Well designed sites:
| www.jeffreywelk.com | it is very clean, and simple to use, as well as highly
stylized. All of the content is available on one page, which is something I find to be nice, as it eliminates the ability to get lost or forget where you found something. |
| www.myspace.com | site that I found to be very well designed and also one of my favorite sites is www.myspace.com. Besides being one of the most popular online community sites in the world, I also think that the layout was very well thought out. Being a free site one might expect it to be overwhelming filled with ads and pop ups, but they are actually very limited and don't get in the way. The menu on the top of the screen lets you navigate very easily with just a few button clicks. In addition, the home page gives you alot of information in regards to your personal profile, including page views, new notes, comments, and friend requests. |
| www.yahoo.com/ | This website is very easy to get around there is a main search bar at the
top and then from there it takes you to where you request to go. The site is very easy on the eyes with pretty calm colors. There are many aspects the site other then just searching for other sites you can get directions, phone numbers, or even set up and email through the site. Very complex and professional site and well put together. |
| www.break.com | There are a few reasons one it is easy to get places and wit in a few clicks you have been throw the hole site. Second the information is easy to read. Last sense it is a site for pictures and videos they have the information for older people in a different spot on the page. |
| www.amazon.com | One of my favorite examples of a "great" website is Amazon.com. It is a very simple colored website with fonts that are easy to read. There is a great number of things you can view and buy on Amazon.com, however, they are all very easy to find. No clutter here or unclear acronyms. One minor problem I did find was that Amazon.com is does not validate with W3C for XHTML or CSS. Hmm... |
| www.gotfrag.com | After reading the web style guide I went to evalute some websites. The best developed website I found was http://www.gotfrag.com. The site meets the needs of all the users who visit it. It has a very advanced interface design yet simple navigation. There is a lot of information chunks on the website for easier viewing. All the links on the site work and the demisions of the page are perfect for all resolutions. They provide pictures and files. |
| www.weather.com | is a perfect site to compare to toddgross.com. Weather.com has a short, easy to use landing page which allows the user to enter their zip code and find out their local weather with ease. It also has a easy to use naviagation bar and doesnt present all its material in one page, it does however link eaisly to anything you could want to see. This includes links back to the homepage on each page. One aspectof weather.com that is somewhat distracting is the advertising but it is miminal compared to many other sites and is a small price to pay for a much more funtional website. |
| fortminor.com/ | Right from the beginning, the landing page shows a picture of the lead singer and the name of the band with a user's choice to enter the site using HTML page or a Flash Page. The article discussed a consistent balance in websites in regards to the audience's ability to navigate, making the landing page the perfect start for multi-system users. Some people may not be able to read the flash page because of the system or network they are using. But if you enter the Flash page, you will see some animation when your mouse rolls over the page. One of the goals according to Web Style Guide is " What do you want the audience to think, or do after visiting the site." This animation made me feel very interactive with the site and locating things became more appealing, essentially keeping me on the site for a long amount of time. Another great feature is the links on the page. They are placed almost directly in the center, right on top of each other, and in proximity to the text directly to the right side of them. This proximity makes it easier for navigation because after the link is clicked, the text appears right next to the links. The IMC's basic web page layout and design site discusses proximity being a key factor in a well planned site "by having a stronger relationship than elements that farther apart." Finally, while browsing on the site, the group's music is playing for your entertainment while viewing the different pages of the site. It offers a display that shows the song playing as well as a pause, stop, and play link in case you would rather brows quietly. |
| ivillage.com | The colors and graphics on the landing pages and each site page are very pleasing to my senses. It is obvious when I’m taken to another web site or if I’m still on ivillage. It is easy to get back to the home page or go to other menu selections from each of the other pages. It has been very well thought out and pulled together. Advertisements seem to blend right in so they don’t feel so overwhelming. Although there are some advertisements that move out to the screen during a time when reading an article and that can be very annoying. On the plus side to those, they aren’t obnoxious with flash or loud noises and they can be closed very easily. The content of the web site is what attracted me to it because it is a site specifically designed for women. Over the years they have entirely reconstructed the site only once and the result is what you see now. The original site was actually better because it was simpler, but not as colorful. |
| jaguars.com/ | This site follows all the standards of good web design, with good spacing and use of strong grouping. All of the information is easily accessible and the links are easy to navigate. |
