Design Critique

The website I chose to critique is Common Craft -- Explanations in Plain English. The website itself is really easy to navigate, with the standard (and simple) navigation at the header. The colors are simple and easy on the eye -- they don’t distract from the main content. At the bottom, flowing below the fold there are other types of links categorized by most viewed, popular right now, and recent blog posts. The navigation at the top is more important, and those below added bonuses but not absolutely necessary to get around.

The main content is right in the middle. (1) there’s a short video discussing the difference between types of licensing and versions (free or fee); (2) there are links to watch or purchase.

That’s just the site. The videos themselves are short, to the point, and easy to follow. They are not cluttered and use interesting visuals. If you like it, you can get the code to embed the video in your blog or site.


My specific responses to the in-class questions are as follows:

On Information Design
Who are the users?
- The users are people who want to know what new technologies are, quickly & easily, in plain English.

Information chunk (gestalt principle, amount information)
- The videos are about 3-5 minutes each.

Relevance (graphics, content, reading level, text)
- Graphics are simple; content is accessible; the reading level is in plain English.

Labeling (visual with text)
- The labels are simple and clear, as are the graphics

Consistency (visual, text)
- Colors for the THML page are clean & simple; they don’t detract from the content.

Detail (too much on one page or one screen)
- There isn’t too much detail on the page, which makes it very digestible.

On Interactivity
Orientation (Can you find the path, and know your way around?)
- It’s very easy to figure out where to go.

Navigation (Branching)
- Navigation is simple & easy.

Functionality (Does it work?)
- The functionality works great.

Information access (Multiple entry and exit? Logical path?)
- Multiple entries; very logical path.

On Screen Design
Attractive (first impression)
- It’s very easy on the eye. The page design doesn’t detract from the content.

Color
- The colors do not detract from the content.

Lay out
- I like that the main navigation is on top and the content is simply placed in the middle. The extra links are at the bottom, going beyond the fold (but they are secondary in importance).

Readability
- Very readable.

Other comments
- I really like this site. I think they’ve done a good job.