stumbleupon.com

This site is a good site to use to pass time. I like to use it to find interesting sites. When you arrive at the homepage you select the categories that interest you. Once you enter an outside webpage is shown within stumbleupon. There is a button that says stumble upon, when you first get here the site tells you to press it to go to another page, which it does. The menu bar gives you options to share these pages. You can post on twitter and facebook as well. I tried to post an interesting page on facebook but it wouldn't load, so I gave up and posted it an alternate way. Also there is a drop down menu that gives you categories again. So if you decide you just want to view pages dedicated to animals you have that option. There is a sharethis menu to the right which is somewhat in the way because it stays in front of the categories menu. This annoying feature can be closed though. You can sign up or just browse. Its organized neat enough so I don't feel overwhelmed. There seems to be a lot of things to do on the site, and probably a lot of things I am not aware of. I feel that it is the type of site you figure out as you go with help from little reminders and suggestions such as an arrow pointing to the like button, asking you if you like the page it found or not. 

vans.com

The mainpage of vans.com firsts asks you to chose your region, like so many sites do nowadays. It has the outlined silloettes of the continents which has been done so many times before which is unoriginal now but is effective because its been done before. The site itself uses my favorite color combo of black red and white so to me it is attractive. The layout is pretty basic with menu bars on the top banner. The links change color as you scroll over them which is always nice so you know that its clickable. Its an easily navigatable site yet a bit boring. Some of the links open in separate browsers such as the store which is good because the layout is slightly different. One thing I like about this site is the custom shoe section. You chose the style of shoe and you have the options of what colors each section will be. As you chose these options it is displayed for you on a virtual sneaker.

webmd symptom checker

http://symptoms.webmd.com/symptomchecker

WebMD Symptom Checker is a unique tool that helps you diagnose physical ailments. You chose your sex and age and are brought to an image of a body. From here you would select the area of your body that you are having pain from. For example if you are having back pain, you chose to view the back of the model and click on the back, it zooms in so you can select the area of the back that is causing you pain. From there you have a selection of symptoms to chose from. For example you could choose muscle spasms. From there it brings up possible diagnosis's. You can chose more symptoms if necessary. Each diagnosis that if possible can be clicked on. It gives a lists of all symptoms of the ailment as well as a synopsis of the condition. This is a pretty neat and useful tool.

jackdaniels.com

The main sign in page to jackdaniels.com I found visually appealing. I liked how the bottle of jack in the background was cropped. The image is interesting yet It doesn't draw your attention away from the drop down boxes you need to select from in order the proceed to the site.  The instructions are readable and tell you exactly what to do such as chose country, enter birthdate, enter (which is a large orange button). After filling out the info you are brought to the homepage which is designed appropriately. It is classy and old fashioned and appropriate for men and women but geared more towards men. This site has a lot of information from the history of Tennessee whiskey and jack Daniel's, stories, events and even recipes. All this information can be accessed through the homepage. The top menu drops down taking over the remainder of the page. Each column is highlighted as you scroll over it. Also the specific links are highlighted as well. I feel jackdaniels.com has found an effective way to show everything a site has to offer in a neat, organized and easy to read way.

moma.org

The opening sequence to moma.org was pretty cool but I was upset it changed because I wanted to look at it more. This site has the logo and menu bar on the bottom of the page which is different but it still works. It takes a bit to figure out were it is. The home page scrolls up and down while the menu remains stationary. The menu options all have pop up boxes which have other options. Each page is made up of boxes of images that you can select. It is actually kind of boring. I kinda don't even want to look through it. If you are looking for info on hours and prices it is pretty easy to find the info you need. If you select visit and then plan your visit it gives you hours for the week. You can select the admissions and ticketing options and where the hours were the pricing appears so you don't get sent to a separate page. The site is easy to navigate but is boring to look at.

Dumb.com

Dumb.com isn't the most visual appealing sites but it has a lot of links to silly websites with games and silly things to pass time such as virtual bubblewrap. The logo is nice and I like grey and red together. The site has those silly NEW flashing animations that are cheesy and annoying. It is however easy to navigate. It has a top menu with the most popular categories that you would use to browse the site. On the left there is a menu that features stats that has selectable menu options with the number of how many videos, images, etc that are in that catagory. There is a list that reads our friends which doesn't make sense to me because the options under it are videos, games, pictures and many other menu options that are featured in other areas. There is also a newly added menu, which I like because if you are a frequent visitor to this site you don't have to search through things you've seen before. Maybe this menu should be more towards the top though. I played the punch Kanye game and while entertaining I had to figure out on my own how to punch him. The game opened in a new window which I feel is an important feature to this site because of the numerous links. I checked out the quote link which was pretty cool because it list a bunch of words so when you click on the word it pulls up a list of famous quotes relating to that word. This site has the potential to steal away hours of time, but in a good, I'm bored type of way.

drmartins.com

drmartins.com is an easy site to navigate that is well organized but not boring. They stick to the classic Dr Martins color sceme of black, white and yellow. The image in the center of the screen displays the product so the viewer knows the site is for boots. The logo appears in the upper left corner which is the typical placement for logos on websites. Its clear where you can type in what you want to search for. The email list sign in could be confusing because it says sign up for updates but it doesn't say to enter email. It may be common sense but some people (including myself) lack it. The top banner has menu options and some have drop down boxes. Next to these options you can choose your region. They are displayed as the silhouettes of the country and the one that is selected is indicated by being highlighted by yellow. I found this as a unique feature of the page. When browsing products you can narrow your search by category, stories (I don't know what that means), collection, colour and keyword. The images of the products are larger enough to be viewed clearly but small enough to fit numerous items on one page. When you click the item for a better view it shows and enlarged version. To the left there are smaller pictures with the the color options, you scroll over them and the large image changes to that color. I like this feature because you don't have to click on the color you want to view and wait for it to load. If you click on BUY ONLINE it opens a new window entering the store which is a separate website but has the same design set up so you know you are in the same company.