| blogger.com/start | This first link is a page to Blogger.com which I think is a well designed page. There isn't too much going on on the page and the text isn't too small. There are icons that aid in finding what you may be looking for. Also there are step by step instructions on the home page on how to set up your blog, which is the main reason this site is online. |
| pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/ | This was a good website. All of the content fit onto one page, you did not have to scroll. There were no ads or other clutter. The pictures were small and appropriate to the content of the site. |
| gamefaqs.com | This is a website for video games which will give you guides and hints for nearly every game ever made. The homepage is inviting and the site in general is easy to navigate. It has a top10 on the homepage in case you are looking for one of the most popular titles available. |
| www.arstechnica.com | The purpose of the site is a tech news page covering mostly computer related topics. The layout is simple and it very quickly gives the visitor an idea of the content. There is a simple menu bar at the top of the page, and frames breaking up the main page. The ads do not interfere with browsing and the colors and readability are excellent. |
| illwillpress.com/ | This site is about a cartoon Squirrel named Foamy, who seems to have an opinion about everything. This Is very clear in his cartoons. This is a good page for a number of Reasons. -the viewer is able to read and understand the website’s text and Background (there are no unfriendly color contrasts) -the main webpage get’s the viewer’s attention -the viewer is able to understand which link to go to in order to get What they want -the webpage is constantly updated -each link is active -there aren’t too many advertisements to scare the viewer away -it is apparent that the audience should be young adults most likely in College (there is also a parental advisory giving warning of it’s Material) -its fun |
| www.igc.com |
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| www.gmc.com/ | Good Web Site: site http://www.gmc.com/ this web site page is done very well. There is a little bit of flash and nothing that hard to read or gets into the way. All the links are well organzied and the site is very user friendly and easy to read. |
| www.sunysccc.edu | There is a link for academics on the homepage and it will take you a page that has course schedules and it basically does what it says. |
Web sites that are not well designed:
| www.espn.go.com | This site is VERY busy, and not easy to navigate. Some pages have links that are only available on those pages, making it difficult to remember where things were. It is also a page that requires several clicks to get to most locations, which is something that I do not enjoy when trying to access information. |
| www.simplemp3s.com | The site allows users to download albums free of charge. Honestly the layout of the page isn't terrible, but almost every time you click a link there are numerous pop up ads and it gets very annoying. If you don't have pop up blockers or a program to track spyware than trying to download from this site can be a nightmare. In addition to that problem, there are alot of dead links and way to many unnecessary links. |
| www.worldwindsurf.com | This website seems to be very poorly constructed the choice of colors was not good with a black background and then yellow writing that is hard to look at. Most of the links are ok but ones you start to get to far from the original page sometimes they don’t work. It is a cool site and the idea behind the site is pretty sweet being a person who has windsurfed and been interesting in kite surfing but this site would be to hard to look at for to long and could use some improvements. |
| albany.edu/ | the only thing that I don’t really like about it is there should be one sign in if you are a student. Once you sign in u should be able to go to web ct, web mail, my Albany with out having to sign in to them all time after time. |
| www.apple.com/itunes/ | One poor (but great looking website) that I found was Apple's Ipod + Itunes website. The webiste looks great with pretty pictures, but thats all it is; Pictures! The only text I found on the main page was the disclaimer on the bottom. The page is over 275,000 bytes which is fairly large for a main page and especially people that do not have broadband service. Also there were atleast 4 errors found when submited to see if it is a HMTL 4.01 Transitional. |
| /www.easynews.com/ |
I also found a terrible website, http://www.easynews.com/ It is a basic website with no perks, nothing that boggles the eyes. It's fonttype is too plain. |
| www.toddgross.com/ | is site by a northeastern weather man which provides weather information to viewers. Toddgross.com display so many pictures on it homepage that users on a dial up or slow lan connection should not even bother visiting. There is no need to have such a large landing page, the lading page should tell users what the site is about, give them some basic options and provide links to more detail information. Also, every picture loads in a pop up window. So if a user wants to view a picture in closer detail they have to enable popups on their broswers to do so, very annoying. I also hate the page navigation, a side or top navigation bar would make this page much more usable. |
