Bad website: www.horserentals.com

Evaluation:

No emphasis and information hierarchy

This webpage does not looking appealing at all. The contrast they use do not show hierarchy of information and there does not seem to be any certain focal point in the webpage. No important element is highlighted and everything seems to be in a mess.

For example, the webpage shown have texts of the same size but from different sections. The text of the title, links and main content are of the same size. This website should have have different size text for different sections. Larger text for important elements. By doing this, this webpage will have certain emphasis on different text.

No visual consistency

This website have webpages that look very different. The colour scheme is completely different and hardly any element of a design have been repeated. The webpages seem to be from a different websites. Therefore, this website lacks a unified and cohesive feel.


For example, these webpages shown do not share the same colour scheme and navigation diagram. The colour scheme is very different. The navigation diagram totally disappeared in the another webpage.

Very messy look

This website did not show good use of proper alignment and spacing. Thus, this website looks very messy.

For example, this webpage shows texts that look like it is all chunk up together. Viewers will definitely have a hard time reading through it. There is no use of proximity at all which makes the words look connected. They should introduce some spacing in between texts.

Conclusion

This website is badly designed. The website is unorganised and messy. It also has bad colour scheme and poor usage of the four design principles. Looking at the design of the homepage, many people will get turn off and stop exploring further as people tend to relate well designed website with good information.

Good website: www.monster.com

Evaluation:

Emphasis and hierarchy of information

This website has mainly used factors such as position, size, colour and font weight to establish great contrast. With good contrast, emphasis and hierarchy of information can be created. For this website, important elements have greater colour contrast, bigger in size and generally located near the top. Headings are also bold to catch the viewer’s attention. All this factors makes the individual elements look distinct. The website clearly separates the main content text as it is the only part of the page with light coloured text against dark background. This helps to avoid content overload.

For example, the element the webpage is trying to emphasize is clearly the big picture with the purpose statement written in it. As pictures are more eye catching, the purpose statement is written on the picture. This element is located near the top where it disrupts the background colour which gives it more weight and attention. It is bigger and more colourful than anything else in the webpage. The heading of the purpose statement is also larger than any other text on the page. The text is black on white which is the best colour of contrast of the webpage.

Less important texts have poorer contrast of colours, smaller in size and generally located near the bottom.

For example, this text circled above is dark green coloured against a lighter green coloured background, making it appear similar and blend together. It is also very small and therefore not eye catching.

Visual Consistency

This website has visual consistency as it repeated factors like colour scheme, navigation areas, fonts and background image. In this website, fonts and layout of the same section are being repeated. Throughout the website, navigation areas, colour scheme and background are being repeated. It helps develop organization and strengthens the unity of a page. Viewers can also be ensured that they are still on the same website.

For example, this webpage used repetition in terms of their layout. Eventhough the headings and content are different, they all have format that are similar to each other. The colour scheme and font are also the same. It is these repeating elements which makes them look alike and therefore gives the page an overall unified feel.

Clean, sophisticated and fresh look

This website look organised and neat with the proper use of alignment and proximity. Elements are arranged in such a way that the borders created by them match up as closely as possible. There are good use of space between element, avoiding cluttering of information.

For example, eventhough this webpage contains a lot of information it looks less wordy and more organise than it would if alignment and spaces is not present. If spaces and alignment are missing, this webpage will have content that look like a large chunk of text.

Conclusion

This website has very neat layout. There are good use of contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity which are important design principles. Its also has a great homepage that gives just enough information that leads on to more detail page link, therefore giving enough interest and impact to encourage users to explore further.