Graceful Navigation
This week for school I’ve been challenged to list two websites, one that exhibits good design, and one that exhibits poor design in its layout.
Seeing that I spend a lot of time on the web, I got to thinking about layout and navigation. For example, would this blog constitute a good layout of a website? I’m not so sure. Sure it follows a chronological pattern by scrolling down, but I wonder if it could be presented better. I think the reason we all find it and other blog style websites “good” is due to the fact that every web user is somewhat acquainted to reading blogs and navigating the structure within, as blogs themselves have developed over the years.
It’s a little bit tricky to find a site that makes good navigational sense, versus a site that can merely be navigated.
Both of these websites below are ones I visit often, www.etsy.com due to my love of crafts and supporting independent crafty people, and www.tc.edu/users/students, the website for my school.
Etsy.com:
This site is lovely to navigate. I’ve never been at a loss to find what I want on the site, and I’m given many different ways to browse (such as Colour, Fresh Shops, Local Shops, Just Listed items etc.) I can utilize the search function to find new crafts or vintage clothing, which can change the search results completely, but it’s up to the user to choose. Most of all I love their applications that make browsing fun.
Above is a screen shot from their Time Machine, which allows you to go through most recently posted items, and toss items that are of no interest to the side.
Here’s a screen shot from my favourite application, Colors (though the Geolocator does make for a close tie!) Users are invited to click around the screen to find a colour that they’d like something in, and when clicked upon, search results in that very shade are brought up. Regardless of if you even need anything in that particular shade, it’s fun to click around and see the different shades come up, a la Jackson Pollock.
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tc.edu/users/students:
I recently needed to get a form to pay my tuition fees via wire transfer. I got to this page and was momentarily overwhelmed. I had no idea where I would even find a form that would help me out. Eventually I figured it out (as you can see from the “clicked upon” link in the picture above), but the navigation through this site isn’t very fun, and takes time to learn the quirks.
The two sites are laid out very differently, but when it comes to finding specifics they both eventually lead to the correct information. It’s just that etsy.com does it in a way that is far more graceful and fun.
What are your favourite sites to navigate? What sites have you had a horrible experience with?