combined with the layouts and texture of the background, I think our site was very professional to look at. The colors really came through with the shoes. We wanted to keep the color scheme of the layouts itself simple, not over bearing to out do the photos. We stuck with more neutral tones, and that helped make the shoes look better/more professional. And the text/navigation easier to follow. Our navigation bar at the top was easy. You hovered over it and the text like Home would change so it was obvious that it was link and you could click there. The shoe pages themselves you could click on the smaller photos and it would take you to a new page that held that smaller photo in the bigger box. We could have maybe made that more obvious, but I think it worked well. Also each shoe page had a break down of other shoes offered and the names. You could click that text and it would take you to that page. Also the shoe pages had boxes along the bottom, one linking to the look-book and another to the about us page. Easy to understand. The look-book when you hovered over an image, it would move up and reveal text. You could click that text and it would take you to that page. I could have made it easier to understand by making that photo stay up longer or even disappear altogether. The home page had similar links like the other pages, but at the bottom you could click two icons, Facebook or twitter. Both of those would take you to the Facebook or twitter page depending on which one you clicked. Over all I think we did a good job with our navigation. A few glitches, but pretty good. As for emphasis, our logo was on every page. It was clear what website you were on and using. Also the picture we wanted to have you focused on the most was larger and more centered the others smaller. Our entire website flowed well, was easy to understand, easy to navigate, and over all professional in style. I’m extremely proud of what my group did together. We created an awesome site, one that looks cool, clean, neat, organized, simple, and interesting all at once.

Lesson wise I learned that it was easier to work off the shells of layouts we created. I didn’t think it would make that much of a difference but in the end it was the most helpful. It made it simple to look at a layout and create the pages from them. It also helped that each member took a page or design element and focused on that. We then complied it all together and were able to, more easily than if we had not done this, put the site together. I learned that by having the pages be copied once they were complete in style, (like the shoe pages are the same minus text and photos), it made it so much easier to tweak, fix, and rearrange any glitches. I also learned how to animate a photo, link text, and link photos. I also discovered that this whole project required a lot more time than I had anticipated.

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final reveiw -solemates inc.

April 24, 2013 at 11:22 am · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

final review-solemates incorporated

after seeing the other sites and hear what other people think about our site I believe it needs redesign. I believe that most of the need at least to have the same font as the one that is in our header. Also I believe I need to focus the graphics a bit better by matching the color of the well favored blues adds. I think that we could possible add links to the images either taking the audience to the product page or another page that fit the ad better. The layout of the other pages is perfectly fine I think the home need spaced out more indefinitely. I believe this would provide a better emphasis on each individual image after they are edited to better match the color scheme. I believe we do have balance but it is c=very minimal I kind like the minimal feel but I think this will be mostly solved if the layout of home age is fixed. Unity I believe we could have done bit better on unity by making shoes point a certain way or something similar the home page definitely need more unity for it to work. Most of colors work other than those of those graphic which once again can be easily fixed through changing the colors. Texture and navigation work quite well however. It is very easy to get to here you want to go and back again. The content of most of the pages also woks really well. It think after these improvements are made than the site will look a lot better,

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Monthly Review 3 – Zappos vs Manolo Blahnik

April 16, 2013 at 5:20 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

For my third Monthly Review, I chose to compare http://www.manoloblahnik.com/ and http://www.zappos.com

The most prominent difference between the two is that Zappos is an actual shopping site, whereas Manolo is more of a showcase site for a designer – there is not a single actual photograph of a commercially available shoe on the latter. I took the following notes as I went through each site:

Manolo Blahnik

The site is overall more subdued – very minimal noise, very straightforward, no unnecessary content. The home page is very well-balanced between the large image on one side and the text on the other side. The color scheme holds the page together very well. Clickable links are not immediately obvious, but the section links change color from white to black when hovered over. The title is indicated as clickable only by the cursor change. Unconventional as far as visual design – very vintage, simple, artsy. It is very clear from first impression that the site is about the designer and his work more than it is about products or commerce. When going into subsections, the visual hierarchy develops well, as does the overall appearance. The navigation area stays constant – just the area where the image originally was changes when going into subsections. For example, upon clicking Collection and then This Season, the page becomes separated into the navigation area, an area of text, and an area which holds an image slideshow, all roughly equal.

