Good Design
Design features:
Text:
The qualities of the text used in the good websites examples were both sans-serif typefaces that were sized appropriately to the site based upon a hierarchy. The font family for the HutchHouse website is Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif. The blkmtnstudio website is a flashed based website and uses a sans-serif light for text and navigation and this sets apart the website logo that is a sans-serif bold.
Navigation:
Navigation on both sites is very straight forward. The blkmtnstudio website is easier to navigate on the top level since it has fewer upper level choices and contains large amounts of negative space. However once inside the lower level portfolio section you have a navigation system that is based on how the user moves the mouse to scroll that page. This is a bit confusing at first and takes a few seconds to get used to.
The HutchHouse website has very standard navigation cues throughout the site and makes it easy to move around.
Links:
The thing that makes the HutchHouse website’s links successful is that they just include a small amount of project information with the image and give the user the option to get more in-depth if they should choose to rather than cramming all the information into one place.
The blkmtnstudio website’s links are kept to a minimum at the higher level and this gives the website a clean and airy feel.
Graphics:
The HutchHouse website uses graphics that is consistent with its identity and is all vector imagery.
The blkmtnstudio website uses a well balanced combination of vector and raster imagery and does a good job of not letting the raster images overpower the vector images.
General Design: Summarize the aspects of the overall design that make a website successful.
What I like most about the HutchHouse website is that it allows you to choose from four different theme variations for its website. This instantly game a sense of connection in that I could customize how I wanted to view the website based upon my preferences.
What I like most about the blkmtnstudio website is how light and clean the website looks. It gives a sense of well thought out design for the whole site.
Note:
The purpose for both these websites was easy to determine. The HutchHouse website wants to work with you to design a website. The blkmtnstudio website wants to display previous work they have done in order to gain future work.
Mediocre Design
Design features:
Text: Summarize the qualities of the use of type that make a website unsuccessful.
The Aurum3 website uses the "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif font family and is legible but the sizing between the headers and the body copy is dramatically different and makes the body copy seen undersized.
Navigation:
The navigation on the header is very small and the color change on the mouse rollover is very slight and almost nonexistent.
Links:
Links, when located, work fine but are very similar in color to the call to action in the header which is not a link.
Graphics:
The Aurum3 website uses a combination of vector and raster images but is primarily vector. The thumbnails within the featured work section on the homepage and the work page are not aligned.
General Design:
The overall design of the Aurum3 website is, in my opinion, mediocre. The sidebar is too wide and has way too much information to digest. There are alignment issues in the featured work selections on the home page as well as within the work page. The footer image is very large and a distraction if you scroll that far on the page.
Note:
The purpose for the Aurum3 website was a little bit more difficult to determine without them calling out what they do in their call to action banner. Without this “spelling it out for you” this website looks like any other website.
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