Assignment 1: What makes a site successful?

Features that are successful: NAVIGATION/TOP AND BOTTOM:

• simple navigation (no drop down menus that drop down a mile)
• navigation at the top of your page- ascending navigation seems to create clutter and confusion in sites
• navigation at the bottom of your page- if viewer is at the bottom of the page, not scrolling is necessary
• needs to be easy to see- make sure its distinguishable from your text/content also on the page
• navigation that works- make sure all of your pages can be navigated to

CONTENT:

• pictures- nobody will go to your site if it us comprised of only text
• text- less is more in this case
• background images can be depending on the site

PAGES: the essentials-

• a home page- explains the purpose of he site- it allows your viewer to have a place to return to in case they get lost or just want to go back to the beginning
• contact page- a way to get a hold of you beyond your site
• info page- more info that you may need if you couldn’t cover it all on the home page
• gallery page- its not mandatory, but its more entertaining and allows viewer to break from reading text

COLOR SCHEME:

• there needs to be cohesiveness to your site- color schemes help to create this
• makes your site pop out more

LINKS:

• your site lives off of these- if there are broken links, your site will not perform well= people not visiting= no profit=why did you build the site?
• keeps viewer attracted
• allows more information into your site

LOGO/NAME:

• establishes who you- allows people to recognize what you do and hopefully remember
• gives your site power, I guess

WHITE SPACE/SPACING IN GENERAL:

• leads the eye across/down the page
• lets the viewers eye rest while moving to a new position on the site
• is more aesthetically pleasing to look at
• makes sits appear well constructed- compositionally

COMPOSITION:

• try not to dead center things
• flow left to right like we read

SITE NAME:

• choose a name that is appropriate for your target audience- zeldafreak69.com probably won’t cut it
• the name should be simple

TYPE OF SITE:

• html- I think its the easiest to use, the quickest to get to (no loading pages), and the most straight to the point
• flash- Flash works, but I think its more frustrating than successful most times

Features that are unsuccessful: NAVIGATION:

• no navigation
• navigation that does not navigate
• navigation that isn’t proportionately spaced

CONTENT:

• only consists of text- no images
• only images- no text
• crappy pictures- extreme pixelation

PAGES:

• ten thousand pages
• no home page

COLOR SCHEME:

• no cohesiveness with the colors- neons mixed with pastels with super opaque colors

LINKS:

• broken links
• no external links

WHITE SPACE/SPACING IN GENERAL:

• page covered= no white space or spacing

COMPOSITION:

• everything is dead centered
• using both left margin and right margin

LOGO/NAME:

• no name title/logo symbol

SITE NAME:

• zeldafreak69.com

Summary: A successful site should consist of strong navigation, a logo or name for the site, a good content mixture of text and images, multiple pages, internal and external working links, some kind of a cohesive color scheme, an appropriate URL, and an attempt at good design elements. EXAMPLES OF SUCCESS: http://www.samjonespictures.com/

• very simple
• great navigation
• strong visuals- he’s a photographer so pretty much mandatory
• little text
• main focus is on the page- the page doesn’t scroll
• site is centered, but great proportions
• clean color scheme of white with light color
• URL is appropriate
• lots of white space, really calming to the eye

EXAMPLE OF UNSUCCESSFUL: http://www.shoebuy.com/

• very busy
• navigation is all over the place
• no white space except for vacant space on the far right
• few images- lots of text
• littered with advertisements- it really takes away from the site
• the title/logo almost gets lost because its so busy- not very distinguishable
• no noticeable color scheme