Zappos

There is a bit too much happening on the home page – the customer reviews are unnecessary and could be in a smaller scrollable box to the side, and the bottom navigation is much too large and complex. The additional zappos.com sites list, the product showdown, the blogs logo, the “how do you like our website?” feedback request, and the subscription registration take up space in that lower bar unnecessarily, where most other sites with such a bar would only have contact info and some pretty basic text-based links to pages. Home page has a general 4-column or horizontal 4-section layout separated by thin horizontal line of content and is well-balanced, with the exception of the review section, which is uncomfortably left-heavy. I really believe there’s too much content on the home page, but the most important content (the content which the average visitor would be looking for) is in immediate view, and most of the extraneous content is farther down the page, where most visitors wouldn’t bother going once they’ve found what they are looking for.

I feel the same about the first subpage I clicked on, Women’s Shoes. The content in the main area seems mostly extraneous to me, but the recommendations section and ads for sales or specialized sections may serve others well. I chose to continue with the text-based navigation on the left side.

So, I clicked on Flats. At this level, I really like the way the page is laid out and the options presented for narrowing and sorting the content. You can narrow by size, width (important to me, because I wear Wides and it’s a paint to find any of them in physical stores, let alone online), styles, occasions, brands, colors, price ranges, materials, themes, patterns, and accents, then sort by new to old, popularity, name, low to high or high to low prices, and customer rating. I enjoy the breadcrumbing system, also, except for one thing. The breadcrumbing is in the form of the “your selections” section, and when you click on term, it removes it – you have to click on the next term over to go back to that page. For example, you have shoes, flats, ballerina, and pink chosen, in that order. To go back to just flats, you would click on ballerina, or to go back to all shoes, click on flats. I didn’t really see any other form of breadcrumbing, and that system doesn’t include a home or all link – to go back to browsing all items, you just remove the first selection (in our example, shoes).

Zappos was aesthetically pleasing and overall fairly easy to navigate, and it offered many ways to narrow and sort results – if anything, too many. The narrowing categories are minimizable, but default to all being expanded when you first come to the page – it would be simpler to navigate if you could see all the general categories (size, width, styles, occasions, brands, colors, price range, materials, themes, patterns, and accents) at first glance and then expand the ones you are interested in to see the options.

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Monthly Review 3: Shoe Websites

April 10, 2013 at 7:28 am · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

For the 3rd review I compared zappos.com and manoloblahnik.com.

While Zappos has much more on its website, manoloblahnik has a simpler design to it.  There isn’t much color, most of it being gray or white, and the layout is pretty simple.  Page tabs towards the left and Pictures towards the right.

Zappos, on the other hand, has more to offer with color, just having more in general, and things flow a lot better.  It takes on the design of most other websites.  The layout, however, is not as simple as manoloblahnik.com.  It is a bit scattered, yet connected.

As far as emphasis goes, Zappos.com stands out a lot better, having more on its page while Manoloblahnik.com has a simpler design and doesn’t stand out as much.

Overall, Zappos.com seems to be the better website in general, having more color and a better emphasis.

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Frye Company & Cole Haan

April 9, 2013 at 10:24 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

For my monthly review I chose to do the Frye Company and Cole Haan’s websites. Both sites really draw me in and make me want to explore them more. Each sites uses balance in how things are laid out on the page and the color palettes they chose. The Frye company uses dark browns, gray in the drop down menus and a leather background while the Cole Haan site uses black and white as a palette with a sky blue hover over the links. Both a pretty simplistic in design even more so with the Cole Haan site.

Emphisis in both sites is shown through text and pictures. Both sites have pictures on the main pages that bring emphasis to them. On the Fyre Company site you can scroll through them on the main page and on other pages they use big pictures for emphasis, they also use a leather background to emphasis that they make leather shoes. Both sites use text that is in all caps so all the headings etc. are in all caps. The Fyre Company’s text is bolded while the Cole Haan’s are only in a few spots.

Both sites use unity consistently when navigating throughout the site. They both have navigation bars at the top of the page with there logo’s on the left side the Frye Company’s being next to the navigation bar and the Cole Haan’s right above. This helps with unity because on each page the navigation bar is there and you always know where to go.

Both sites are similar in some aspects of their layouts but different in the fact that one uses pictures more and a darker color palette while on uses less pictures and a light color palette. To me the one that draws my attention more is the Frye Company’s website because I like the darker color palette and the use of leather as a background to help emphasis that they make leather shoes. The bigger navigation bar also really draws me in too. The pictures they use through out the site and the scrolling affect on the main page also really draws me in and makes me want to scroll through an see all the pictures. The only thing that I didn’t like is that there are a lot of navigation tabs and categories that it becomes some what busy on the top, and maybe narrowing them down a little bit could help it not be so busy and distracting.

