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.