Evaluation of Ashley Furniture Industries INC

Today I'd like to evaluate the website of Ashley Furniture Industries INC at http://www.ashleyfurniture.com/Home.aspx

Navigation/Architecture

There is a primary navigation on the top, including "Showroom", "Where to shop", "About us", "FAQ", "Careers" and "My Favorites". "Showroom" provides pictures of furniture sorting by type., i.e., living room, bedroom, home accents, dining room and home office. "Where to shop" provides a map and allows people to search branch locations over the nation. "About Us" is the introduction of the company. "FAQ" answers all common questions customers may ask. "Careers" provides information for job hunters and "My Favorites" is designed for the members of Ashley. They are very clear and systematically.

When I rollover a link its font color turns from black to white. When I click it, its background turns from light gray to orange, so I can always know my location in this site. I can also click the logo "ASHLEY" on the left top to go back to the homepage.

This site doesn't have deep structure. The primary navigation is on the top and secondary navigation is on the left. I think it is a standard and good design. At least I am familiar with this structure and can get used to it pretty quickly.

Content/Typography

The hierarchy of the typography is apparent. They use different font and weight to separate title and content. The labels of navigation are also very clear. I can find the information I want according to the labels.

Grid/Structure

The structure of the page stays consistent as I go from one page to another. The primary navigation is always on the top, secondary navigation is on the left column and content is on the right column.

Take homepage as an example, the focal point is the flash image at the center because it is animation (slide show), takes 60% of the whole page and have many different colors.

Iconography/Imagery

There are many photos of furniture on the site. I think it is necessary because it is the best and easiest way to show products to people. And the number of pictures is fine.

Color Palette

When I am looking at "Careers" page, there three main colors: white is background, black is text, and orange is highlight text background. There are also a little gray, yellow and blue for image color. I think orange is a warm color, it is an excellent color to show a home-like environment. I think that's why Ashley chose orange as the basic color for the whole site.

Site Focus

The purpose of this site is to do advertisement of Ashley and sell furniture. The most useful feature is to let user search branch locations by clicking a map, inputting zip code and selecting mail radius. It is very convenient and user friendly.

The only thing is that sometimes the speed is slow, perhaps due to the flash content on this site. But personally speaking, I like the design of this website very much.

Evaluation of Digital Salon website

When I'm google searching graphics design websites I find there is a site called "Digital Salon". The graphics on it are awesome but the design of this site needs many improvements.

Navigation/Architecture

There is a primary navigation on the top, including "Painting", "Visual Poems", "Fluxus", "Blog", "Books", "Tools", "Links", "About", "Stuff" and "E-mail". I think these groups make sense. I am able to find different types of artwork, related articles, introduction and contact ways according to the navigation. It provides all necessary functions of an ordinary site. But I think they are somewhat too detailed. I'd like to group "Painting", "Visual Poems" and "Fluxus" as "Art Types", put "Books" and "Tools" into "Links", and put "stuff" into "About" because some of them have the same features or heritance relationship to others. I'd like the new navigation to be:

Art Types
  Painting
  Visual Poems
  Fluxus
Blog
About
  stuff
links
  books
  tools
E-mail

After simplified, the architecture of this site would have more clear structure instead of just flat.

When I rollover and click a link, its appearance doesn't change so that I don't know which page I am in. Also, almost all subpages except "Tools" loses primary navigation so I cannot go back to homepage. However, although "Tools" page keeps primary navigation, its structure looks different, which only includes four links ---- "Main Page", "Blog", "Links" and "E-mail". Actually I would put the primary navigation on all pages and keep it the same. Open subpages in the same window rather than a new window. Also, I'd like the color of labels looks different when I rollover and click the links in order to make this site more user friendly.

Content/Typography

I think the typography is not apparent because all of them are default font and size in html. I'd like to change primary navigation to be more clickable, like jpg image or button-looking etc. And make title and content different.

