Website Design Reviews

Rei Do Gado

admin — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:09:25 +0000

www.reidogado.net is the web site for a steak house out in San Diego, CA called Rei Do Gado Brazilian Steak House. The website is used to explain the steak house’s theme and origins, give a list of the different kinds of meat they use in their meals (17 different kinds!), display their menu, and more.

The site itself uses a combination of Flash and HTML. Flash implementation is used for the navigation buttons and the underlying image/slide show. Rolling over the Flash buttons brings a fork driving down into the button providing for a unique presentation. While reviewing this site I found myself going back to the site to simply run the cursor across the buttons just to see the flurry of forks come down (strange, I know, but give it a try you won’t regret it). The images in the slideshow under the navigation buttons give a thorough look at various aspects of the steak house. You see the interior of the restaurant, the entrees, the unique serving method of their meat, etc. The slideshow acts as a simple tour of their establishment giving you a taste of what to expect from your dining experience there.

The overall layout of the site is clean and easy to read through. The color scheme used is equally clean. There are no colors offensives to the eye, nothing too vibrant or jumping of the screen at you. Just simple, dark colors that relax the eye. While plenty of websites have a color scheme that could compete with the sun for a blindness olympiad, this one keeps things simple and almost monochromatic. There is a nice contrast between the backgrounds and the content. The user’s eye is first drawn to the slideshow, enticing them to dive deeper into the web site, and then slowly pulled downward to the body text area. A simple concept of design but one that is often implemented poorly.

Design elements are taken from the restaurant and menu items. The background is made to appear as a table cloth and the content area appears as if it were a menu (sort of an imaginative leap to see it but its there). Absolutely everything used to style the web site is taken from the restaurant. The only way to take this concept further would be to have the entire site be built into a page turning user interface, making the entire site into an interactive menu. The text is nicely laid out and is easy to read. Resizing the text does not cause the design to fall apart so that is a plus for any user with a higher default font setting than normal.

I do have a few small problems with the site. Well, not really problems, just nitpicking and wishing really. So much effort was put into the forks coming down when a button is rolled over so because of that I would love to see some sort of Flash solution to the body copy. Either have a page turn effect like I mentioned earlier or perhaps have the text fall down from the area that the slideshow is in. Also, I would like the site to have some music playing, perhaps something from the restaurant or music native to the roots of the culture behind the restaurant. To me, the music would complete the user’s experience on the web site.

To sum it all up, www.reidogado.net is a terrific website. Interesting navigation, clean layout, thoughtful graphics, and mouth watering food. I would love to see any future revision of this web site, hopefully using elements similar to the ones I mentioned wanting to see.

Presentation Junkie

admin — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 15:37:54 +0000

www.presentationjunkie.com provides presentation creation services using everything from PowerPoint to Flash. They provide various design services as well. They not only provide a service to potential clients, they also help inform viewers of their website about different advancements in their particular industry. The web site is still young (launched in June of this year) so their blog and FAQ section don’t really provide much information right now. From the way they appear to handle their web site I’m sure that when they gets things running smoothly. www.presentationjunkie.com will be a valuable resource for people looking to have a presentation made or learn about presentation in general on their own.

The look of the site is governed solely by CSS. That’s right, pure beautiful CSS, meaning it’s standards compliant and therefore a good example of standards based web design for anyone looking to become a web designer. Looking at the web site as a web designer big on CSS design, I’m most impressed by the style sheet used on the web site. Different styles pertaining to different parts of the web site are sectioned off with comments telling anyone viewing it what each block of styles affects. The HTML is written in the same manner, using comments to show what each part of the code affects. This is one web site I would show to anyone interested in learning web design because the designer took the time to mark off what his/her code does.

t first glance the web site looks kind of small sitting in its little container on the homepage. But then once you go to different sections, it blossoms and expands filling with information. The web site sports a little bit of a web 2.0 look and does so successfully. I love the use of rounded corners all throughout the site.

