Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Good v. Bad

This is the first of the assignments for the Designing for the World Wide Web. The assignment is to find two examples of good websites and two examples for poorly design websites.

Good.
The first of the two I picked for the good websites is an artist website. The reason that it is a well design website is due to amount of personality that is clear when a person logs in. The purpose of the website is to be a showcase of the work he does and a website should be another art piece that is a representation of the artist. Although there's not much flashing going on, the website feels intuitive. simple. The color schemes are used much in this artist work so it creates a unity of it all.
The second of the websites is Google. The engine is quite simple. It has a search bar and the option to search. Although it's quite empty looking (by empty I mean with ultra white space usage) it works. It's purpose is to be simple. direct. to the point. A search engine does not have to be flashy with ultra hi flash interaction. On the contrary, it would be distractive and more of an eye candy than a highly functional site that google is.

Although the sites I selected seem rather simple, they are good designed website. It's easy to navigate, satisfy their target audience, and maintain a sense of unity and reinforces their purpose.

Bad.
The first of the poorly websites that flood the web is from a political candidate. Although the political views of everyone are to be respected and are varied, the website of the candidate is very poorly made. It's over-the-top American patriotic color schematic, the bad selection of typography, and the manner of the layout give the audience the sense of lack of seriousness. What I mean is that the viewer may take it's gaudy appearance as not serious enough for a political candidate. A politician is to show his stance and maintain a dignifying presence; though the website gives it an amateur look. A very bad choice of website.
The second option I picked was the popular dating site. The amount of traffic that the site possess is high enough to make people visit it quite often. At first glance, the website serves it's primary purpose but the manner that it appears dims the site. The appearance gives the web viewer a sense of not modern enough. An outdated site. This outdated view is all around the website which does not help the navigator as quickly as it could be. Although the primary audience is loyal, the design of the website could have been improve to facilitate more overall.

Although there are probably far worse websites done, these are the ones I have seen so far.

Links.
http://www.aicatch.com/
http://www.google.com/
http://www.georgehutchins.com/
http://www.plentyoffish.com/