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monthly reveiw 3: shoe reveiw

April 9, 2013 at 9:20 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

Monthly review 3

Zappos and Cole haan are very unique shoe selling sites. Each has its own style and way of directing it’s user.
Lets take a look at each sites balance. Cole Hann goes foe asymmetrical balance for a good portion of it s pages, most of the products page do not follow this pre-established format. I don’t find a problem with this because most selling sites do this at least with their product pages. Zappos does something very similar with the product pages. It uses some sort of the rule of thirds
Unity is a different matter. For both sites I feel like there very little flow that directs my eyes. For both it they both have the shoe s pointing to the sidebar which may or may not help the user.
Thirdly is the emphasis. On zappos the emphasis on the home page is put on the department bar at the top. also emphasis is put on the the changing image in the center on later photos. For Cole Haan it s is different story on the home is on the photos and and images. I feel like Cole haan use emphasis bit better.
Lastly is layout I feel cole haan use it more effectively better than zappos
Zappos seemed like it still at factory setting and needs bit more tweeking. The mood ig et from cole haan is that it is hip and cool.
Both sites use these important parts of design effectively but overall cole hann has a better feel to it in the end.

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Monthly Review 3

April 9, 2013 at 6:52 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

For this monthly review I decided to talk about Manolo Blahnik and The Frye Company. I’ll start with Manolo Blahnik. One of the first things I noticed about this page was its elegance and the photograph of the hand making the shoe on the homepage. I am all about authentic, which is what it looks like you will get with this certain designer/company. The site has a clean elegant look to it and the layout is very simple. It has a small navigation menu on the right and the images pop up on the right. I was a little confused at first not knowing what to click because the links did not show that they were being hovered over or were even clickable. Once I clicked on a link it branched out to another column and this repeats for how many links there are. This is a nice feature because it shows where you have been and the links you clicked to get there if you need to go back a few steps. Another important feature for me is to be able to click the home page and it takes me there, which this site has. However, one thing I wish the site did have is a search bar. For me this is a new designer/company so the search bar was not necessary but had i been familiar with it, the search would make finding what you want easier. One other thing I would change is the color of the “Manolo Blahnik” name on the homepage, and every page after. For the homepage it is ok but it gets a little lost on the others. Changing the placement of the name would probably make the site less balanced, so changing the color would not only add emphasis to the name, but would not break the layout.

The page is all enclosed in a rectangle in the center of the page with grey background. The balance of this page is what adds to its elegant layout and really puts the emphasis on the shoes because they are mostly all bright colors surrounded by grey. With the exception of the site not having a search bar, I think the website would pass the “trunk test.” You are able to know what site you are on, as well as the page. The sections break down and the section you are in on the page is highlighted in a different color, which also helps with the “you are here” indicators. The audience of this site would be targeted to more of a high end type of person based off of the hand drawn shoes and their unique patterns.

The Frye Company was my favorite out of all the sites. The photography and soft brown leather color drew me in immediately. Like Manolo Blahnik, authenticity is the name of the game. The look of the page is very simplistic, busy (in a good, non-distracting way), and user friendly all at the same time. I love tabs. I like seeing everything all in one place and seeing what tab I clicked on. The tabs make it easy for anyone to use. The use of photography on this site is beautiful and eye popping as well as the leather-looking background. In terms of balance, the colors and filters on the photographs work very well together- looks very country. It has a very fun energy. The video on the “On The Road” page is very fun and grabs the user’s attention as well as showcases beautiful photography/videography skills with the authenticity of the leather shoes and boots. It makes me want a pair of their shoes. The tabs drop down into the different sections and the shoes you click on show up in a centered box, making it the focus. There is also a section to not only search, but refine your search. This is very helpful when you have such a big site and know exactly what you are looking for. The placement of the logo in the upper left-hand corner is noticeable and subtle (which is a good thing – it’s not invisible or overbearing) and has a hand-drawn feel to it; which adds to the site’s overall look. The emphasis stays on the products. Everything on this site works so well together; layout, emphasis, balance, and unity.

With the photographs and products showcased in the center of the page, it helps to really look at the site and be able to zoom in on the products. Without a doubt this site would pass the “trunk test.” You know what site you are on; you know the page you are on; the sections further break down to show what you clicked on to get to that point; the “you are here” indicator could maybe have a smaller navigation bar, but the section still stays highlighted in the tabs menu; and there is a search bar. The products seem like they are again targeted to someone not on a college budget, but the site altogether can be targeted to really anyone.