The layout is very traditional and safe but it works. Users with smaller monitors won’t have to do much scroll¬ing around to find what they’re looking for at all. The navigation is easy to find and pages are easy to read through. The text size is comfortable throughout the site and the font is clean and very readable. The only problem with the site’s text content is that when a user manually resizes the text the design falls apart slightly. It would be perfect if more consideration was put into the text resizing.

One part of the site I feel is particularly noteworthy is the FAQ page. The way the information is presented is beautiful! Questions are shown in long buttons and pressing them reveals the answer. It’s a clever way of fitting a lot of info into a small space and ensuring that the user doesn’t have to wade through useless information just to get to what he/she wants.

This site is fantastic on several levels. Great service, attractive design, and intuitive content handling with the FAQ. The site would be perfect if it weren’t for that one flaw of the design breaking when text is resized but other than that www.presentationjunkie.com is one site that is worth your time to visit.

San Isidro Properties

admin — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 12:34:46 +0000

sanisidroproperties.com is a real estate website offering its services to people living in, or hoping to live in, San Isidro and has been of service to several customers since 1991. Along with their impressive service and customer satisfaction comes a website with a good appearance.

The site has a nice simple layout. Nothing is more complicated than it has to be and that greatly helps the visitor’s experience. It makes use of a traditional 2 column fixed width layout and does so with a clean, organized approach. Navigation links are easily accessible so users don’t have to search for a way to get to a certain section, which is something that simply is not taken into account with several websites. The content of the website is presented in a nicely readable fashion, although users with impaired vision might have difficulty reading text with the small font size used.

The actual design of the site isn’t anything truly remarkable but, it’s one of the better looking real estate sites. The large header image does a lot towards making this site stand out: It’s a massive shot of exactly what the customer would be getting through sanisidroproperties.com. When someone visits this site the first thing they see is the beautiful scenery that they could potentially have for themselves. The scenery lends itself to the surrounding design elements as well. The blues and pinks used throughout the site all work together in harmony with the header image to provide a uniform design where not one element stands out from the others.

My only problem with the site is on the technical side: it uses a table based layout. While it is a simple method of web design, it is not the best and it slows down page loads slightly. However, the design of the site is simple enough so that the page loads aren’t unbearable. A complex layout would have taken quite some time to load but thankfully the simplicity saved sanisidroproperties.com.

All in all, this is a neat looking site. With a little work it could look and operate a little better but for what it is and what it is meant to do it’s more than fine.

FreeForums

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:03:22 +0000

www.freeforums.org offer a great service to those who are looking for a place to host their forum free of charge. With only few steps you will have your own forum ready to roll on.

Beside of their great service they have a nice eye catching graphic design. This site is about a free service so the webmaster did a good job to make sure that the visitor will not miss that point. They domain name is very clear and been used in a smart way in the header. The website name is burned in the visitor mind along with its message: we are dealing with forums and its free.

I like the choice of colors. The deep red/orange along with the semi silver effect give it an elegant look.

What I like the most is the way they use the font style. I believe that the font face and it’s size has a great effect on the user mind. Not many are giving the right attention to this aspect. On this website they actually built a virtual path, guiding the user attention just by playing with the fonts size and weight.

Another issue that need to be mentioned is the use of icons. If you would like to design a nice and a simple website but yet to keep it attractive - use icons. You will be surprised how few well designed icons can make the difference to the overall design. Here its a good example for using icons properly in order to enhance the attractiveness of the website design.

The only thing that I would change on this website is the phpBB logo . Well…. you can’t change it because its not actually yours so I cant really blame the web designer on this.

LogoBee

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:31:17 +0000

Logobee is a cool website. Its looks like a great place to get a professorial service if you need a custom made logo.

But I am here to talk about their website design not their service ( that I did not try anyway so far )

What can I say….. I like their design. Maybe it’s because of their elegant logo? Maybe it’s because of the choice of the colors? Great temperature, great contrast.

