Week #3: Site Reviews Pt2

ScienceDaily

http://www.sciencedaily.com/

1.    The website is effective because of its simple layout and good placement of important information—placing newer items at the top, and moving less important or older ones towards the bottom. The site places links to common social media sites at the top and offers convenient links to different mobile versions of the site. It is also very easy to share stories that a user may like through the share links that appear for each story.

2.    Nicely contrasting colors and sizes—a pale background with subtly contrasting text;  the different pages use the same layout and color schemes; the alignment feels a bit off to me, but I see the logic in placing links on the right side – as we often read from left to right, it forces the reader to focus on the content that is left/bottom aligned; images are placed close together as well as links to other stories/sites; as stated above, more important/newer items are placed higher on the list and with more emphasis that older/less important items; the print is small, but easy to read on both desktops and mobile interfaces.

3.    The quality of the content and ease of reading make me come back. It’s easy to find what I want and site tries to cater to me by placing links to stories similar to what I might be reading at the moment.

4.    The overall design is great, however a little more spacing between blocks of text and/or items may help.

Hulu.com

http://www.hulu.com/

1.    The website is effective because of the placement of items—assuming that the user is logged in, it will try to place videos relevant to the user’s tastes near the top while placing highlights of the day at the top with emphasis. Hulu also ties in with the user’s Facebook (if they so choose) letting them explore videos that their friends watch as well (and vice versa).

2.    Hulu uses a pale/white background that contrasts nicely with the thumbnails of shows that appear on the site; most text is left aligned making it easy to read; relevant items are placed close together—shows that are similar or shows that might interest the user are placed close together on the screen; highlights for the day or week are placed at the very top in order to draw user response, videos are then placed in ascending order according to their relevance (to the viewer’s tastes); the text on the page is fairly large, which makes it easier to read when contrasted against the vivid backgrounds.

3.    The way Hulu tries to place relevant content makes me come back. By trying to introduce me to shows that I might be interested in (based on my viewing history) it keeps me returning.

4.    There is not a whole lot that could be improved, in my opinion for this site.