I feel confused when I click "Tools" label. I suppose to find something related to art design, digital design tutorials and so on. But there are only some camera photos which bring me to amazon.com. I think it would be better to named as "shopping guide", "buy tool" etc.

Grid/Structure/Iconography/Imagery

The structure of content changes a lot from page to page. Only the same thing is that the logo "Digital Salon" is always on the top of every page. But I think all pages should be more consistent.

When I look at homepage, I first notice the logo "Digital Salon" because it has black background and white font. Also, this logo has large size and drop shadow. So it jumps in my eyes very quickly.

I think the number of images is fine because of its gallery feature of graphics design. But I would like the images to be smaller and displayed in many columns instead of one column, so that people don't need to scroll down the page a lot.

Color Palette

On homepage there are six colors: white for background, black for logo, red, gray and green for images, yellow for advertisement. They separate the page into three parts: logo(top), content(middle) and advertisement(bottom). These colors are bright and fresh. People can read everything easily.

Site Focus

I think this site is to show different kinds of art work of Digital Salon and build a community for the members in it. The most useful feature is that it allows users to search camera and photo and get their price. But it is the part makes me confused. I'd like to change the name "Tools" to "Shopping Guide" as I mentioned before.

Evaluation of Lemon Bay high school official website

Today I choose the official website of Lemon Bay high school to evaluate. The URL is
http://www.ccps.k12.fl.us/schools/LBHS/

Navigation

The entire page is made by Flash. There is an intro page, after click it, the primary navigation appears on the left side, including "activities", "our staff", "guidance", "library" and "community". "activities" includes news and events. "our stuff" includes the introduction of teachers. "guidance" refers to programs and academic information. "library" shows schedule and events about library media center. "community" links to alumni website, school advisory council, parent association and so on. I like the scientific looking design of this Flash page. The primary navigation and its content are connected by a metal stick. When I roll over a link, its color turns from blue to orange. After I click it, its content is refreshed on the billboard. But after I go into this page, its link changes to blue again, so it is a little difficult for me to find where I am. So I would like to keep the link orange when I am in this page to make the architecture more clear.

When browsing the primary navigation I am always in the same page (home page). But when I click a link in the content one the right side, for example, "Charlotte Country Public School Official Calendar" in "activities" page, it opens a new window, I need to close it to come back to home page. I would like it opens in the homepage itself, just replace content area and has an arrow pointing back to the previous page. But I think since the home page it made by Flash, it might be difficult to implement this function.

Architecture/Grid/Structure

The architecture of this site is somewhat deep. Even if the home page only has a primary navigation, the content of every link has many sub-links to non-flash page. I think if the site has a simple structure, it is better to use Flash but if it does not, such like a school, shopping site etc, it would be better to build an ordinary html site. Although a Flash site can generate some creative appearance, it is hard to keep it consistency on every page if this site has deep structure.

Take "activates" page as an example, the first thing I notice is the picture of student sport team. Because it is in the center and it is the only picture in the content area. Also, it contains many bright colors and represents "activities" pretty well.

Content/Typography

I think the hierarchy of the typography is apparent. They use strong weight to highlight headlines. And the labels of navigations are also clear. I can find the information I want by looking up the labels.

Iconography/Imagery

There are photos on every page. For example, when looking at teachers' photos on "our staff". I think the number of pictures is okay but I would like them to be smaller because they take lots of spaces, which make the font size small and a little hard to read. I think there are also several other ways to solve this problem, such as make the words less and make the billboard bigger.

Color Palette

On "guidance" page, there are five colors: blue for entire background and headlines, white for text background, black for text color, yellow for primary navigation and green for highlighting important information. I think these colors are quite different from each other, which can tell different kinds of information easily.

Site Focus

The objective of this site is to do advertisement of Lemon Bay high school. The most useful feature I think is "community" part. It provides a platform of communication to bring alumni, parents and other people related to this school together. Generally speaking I like this website, although the flash technology causes some confusion when switch among different pages, the overall style is creative and fantastic.