The layout direct you right to their logo. If they are selling logos then they should direct you to their logo. If you will like their logo you will consider them as the ones to design yours. How simple its sound, isn’t?

This is the art of design. To know how to attract the user attention to right place with the right message.

What I don’t like about this website is the height of the page. The fact that the homepage has a long scroll, to my opinion, it defects some from it elegancy. I am sure this website designer can find a way to take some of the information from the homepage to other internal pages. Except from my last comments nothing much to say about this great website. Good job guys!

BioSpherical

admin — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:36:56 +0000

I like this website design. Its clean, simple and sophisticated. This time it’s www.biospherical.net that did it in a very persuading way.
Not many are aware to the fact that in order to produce an attractive design with limited ingredients can be a very complex task. Most of the web users do not appreciate that fact. However, most of top visited websites do have a simple design. Don’t get me wrong, a simple design is not by using black and white colors. A simple design mostly refer to websites that are lack with heavy graphics elements. Websites with no heavy flash or any other elements that significantly slowdown the user browser.

Lets take a look at www.biospherical.net. Only two rule colors can be found at their website: black and kind of a navy green.
The header is great with the menu above it. The slopes make the top menu very unique, adding to the top header a special look. Although I like to see a specific navigation path for the user, with this design you don’t have one for sure. However, the design is fairly out of the box so the user find an interest while he is jumping from one element to another.

You probably noticed that on the home page you don’t see a lot of text. More then that, they use a wide spacing between each line. That is also one of the reason that the eyes of the user do not find its rest right away. After all, like every user on the web who visit a website for the first time, we are trying to figure out what this website is about. At the end, you get the point, but not before your eye examined most of the homepage parts.

Basically its a very interesting design. From a pure design point of view its definitely a nice piece of art. As from a marketing/sells point of view, its a bit risky. Some users will might get lost before they will understand what this website has to offer. I guess its up to find the balance.

Exotic Archive

admin — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:03:33 +0000

Lamborghini, Ferrari, Aston Martin, BMW….. if you loves sport cars (probably a man ) 99% that you have a smile on your face when you read those words. Some will argue that those cars are first of all art, long before they can be considered as a four wheels vehicle.

Those luxury brands demands kinds of a design that will justify their reputation: bold, polished and that cannot be missed.

At www.exoticarchive.com they tried to generate that look. Lets check what they did well and what they should consider to enhance.

They chose to a design where the header/side menu/main content area are not divided by clear lines. Its a nice approach and required creativeness and an extra work to convert it properly to HTML script.

The top of the page is great. The Audi photo is smoothly merged with the web site graphic. The left menu is easy readable and very understandable. Its take less then a few seconds to find your path on this website. You will find some nice cars photos on this website. They also use a started font style.

What I don’t like about this website actually cross in my mind the minute I first saw it: The colors temperature. I believe, an adjustment should be made. Most of the colors that are been used in this design are shallow. To my opinion not using bold colors is the opposite of this website topic. More contrast is required in order to make the overall color scheme more alive.I wouldn’t change the color scheme, but only the temperature of the colors. More bold colors. Find the right contrast between the colors in order to show proud presence.
Those who are buying those cars like to be seen. The colors temperature of the design definitely do not give them the right stage.

One comment about the ads on the main area. As far as I know, its against Google TOS to place their text ads next to an image. Though there is a line between the ads and the photos I would be very careful with this layout. You risk yourself to be banned.

Bottom line its an elegant design that can (should) be enhanced.

Hot Breads

admin — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 23:31:54 +0000

Hot Breads website deals with bread (at list by it’s name). But…. not the design.
You this punch line and saying: He is going to be very rough with this website design. Well… not quite.

The first impression from this website is pretty good. They choose a nice deep red as the background color. Its actually a good color for a website that deal with food. The graphics is pretty good and an eye catching.

But…. and here I think we have a big “but”. When you keep looking at this website you start to ask yourself some questions.
Most of them are because of the design.

