Week 3 Part A - Aesthetics, Design, and Branding

  Blog Week 3 Post 1

Gatesnfences:

The first noticeable and annoying thing I noticed about this website are the colors. The colors that have been chosen, especially for the text, do not go well together at all. They seem almost randomly chosen and do not lend to the website looking professional or easy on the eyes. Starting at the top the green background with white text is hard to read and looks unprofessional. The main text in the body of the page is white with a light grey background, this text is very hard to read and keep track of, it almost seems blurry and seems very unprofessional and terribly chosen. The third problem is the formatting of the page which is unconventional and is not very practical. The images are placed in strange locations, as well as the search bar, the large paragraphs which do not have any headings and the bar on the left that is not nested and the sections are not intuitively placed. The website does not seem to be designed with the user in mind, it seems like they tried to mush everything onto the front page while doing as little work as possible. The first thing that could be improved would be to change up the colors of the texts, make the colors more contrasting and give the colors a theme as they seem random. Secondly the webpage could have text and headings that are more professional rather than large paragraphs without headings and pictures that seem randomly placed. Each paragraph should have a heading that is in a larger and different font, to make them easier to distinguish. 

Roverp6cars:

The first potential problem I see on this page is that it is very condensed with a ton of information right up front, it is almost information overload. There are tons of pictures and tons of different links all with the same picture of a car. Secondly, the colors do not mesh well together and also seem to be picked at random, it is like a rainbow of colors with boxes and links, images, headings, text, and much more all mashed together on the first page. The text is in many different sizes, strange locations, many different colors and more.  Third, the page is very large and there seems to be no hierarchy of things as all the different boxes seem to be placed randomly with no organization whatsoever. It seems to have some design in mind for the end user but not much effort for organization, theme, colors, fonts, etc seems to have been put into the website and it can use a lot of work. First, I feel that it should be redone with a set palette of colors in mind so that it goes together well. Then I think that the concept should be thought out in advance with a blueprint for the website in place, perhaps a blueprint based on a good website design. Also I feel that it should be re-organized and the boxes put into a professional, intuitive, and practical order and design. 

Apple:

The website is extremely well thought out and designed. The design is simple, the color palette is simple and easy on the eyes, and the links for where to go are placed at the top in intuitive sets such as store, mac, ipad, iphone, accessories, support, etc. This website is definitely designed with the user in mind, they know that a user visiting the site will most likely have an idea of where they want to go in mind and the most intuitive links are placed in plain sight at the top without anything extra. At the bottom there are even more links in case the links are the top don't contain what the user is looking for, anything that any visitor could possibly want from apple is placed either at the top or bottom in a simple and well designed manner. My reaction to this website reminds me of Apple products themselves. They have a simple design with everything that most individuals want upfront, in an extremely thoroughly thought out manner. 

Toyota:

Toyotas website has a design that is simple, easy on the eyes, practical, conventional, and user-oriented. The front page has a color palette that is simple and easy on the eyes. The design is well thought out without too much to detract from what the vast majority of users want while using the website. There are only a couple links with a few more nested links under them: Vehicles, shopping tools, local specials. There is a box with a short clip of cars driving, under that are the newest cars with prices, and under that are simple links for: Build and price, search inventory, local specials, and find a dealer. At the bottom are all the links for what anybody could possibly want or need to go to. They have thought out what the average user will come to the website for and design it with the users- eye in mind. Buying cars, dealers, searching for specific vehicles, new innovations and more. My reaction to this website makes me want to explore it rather than a website with a whole bunch of stuff jam packed onto the front page that causes an aversive reaction and is extremely uncomfortable on the eyes. 

Final Thoughts: 

What I learned is that simple, mute colors work the best for websites. Most of the time a website does not need to have a wide variety and rainbow of colors which just makes it aversive and more difficult  to navigate. When designing a website, the designer should think of the top 3-5 things that most users want when coming to the website and then have a few more nested links under those things. A simple and practical design on a website seems much more professional while mismatched colors, randomly placed boxes, information that is all over the place, and a ton of links everywhere is very unprofessional and almost insulting to the customer as it would take much less time to create a homepage that is more simple in design with far fewer colors, links, and more. The designer must think of a website from the point of view of the customer and should not be excessive with their colors, links, information, images, and more, or else it seems unprofessional, is hard to read, hard to navigate, and pushes people away. 

Who's Posts I commented on:

Tawny Bernard, Nicole Lozano. The others haven't posted.