Site critique

Site Critique
flash: http://www.mono-1.com/monoface/main.html
html: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/

The National Geographic’s website is what I chose to critique. What makes this site successful is it’s content. There is something for everyone who wants to learn. Whether you like animals, history, daily news, maps, games, science or traveling you are going to find information with beautiful pictures on this site. The background isn’t busy or overwhelming and the type is all san serif, which is an easier read for your eye. The beautiful photography that appears under the sites main categories helps give interest to the site.

At the top of the home page there is a strip of black that contrasts with the rest of the white background of the site’s page. This brings the viewer’s eye to the different categories of the site. Not only does the contrasting colors of the site’s background create focus, but the lettering of the categories is either in white or yellow, which goes great against the top black area and creates even more focus on the categories. This allows the user of the site to easily find categories and navigate through the site quickly.

Simply hovering over a main category with your mouse will bring up more specific subcategories to choose from. And from one page to another the layout mostly stays the same. The top always remains with the original categories wherever you go so that you can navigate quickly to somewhere else. The only things that change are the pictures that deal with the categories you choose and there are subtle gradient changes to backgrounds, other than that you can see basically the same “rule of thirds through each of the pages.”

There is both a visual and informational hierarchy. The largest at most interesting pictures along with the most important or most sought after info is at the top and then it goes smaller as you work your way down the page.

This site allows its user to be both informed and entertained with its information, photo’s, videos and games. From child to adult this site can work for the general population who want to know more.

Looking at the layout of this page allows me to have some ideas for when I create my own web page. I’d like to have elements that help lead the users eye to places where they can navigate easily. Keep things uniform or try to keep the layout the same or similar from page to page. It is also important to have elements that keep the user interested and entertained without overwhelming them. I’m still not sure as to what subject or site I’m going to make, but applying these elements should help me have a better user-friendly site.