| www.jesus-is-savior.com/ | I dont know how I came across this website but as soon as I saw it, I knew it was horrible. The IMC's reading suggests alignment of text to be a critical part of well structured webpages. This site however, doesn't have aligned text. The links, pictures, and font sizes are completely mismatched and varied in a poor style. Also, the links are scattered all around the website and not consistently arranged in a proper way. Finally, the text presentation in my opinion is the worst part of the website. Across the entire page, the fonts vary in numerous sizes and styles, making the information very hard to read as discussed in the reading. The large font is hard to read because you can only read one or two words at a time and the small font might not even be readable on various computer screens. |
| www.raysupply.com |
My husband works at Ray Supply and told me that their site is only for commercial contractors. That is not obvious at all on the home page and there is no statement about it until the user clicks on the “How to order” button. There is too much information about Ray Supply on the landing page. Another thing that stands out is the use of various trademarks of companies that Ray Supply distributes products for. There could be some copyright issues with the use of them or at least I would think there should be issues. Plus, I believed that when I clicked on any of the trademark links that I would go to that company’s web site, but was brought to another Ray Supply page with more detailed information about what products can be purchased. There is no way to return to the home page without paging back or starting over. It seems like each page is free standing, which I find frustrating and confusing. My husband has also told me that his department (Photo) receives a lot of callers wanting to order items listed and they get very upset when they find out these items are only for commercial sales. No other departments of this retail store are represented on the web page, which seems like a huge waste of money |
| These are examples of bad web designs. Bright & neon colors make the page very hard to read and focus, on the second link the background is making the page ugly and hard to read the text. | |
| www.2atoms.com | This site clearly displays bad web design. The colorful background and light text on the background with a mix of many different colors. the text is too hard to read and the site will make most people click out right away |
| shopping.aol.com | This Next link is a link to AOL shopping. This page is very poorly designed in my opinion. There is way too much going on on the page. Way too many links and different options to choose from. The colors on this page make it more bareable to look at and navigate though. |
| www.cuttax.info/ | This site had way too many ads. All of the links brought you to Google searches. There was almost no useful content to be found. |
| WorldofWarcraft.com | The site is cluttered with a LOT of links. The site is often down and it takes forever to load. To get to any information you are looking for you need to click 5 or 6 times. |
| Myspace.com | Myspace.com is in my opinion some of the worst the web has to offer. At first glance you can't even comprehend what the purpose is because there is simply too much. About half of the front page is filled with flash ads blinking and changing images. The supposed main purpose of the site is to connect with friends and create an online profile for others to view, but you wouldn't even know that right away, it looks to be more like a search engine. In reality, I'd like to say that the real purpose is gathering info on the users for marketing purposes. |
| tattoos.com/ | Tattoos.com is the webpage I chose just because there is too much going on for me to understand anything. -too many bright pictures flashing at you -hard to read the text because it is so small -it took me some time to find the search button because it clashed with the background -I have to click a large number of times in order to get the like to activate -my guess is that the audience of the site are for people who like tattoos but not necessarily computer literate because I’m having trouble with this link and I know what I’m doing. |
| www.yeah.com/ |
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| www.hvcc.edu | In the past i was trying to find a class at Hudson Valley Community College that was about Flash or other web-programming languages. I had the hardest time finding a class. Eventually I did find the class but I know I cant do it again. I decided to try finding another class for this assignment from the websites of Schenectady Community College and Hudson Valley Community College. I also made sure it was a course that both institutions offered such as a 100 level Spanish class.
This link will take you to the course schedules section of Hudson Valley's website; You would think you can easily click on the particular schedule that you would like and have no problem looking at all of the classes but unfortunately you're only half way there. Also, before you try this for yourself. I suggest you try getting here from the campus homepage. www.hvcc.edu I tried looking for a 100 level spanish class again on the website for Schenectady County Community college and it was pretty straight forward. |
| www.Ryanair.com | I was browsing through the net trying to find a truly bad page and I definitely found one. The page is http://www.Ryanair.com. The purpose of the page is to provide clients with cheap flight tickets although you have to scan for a minute to figure this out. This page looks like it was designed by a 4 year old that only has 4 crayons left. The layout of the page is very unorganized with advertisements taking up a third of the space. The contrast on this page is terrible and it hurts the eyes if you look at it too long. It has so-so alignment and proximity. It also has decent navigation but it uses flash where it isn’t necessary so it loads slowly. This page is awful and the color scheme is blinding. |