Week #4 Post 1

Two websites I choose to comment on that could have problems for visitors are www.jamilin.com and www.gatesnfences.com. First thing that I noticed on opening these websites were the style, in a nutshell it is a brochure style, where there is a lot of static content and heavy description of the products or services offered by respective businesses. It made me feel like, I need to get out of these websites right away. There is no stickiness to them. Three potential problematic areas would be:  No clear Concept and Contrast, Hierarchy and Ease of use.

No clear concept and contrast: Upon close observation on both these web sites we notice there is no clear concept of what products/services they are offering. “Jamilin” website has two different menus one with different colors, which I believe are the services they offer. However, they have another menu right underneath that has drop down menus for services again. This is total confusion for a visitor who must spend lot of time figuring out for product or services they came looking for, too many menus and headings. Same with “gatesnfences”, they are selling variety of products such as low voltage operators, gates and many accessories that go with gates. There are too many items in navigation bar(left) and too much description for those products. Websites need to be clean and less confusing, clearly this is not the case in both them. It is very hard to understand what is that they are trying to fulfill through their websites other than tons of descriptions and links to third party websites.

Hierarchy: When a visitor is on one of these websites, it’s hard to discern highlighted products or services, business is trying to sell. For example, Jamilin has big banner on top of the page with two different sections of services they offer, clicking on YOUth Duo tab, we are directed to different page, to different website with products. Every service is given same emphasis rather than tell visitors what they specialize in. Same issue with getesnfences, no clear emphasis on product, Products/services are scattered everywhere on the webpage without hierarchy. Clearly importance is not given to differentiation of various products.

Ease of use: Both websites are very hard to use because of lot of distractions such as bold colors, long descriptions, various dropdown menu with many choices, no site map accesses or search option. Does not catch up with the visitor’s attention within 10 seconds of opening the page.

Some improvements that can be implemented to make their websites dynamic is plan content they are intending to sell, reducing many different menus to just few options such as Home, About us, Products, Blog (where they can give extra information such as descriptions of any informative articles or how to manuals or videos), shopping cart to check out their products and maybe add a news letter and contact info page. Both websites have no links to social media platforms.

Two websites that have done right are www.nps.gov and www.apple.com. Upon opening these two websites, one cannot help noticing the clarity on these websites. Clearly everything is highlighted to make navigating easy. Let’s consider National Park Services, it has clear menus that help go to specific pages, such as planning visits, exploration and other activities to get community involved. We can see a flow from one page to another with very appropriate images and descriptions. Repetition such as logo and menu that can be accessed form any page. Now let’s consider Apple, from top to bottom of the page everything is planned, and we can clearly see all the products with very attractive branding. Every page has a logo and access to menu to go to including search button to search anything pertaining to that website. Very clean and crisp design constituting of all the elements such as concept and contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity, hierarchy, typography, ease of use and depth. Lastly, both these websites have social media links to get in touch with customers.

Visual components such as design and color are very important while creating a website. Humans react to what we see, our reactions are from previous experiences and perceptions that are stored in our memory and we tend to react to them. It is very important to create attractive design to make a lasting impression on consumers because they are influenced by it. Brand is an image of product or service and branding occurs when that image is marketed enough. Branding helps differentiate one product or services form another one, hence brand should be aesthetically pleasing. It effects overall standards set forth by a company, creating an image and setting expectation for services and products.