Thursday, September 24, 2009

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. 




Monday, September 14, 2009

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/

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Our First Post

This is our first Advanced Web Design post.