Week 3 Part A: Aesthetics, Design, and Branding

apple.com

Three potential problems for visitors at the Apple website are excessive product advertisements make information hard to find, a lot of times found at the bottom of page after scrolling product offers; the menu at the top of the page does not offer many choices, again found at the bottom of the page; and I thought the Support page was confusing. I have used Apple and Mac products and understand the Apple feel of things and still found the Support page the most confusing of the site.

The Apple site was very professionally designed. The contrast of white and black backgrounds and bright colored products was especially eye appealing. It made me want to buy a new iPhone and I am not even in the market for a new phone. If you want to know more just click the picture.

I am sure Apple site developers have their reasons but the one thing I would find an improvement is to have more of a menu at the top of the home page.

artcenter.org

I will try to be constructive and only list 3 issues with California Center for the Arts, Escondido. The menu at the top of the page hyperlinks to another part of the page, good site design limits this use for long pages with multiple headings using a hyperlink to jump to those headings. There are way too may pop ups, many of which should be a full page reloaded instead of the page it came from. 

The site does not look professional. The nice looking header graphic at the top is a link to the same place as the text below it. The top graphic would look better if it stood alone without any link. There are too many fonts used on one page and across the site. The site design in general is at least 10 years old in technique. I understand that this is a non-profit organization and someone internal who is not a professional site designer most likely had the task of creating it. 

There are a lot of good graphics on the site, and I think the information is all there. The organization would benefit in site design consistency and flow of information if they used a template.

toyota.com

Toyota did a good job of their site design. The menu at the top of the page makes choices easy to find. Many of the following menus are graphical and the viewer clicks on a picture to make a selection which brings you intuitively to more product information. It is a good site design choice for a company that offers many products with many options on those products. All the pages open in the original page and the page design is logical to follow.

This web site was definitely professionally designed. Toyota has a huge advertising budget and this site design is part of it. It looks polished, consistent, and it is easy to use.

I liked the design of this site because it was easy to find the vehicle you may consider purchasing without being overly pushy. I found it to be more like a genuine shopping site where the consumer makes all the choices without the product being pushed too hard to be sold. I have to admit that I have been at the Toyota site before but have always found it a well designed site. I would like to purchase a new or used Toyota one day and it is easy to shop online at this site without sales people chiming in trying to help you buy a vehicle when you would rather be left to browse alone. The use of all the outdoor pictures is eye catching, that is what I think of when I think of a truck, not driving down the freeway.

nps.gov

The National Parks System has a very easy to follow main page. There is an extensive menu at the top of the page only if you care to see it. If you navigate better looking at pictures, that option is there too. Good web site design includes multiple repeat options for the same link within the same page like a menu at the top, graphical links within the page, and most all link options at the bottom of the page. This site includes all of the things mentioned.

This web site was professionally made and well thought out. It is easy to find information about National Parks in any state. 

The ascetics of the National Parks System is outstanding. It is very eye appealing and a visitor can imagine being there. I like parks and some of our national parks have beautiful landscapes. The design of the site makes it easy to find parks all over the United States, it is near the top of the page and easy to see. There are also links to park programs which are useful on the home page. The mixture of different links has a natural flow of information with the most useful at the top. It is a well designed site. 

Part B:

I commented on these blogs:

https://csit155-sp21-danengland.blogspot.com/2021/02/aesthetics-design-and-branding.html

https://csit155-sp21-teresal.blogspot.com/2021/02/blog-week-3-post-1-two-websites-i-found.html

https://csit155-sp21-conde-j.blogspot.com/2021/02/blog-week-3-post-1.html


Comments

  1. I agree with the fact apple's website is not so user friendly. Perhaps the company feels lost now that the legendary CEO, Mr. Jobs has passed away.

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