Website Design Research

www.ai3online.com -Ai3- This website is actually pretty decent, the tabs at the top make it simple to navigate, and the online portfolio is easy and fun to browse. My main critique of the website is that when it first opens there is nothing that pops on the page; it looks kind of bland. It plays a short intro movie and then a nice block of green hits you from a photograph. If there was a way to have this green from the beginning I believe it would vastly improve the website.

www.davidsmall.com -Small Design Firm, Inc.- This website is okay at best. The color scheme is nice, but it really lacks in interaction. The links aren’t flashy- they are all the same color and, at first glance, look like a paragraph on the side of a page. The images they have of their projects are nice, but overall it is not what I would consider to be the height of design.

www.deodesign.com -Deo Design- A great first impression that leaves much to be desired. This website requires member access to the vast majority of its website and only provides a tiny sampling for the rest. The tabs/links at the top are simple enough- almost too simple- and don’t lead the viewer to anything supremely interesting, with images that are being repeated from the home page. It is a façade of fun.

www.iida.org -IIDA- This is not what I would expect from a major design organization. The color scheme seems to have never been decided on, with these really nice slate/dark colors that are violated by the various shades of blue. The links are in a simple list form on the left with, no real interaction- the website doesn’t respond to the viewer in any way. The tabs at the top are much better, with a drop down and sub-menu. Overall a boring website.

http://gamma.ixda.org -IXDA- This is an organization I found that is pretty interesting. The interaction design organization’s home page is a nice color scheme with some good graphic design. As is appropriate to its title, the website allows for much user interaction, including a member discussion are with many topics listed near the bottom of the home page. The only drawback to this is the presentation of these discussion boards look more like a blog and less like a professional website. The buttons, archive search, and links make this a fun website to click around on.

www.dreamclosets.org -Dream Closets, Inc.- Probably my favorite that I have surfed- this website at first has a van which glides across the bottom of the screen, a really nice color scheme (which I found after I tilted my screen back), and a really interactive website. This webpage belongs to a local company and is really fun to surf. I can’t really find anything to critique off the top of my head.

www.ia-global.com -Global Interior Architects- Another one of my favorites, this website is just plain impressive. The color scheme is vibrant and everything moves, the portfolio is one of the coolest things, and they talk about employment!(always a plus with a budding design student) I really like this website and encourage you to visit if you get the chance!

www.c-p.com -Cuhaci and Peterson- This is one of my least favorite websites so far. The homepage looks like a family photo album from Leon’s Seafood Buffet. There is no real color scheme to speak of, and the portfolio is a collection of ugly buildings. My dislike may stem from my dislike of their work, but the website itself is too basic and too bland.

www.spine3d.com -Spine 3D- A very cool firm- The website starts strong but leaves the viewer with a desire to see more quickly. This thirst, however, is easily remedied when scrolling through the tabs. A very effective tool is the changing of the background color based on the link selection. I really like this companies work- they assist with modeling and rendering in 3D, and they are good at it.

www.alloydesign.us -Alloy Design- An industrial design and product development assistance company that has quite a boring website. This website is a vast white plain with unremarkably plain text. One of the annoying features is how the pictures on the right hand side are faded and you cannot make out what they are trying to show you. Another thing that annoys me is that they claim to have a web design department- I hope this is not a sampling of their work!