The logo on the top right corner has graphic elements on each side. They are reminding a hot dog. Giving the fact that the word “Hot” can be found nearby, I bet that most of the visitors actually “seeing” a hot dog. I don’t think that anyone meant this to happened. Not on a bread/cake website.

Then you find yourself looking at the main image. Hmm…. cakes, cakes and cakes. So why they call it “Hot Bread”. Below it, you finally find the bread. I believe that at this point you completely lost the visitor attention. He probably very confusing trying to decide what this website is all about.

You asking now why I am writing about this website then? Very simple: I think its a great design with a great layout and with a good taste when it concern to the colors and their temperature. However, there isn’t one clear message for the user. If I got confused about this website purpose, most likely more will. To know how to deliver the message is a bit beyond the design. I would try to look for someone who can help on this matter. After all, who ever design this website has a talent… it just need to be directed well.

Web Pirate Entertainment

admin — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 15:11:13 +0000

In my last reviews I mainly focused about colors and their importance to the design. I emphasized how important is to design an attractive website, especially when you deal with a topic that for it is a must - like games website. In this review I would like to show you a good example on how to take both aspect and combined them in one successful website design.

Web Pirate Entertainment website deals with online games and funny videos. First time visit on this website, you cannot miss the header and the impressive graphics below. Its take less then a second to understand what this website is all about. The word “Entertainment ” pop up in the visitor eye, the same with the “RZ GAMES” that can be found down the page.

A word about the overall layout: The page was design to be perfectly seen by those who are using 800×600 resolution and higher. The width of the main column is ~800 pixel (778 pix to be accurate). However, the strip at the top left corner of the page, make it virtually wider. Its a very nice idea. You get both of the worlds. The design support hose who use low screen resolution and on the same time virtually extend the page width for those who are using higher resolution. Although more than 70% of the internet users use 1024×768 screen resolution or higher, Its a nice approach to look for a solution that will fit to much visitors as possible.

The layout is a bit complex to design. You can find strips and columns that by definition were not meant to be with the same height and width. Not easy to arrange but they survive the difficulty with a great success.

The text color in most of the areas is readable and can be seen very easily. Some areas need some modification. For example: The “Latest score” box, the numbers are a bit unnoticeable next to the images. The gray color and the fact that its a short “sentence” contribute to the final outcome.

The strips and boxes along the page do not use the same background color. Its a light change between them and a non professional eye will probably not notice it. However if it wasn’t like that, most of us would notice the difference without the ability to point out what actually was changed.

This website is a very good example how to take a topic that is colorful by it’s nature and with great choice of colors make it an eye catching website. I doubt if a typical gamer will visit this website and will not sympathize it right from the start. To satisfy his curiosity the webmaster will have to deliver an interesting content but this is beyond of this review. Well done !

Logo Maid

admin — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 14:49:04 +0000

When you design your website, one of the important decisions you have to make is about the color scheme of it. When I saw LogoMaid website, the first thing that came up in my mind was the colors. They combined variety colors on the same page with an excellent adjustments between them all.

Their logo is simple but yet very interesting. They chose to make some room for it in the header but yet to fill the right side of it elegantly with text and buttons. Giving the fact that the rest of the page is loaded with graphics, the extra room space in the header differentiated it form the rest of the page. Its a nice approach to attract the user attention to your brand name.

Down below the header you can find some of their logos. Great piece of art. They chose those logos from their huge logos stock. Their choose is great and just because each logo gives an extra addition to the total variety of colors that can be found on that page. The maid banner on the left side is very amusing. Not just the maid is smiling, the all banner is: Its polished and well organized with (again) great choose of colors.

This is a good example of a website that use a very simple layout. Its a two columns design that each of the column get 50% of the all page width. Nothing special about it. However, the uniqueness of this website is it’s color scheme. When you choose the right color scheme and choose the right color temperature you get that kind of a result. Whether its red, green or pink it doesn’t really matter. Keep in your mind to find the right color temperature combination. Here they did an excellent job !