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Blog Post #3: Zappos + Jimmy Choo

April 2, 2013 at 10:37 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

Though both sites primarily sell shoes, zappos.com and jimmychoo.com have very different styles and ways of conveying balance, unity, emphasis, and layout.

Both sites obviously cater to very different audiences – while Zappos has more of a commercial feel to it with easy and obvious navigation, Jimmy Choo has more of a contemporary, fashion forward feel to it, with easy to follow but not as obvious navigation. Both sites use the four elements previously stated (balance, unity, emphasis, and layout) to cater to their goal clients and audience.

For example, both sites uses balance and in terms of their color palettes – Zappos uses mainly blues (varying shades) and creams, with the occasional orange to emphasize highlighted features, the search button, and the shopping cart. Jimmy Choo, in the other hand, uses a palette of mainly white and black with some grays and creams mixed in– clean, sophisticated, and modern.

Both sites also have consistent unity from page to page. The navigation bars at the top of each website do not change – as well the “header.” This helps create unity throughout the pages. No matter where I found myself on the page, I always knew exactly what site I was on.

Each site uses emphasis in unique ways. Zappos uses emphasis through color in a very obvious way (words changing colors from blue to orange, words highlighted with various colors within a block, etc.). Jimmy Choo, on the other hand, uses more subtle methods of emphasis – instead of a word changing a completely different color (like on the Zappos site), a word might change from black to light gray or from unbolded to bold. Overall, in this category – Zappos seems to have a more efficient and effective method for ensuring success in navigation.

Both sites are very different in terms of layout. Zappos has a much busier overall layout than Jimmy Choo – which might be due to the fact that Zappos offers many more products than Jimmy Choo (or so it seems). Both sites use a variation of tabs with subheadings and advanced searches. Neither use breadcrumbing – I definitely felt as though Zappos would benefit from adding some sort of breadcrumbing trail. When I was looking at different products, I found myself getting a little bit lost and thought that a breadcrumb trail might help better figure things out. For Jimmy Choo’s navigation, one thing that seemed a little odd was whenever I hovered my mouse over one of the subheadings (Shoes, Handbags, etc.), the tabs within the subheadings that popped up underneath the subheading are a good two or three tabs worth of space from the subheadings themselves. Why so much space between the two categories? I found that to be the only somewhat confusing part of the navigation.

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Eichenlaub Monthly Review #3

March 30, 2013 at 11:58 am · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

For this Review I decided to explore the sites called thefryecompany.com and colehaan.com. Both site provide customers with the selection of different shoes, handbags, and accessories at reasonable prices. I did notice that each site uses a different was at displaying information to customers and how it attempts to make shopping easy for people.

When looking over the web site thefryecompany.com, I was amazed at all of the detail that was put into making it. The site was well balanced and all of the information was organized so neatly. I also liked the background color and texture and how it resembled shoe leather. I also liked the moving pictures and how well they too were balanced and neat. The website’s unity was also good and that the site had everything that was required and that everything on the site seamed to compliment one another. The only thing I didn’t like was that the site’s use of color for the text. I though it was too light and small and it made it hard to read it sometimes. Its use of emphasis was a little poor to me because the pictures clued me in on was the site was about, but the wording again was kind of bland and didn’t really convince me to explore the site more. The layout over all was pretty good and I did like how the personal information and merchandise was organized.

When look over the site colehaan.com, I liked the sites style and its use of color and layout. The site was also well balanced and displayed the contents out in a way that I knew where they were right away. The use of a simple white background worked very well for it made the site simple and easy for an individual to follow. I still thought that the letters on the site could have been a little bigger though. The unity was also quite good in that it displayed the information so evenly and almost like a puzzle. The unity made finding the information I required so easy to find and made my navigation easier on this site. The site also displayed some great emphasis in displaying important information like stuff that was on sale or new items for purchase. The layout was overall good and that all of the information was exactly where is should have been but my only concern is that the layout may have been a little too dull and maybe even boring to customers

Both sites do an excellent job at displaying balance, unity, emphasis, and layout and used it effectively in their own way. Both sites have created their own way of navigation through the site and make it easier for a customer to shop. The site thefryecompany.com displayed did a great job in making navigation easy by putting the products in the proper categories. I was even Impressed when the site already divided men and ladies shoes witch made my search faster. The site colehaan.com did an also awesome job in creating categories for different customer needs and also divided the needs by the gender of the customer. I did notice however that some categories seamed to almost coexist with each other such as accessories. This made the organization seam less professional and displayed the information in an unorganized mess. In terms of effectiveness, I would say that thefryecompany.com wins on top because it makes it easier to draw my attention to the product that I need and the information is not too clustered in an unorganized pile.