adidas.com

adidias.com has come up with a creative and visually appealing way to have a lot of information on a home page with out being overwhelmed with type. When you first enter the site a group of labeled boxes come up then they turn into images which indicates that these images are clickable and will take you to another area. When you scroll over each image a menu pops up giving you options as to where you'd like to go. There are also logos on the top which have pulled down menus. The logos represent different areas of the adidas world. When you click on them a box appears and doesn't go away if you move your mouse away. Sometimes it can be frustrating navigating when a drop down box doesn't stay dropped down if you move you mouse slightly too far to the left or right. I like that when you scroll down on the menus the areas are highlighted in red. This makes it easy to tell where you can click. This is a well designed site.

zombieland.com

When you first look at this site, its visually appealing and is designed well. The menu on the left hand site is stationary and doesn't move as you scroll up and down which is kind of nice. The menu buttons that have sub categories have small red arrows pointing down to let you know you have move options below. The are visible yet subtle enough to not look out of place. The one thing that bothered me a lot is that when you press the button that says rules to survive zombieland it brings you to the youtube subscription of zombieland. I was disappointed I thought it would bring you to something fun and interactive or at least the list. Also when you click ABOUT you are directed to Wikipedia. It does give you information on the movie but it seemed a bit lazy to me. So all in all I got sick of the site fairly quickly.

IMDb.com

IMBd.com is a site I use often to answer those questions such as, why does that actor look so familiar or who was the guy in, whatever that movie was. I also used it once to prove that I was right in saying that Samuel L Jackson was in more movies than Steve Buscemi. I like the function of this site because you can find information by typing in an actors name or typing in a movie. It gives you information on all the movies or tv shows or guest appearances that the actor appeared in. As for searching movies, it gives you the cast and also trivia and memorable quotes. There is a lot of information on the home page so it can be overwhelming. However I feel its well organized and is easy to navigate. Links are underlined and the tabs look like tabs so there is no doubt what is active. The search box has a clear drop down menu and the logo is in the upper left which is usually standard on most sites. The logo is clickable to bring you home and it remains in that general area.

craigs list

craigs list is a visually boring website. Upon reaching the homepage I start having anxiety because I am bombarded with words. I feel like I am in middle school again looking at a list of words I need to know for an English final. There is no contrast and if you didn't move your mouse you wouldn't be able to tell which words are clickable and which words are not. There is no contrast and because of this I'm not too sure where to start. So I decided to go through the site and look for job opportunities. It's somewhat easy to navigate but there is something about this site that just turns me off. The site is well organized but I feel like some information should be boxed in because it gets a little hard to read one section apart from the rest. In defense of craigslist, it is an actual list and it is set up somewhat like classified ads in a newspaper which is probably something that some people may like because its a familiar format. I also like their logo because of its simplicity. 

pandora.com

Pandora.com is probably one of my favorite new sites. Its a free internet radio site. The design aspect pf it is very simple, using light blues and white, with simple typeface. Even though it is a music site, it is a site for all music, so keeping the design simple works for all genres and all music lovers. When you get to the homepage you do need to create an account. It simple to start an account. Its easy to navigate because the buttons read what they mean (i.e. your profile, about this music, create a New station). It also has little pop up tabs that give you suggestions, like did you know you can do yadayadayada. How the site works is you create a new station, then you are asked to type in the name of an artist or song. Then they play a song by that artist. Then songs by that artist and similar artists are played. If you like the song you can give it a thumbs up and more of that artists will be played.  There's also a thumbs down to do the opposite. Also each song that is played has a menu that gives you options  that you can choose starting that you are tired of it, to move it to another station, Information on why the song was selected, there's an option to bookmark it and an option to buy it, the buy option directs you to itunes or amazon, you can choose this. I am so happy this site was introduced to me. 

www.timburton.com

I went to Tim Burton's website because I've never been there before and decided to check it out because I love his work. The opening count for when the page is loading is pretty cool because they are illustrated numbers instead of your run of the mill count down. When the page initial loaded I saw the illustration of the ink guy and although it was visually appealing, I was a little concerned about how easy it would be to navigate. Within a few seconds a screen came up explaining a few ways to navigate the site. Which I thought was a good idea to do. 

I like his site because it is interactive and you use the character to walk from each area to the other. The Gallery he has is cute. It has his illustrations on the wall and you need to make the little guy walk through it like an actual gallery. This is a fun site. 

dillinger4.net

I feel this site can be improved greatly. The left hand menu can be condensed and is not in an appropriate order. The Home button should be on top. It bothers me that it isn't there. The background image is too dark and not a good option to put body copy on because it makes it difficult to read. http://dillinger4.net/D4_Home_Default.html

dummies.com

dummies.com is a pretty easy site to navigate which makes sense because they sell books designed to assist people in learning to do anything. The sections are clearly labeled and I like how they have a menu with each category making it easy to jump to an area or interest. I like how the search box says start exploring on top and has a clearly visible search button. Everything is easily read. However I do feel the home page is a bit cluttered so may be a bit overwhelming. I always find it challenging to design something when there is so much information.

http://www.dummies.com/

Our First Post

This is our first Advanced Web Design post.