I have chosen to use the website  maidstonedrivinglessons.com to review and critique.  This one page site appealed to me for a critique due to its similarities to the one page site I am designing.  The maidstone driving lesson site or, as it is named on the page itself, the Ladybird School of Motoring, is a one pager that revolves around the movement of a car.  As my social cause is the dangers of texting and driving, I explored the functionality of this site.

The strength of this site is its strong use of color and texture. Interesting and somewhat vibrant colors are used, yet they still seem realistic the purpose of creating a car driving down a road.  The city background with multiple vibrant colors is a little bit funky, but still comes off aesthetically pleasing. The white text, overtop the dark grey speech bubble, is also quite effective.  The shadowing used throughout the entire site design is effective and adds to its overall aesthetic appeal.  I found the texture of the Ladybird School of Motoring to be just as well done as its color.  The texture of the grass, road, and sidewalk all work well.  My favorite use of texture on this page is that of the background buildings.  The small size of the windows on said buildings creates a pleasing grey texture.

Navigating through maidstonedrivinglessons.com is kind of a nightmare.  When arriving on the site, there is no direction or clue as to how to navigate through the sites content. One can assume that the red car is going to drive down the road, taking the user to other pieces of content on the page. But, how does the user navigate said car?  I for one, thought scrolling from left to right would be the solution.  That was not the case.  Eventually after some clicking around I found (in small text on the upper right corner of the page, nowhere near the main content) the navigation system.  One must click on a word such as “Home” or “About Me” and off the car goes to that destination with a speech bubble and further information on that topic.  On top of being hard to find, these navigation words are not always functional, and even when they are, they are difficult to click.  Also, the little red car is ahead of the point you click to take it to, it speeds off in reverse, looking quite unrealistic.  All of these negative points add up to a mess of a navigational system.

There are a few design elements that make this site easy to scan, read, and understand.  The use of the red car is the obvious element.  Following the car through the navigation makes it easy and clear to see that the main focus will on it.  Another design element that I found useful was the use of speech bubbles.  The dark bubbles with the white text really contrast the rest of the page and make it easy to focus directly on them.

As a designer, I really want to state that this site is well done, as it is nice to look at.  Unfortunately, due to a very poor navigational system, I must say that this site is poorly done.  There are too many issues in trying to navigate through this sites content.  For a simple one page site like this, I want simple, easy, fun navigation.  Contrary to the initial appeal, this page is not simple, easy, or fun at all.