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Grooveshark

February 27, 2013 at 9:13 am · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

I decided to do the second review on the Grooveshark page. On this page, as you scroll down, the iPods have movement on the screens. The first iPhone the music time moves and on the second iPhone the song selections on the screen move. There is also an iPad that stays still but the words on the page move over it. As you scroll to the bottom of the page, you understand what they are promoting, music. Music is all they incorporate on the page. The subtle but huge phrases on the page makes everything easy to read. There are no brights colors anywhere, everything is subtle but they emphasize what’s important by enlarging everything. At the very end of the page there is part of an iPhone showing, just enough to get the explorer bar showing Grooveshark as a website. I think they got their point across very well and used typology and color together in a way that isn’t overwhelming but sticks in your head anyways.

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Monthly Review #2

February 27, 2013 at 1:05 am · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

Festa Italiana is a one-page web site that is set up pretty well. All you have to do is scroll down and you get all of the information you need. There is also a menu where you can skip to which ever section you want, and can still scroll through the page. The menu also stays on top of the screen, so you can skip to any section at any time.

The color scheme of the site is a little bit mean. Each section has it’s own color scheme, which is fine because you know where you are. One thing that is consistent between sections is the diamond pattern, which ads texture to the site, as well as consistency.

It is fairly easy to read and understand content on the site. Each section is headed with what it is about, and has information regarding the section. All you have to do is scroll down, so it is very easy to navigate. One thing that bothers me is some sections say, “Check back for more details.” This bothers me, but it really isn’t a design flaw as much as it is an information problem. Overall, it is a well designed site and is very easy to use.

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Monthly Review #2

February 26, 2013 at 11:27 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

For my monthly review, choosing a site to review for a single page site, I chose the weathertable app website. Although this website is not very long it perceives enough information about the app itself to completely get across the information that is needed.

The website chooses to navigate from the top to the bottom. I think if the site navigated from the left to the right it can still be just as eye pleasing with a few minor tweaks. The way that there is a picture in the background within the first section of the website with the hand actually holding the phone with the app working on the phone is very appealing. This is great to look at when you first visit the site. It makes you want to continue to look and see what the app is actually about. As readers we scan the page not thoroughly look through the page at first, so the way they have the bolded statements about the app is well laid out so we can understand what makes the app unique.

The use of text and color works well through the website. There is no mismatching of colors and overall the page is kept simple causing no confusion at all which is something I like. The color scheme which is kept simple works well and keeps a sense of cleanliness throughout the page.

The way the images are on one side of the page and the text is justified on the other is a major plus. This keeps things less confusing and to us, easy to read. They also have a link to download the app clear as day and easy to find which is a good thing because you wouldn’t want it to be hard to find where you have to download it, instead it is isolate just enough to grab our attention.

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Monthly Review 2: One Page Site

February 26, 2013 at 9:56 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

The one page website I chose for my monthly review was http://richandkacie.com which is a website for the couples wedding. When I went to the webpage the illustration centered in the middle of the page really dragged me into viewing more. The illustration is line drawing of a bouquet of sunflowers and inside it hear with both their names, and the date of their wedding and what city it is being held in. And below the illustration in a dark gray text is their names and the date and the time their wedding will be held. The color palette of this webpage has is a light gray background that has a texture to it all the way through with a darker gray text, and yellow accents here in there in different places. I think the color pallete they have really works and the background has a faint texture to it so it doesn’t over power or take away from the information they are trying to get across.

To navigate this webpage they have you scrolling down and the first thing that you come to as your scrolling is a yellow a ticket graphic and inside is a the info of where, when etc. of the wedding. The next thing you scroll to is two pictures of them and below the photos, both Rich and Kacie have in two columns things where they talk about meeting each other and so on. The next thing you scroll two is a section that talks about her bridesmaids and groomsmen and how they did this I thought was really neat. They have little arrows that you click on to that go to a different one and they are a little card that each bridesmaid or groomsmen filled out with different questions and a photo attached to it with a cute little paper clip graphic.

After that you scroll down to their gift registry and they have each place they are registered in a yellow ticket again and it has the store company logo on it in dark gray and below a in dark gray a link that says view registry and if you click on it, it links to their registry list at each store which I thought was such a neat idea. The next thing you scroll to is an area with info about hotels around where they are getting married with price info etc. for their guests to stay at. Then we scroll down more and come to a section photos of the two of them that you can go through by clicking little arrows again. And lastly we scroll down and we are provided with directions and a map from google to where there wedding is located at, and at the very bottom is a little illustration like at the top saying thank you for visiting rich andkacie.com

I found this site to be very well designed, the color palette to be nice and work well with the whole page I found nothing in the color palette that caused things to be hard t read or anything. The navigation was easy and took you to where you needed to go. I really liked how they did their gift registry, the bridesmaids/grooms mens info and how they had a section of photos of just the two of the. I honestly didn’t find anything with this site that I would want to change or was weary of except for maybe in some areas like the directions, hotel accommodation or the About them section the font could be a bit bigger for people to see better.

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Fiesta Italiana

February 26, 2013 at 6:24 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

When I first looked at the one page website Fiesta Italiana it looks fun and playful. I feel they designer did a good job structuring the website. They separated what was important and did not make it all confusing to navigate. It was east to find out what to click right when you got to the homepage because it jumps right out at you showing emphasis that you should click this button. Giving it a playful structure for even a kid to understand that is what u need to click. I like the navigation bar because it makes it easier to get to pages but they also leave to option for you to scroll up/down. Also you can decipher what information is important because the bold it out,and make it the header, or sub heads. Also they have a good navigation bar that follows you throughout the site to take you back to the homepage. The only thing that I would say is a little weary is the Habitat for humanity link because unless you go over it you cant really tell its a link because the colors of the text. They also have good amount of white-space usage on this website. The footer of the webpage leads to the company and shows their portfolio and other stuff.

I think the color on the first page is a real attention grabber because its yellow and its a warm color that attracts our eyes. It also gives off good vibe like your happy to see this site, but only thing i have to say is looking at to for a little to long makes it a little overpowering on the eyes. But i don’t believe the color overtakes the image. Right when i looks at the color of blue it gives you a calming feeling and make you fell that the content on this page it easy to understand and will not take to long to understand. In there entertainment page you could tell that this business is still at a growing level with the color they choose as green. I think they choose a lot of simply colors because this is for a child and a parent to go on and it makes it visually pleasing for the kid and easy to navigate for the parent. Also a lot of the illustrations are more child like drawings so i have the feeling even if the parent wasn’t with the child its still makes it east for the kids to use.

I have to say with their texture is very simple and repetitive but changes color from page to page. They make the shapes very horizontally lined, and flows to each page nicely. The shape of the diamond is geometric and is nice. I think the webpage could have done fine without the shapes but the shapes give it more value and appeal to the viewer. In the end i think this website works pretty well but has a few things it need to work on like the links to make them show out more on a few pages. Though overall it has a nice feel to it.

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Monthly Review Number 2

February 26, 2013 at 5:59 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

The one page website that I visited was extremely creative.  It was made to help promote this guy’s business.  It was creative in that it didn’t scroll up/down or from side to side, it scrolled with the page.  The background looked like a crinkled up piece of paper with a line scribbled on it.  The page followed the line going down, across, in a circle, etc.  It was very easy to navigate and it inspired me to do a site similar to it in design.

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Monthly Review Topic #2

February 26, 2013 at 1:10 pm · Filed under Monthly Review, Spring 2013 b

The single page website that I choose from onepagelove.com was IanJamesCox.com. The color of this page is a simple black and white concept, with appropriate color schemes at each stop to match the work of all the different websites he has done. What really drew me to this site was the texture of the background. To put it simply, the background is a wrinkled up piece of paper, and it really gives the viewer a feeling of looking at a piece of paper instead of a computer screen.
The tricky, yet unique thing about this website is the use scrolling it has. While you travel in all kinds of different directions when navigating, once you get used to it, it works like any other site. If you scroll downwards then you move forwards to the end on the page, and if you scroll upwards you scroll to the beginning of the page. You can also scroll left and right, with the right functioning as scrolling down, and vise versa for the left. For those who don’t want to scroll, there is a navigation key in the upper left hand corner that has links to every part of the page.
I think that the simple idea of following a line is a fun and creative way for users to navigate through the site. Everything is clear, eligible, and easily understood which makes for an effective website.

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