Website Crtitique

The first website that I have chosen to critique is named “Haven Works,” or www.HavenWorks.com. Haven Works is a website for references and sources of news. It maybe that it holds valuable information for researchers, but accessing this data is not so easy. This page is bombarded with different graphics that do not mesh with each other well. My eyes tend to wander when looking at the page. Overall all the graphics is a distracting factor, when looking for information. When first clicking on the link for the page i was unsure of what it was for. When the page loaded the message was even more so blurred. At first glance, the page is not pleasing to the eyes at all, but then you see bits of political headlines. Furthermore, the color schemes on the page are totally off, besides the democratic and republican themes that try to distinct themselves amongst the other links.

Haven Work’s functionality is not executed as well as it could be, and there is way too much information on the home page. Instead, there should be broader topic links that lead to sub page with narrower topics. The colors used should be cut down to a maximum of four colors and less distracting to the viewer. Intuitively a viewer could click on topic links, but functionally one would not know where to start when doing research on this page. A clutter of different topics mixed with different graphical images and pictures, leaves me unhappy from the beginning and very confused after trying to figure out what kind of image or message the page is trying to convey. As a political reference site, I would assume this site is a joke and is not a trustworthy reference . I would not trust this site for factual information, just because of its distracting effect and and the bright and crazy color scheme.

The second website that I have chosen to critique is called “Mystic Flash,” or www.MysticFlash.com. Mystic flash, is an website for a tattoo parlor in Idaho. When first loading the link, it takes you to an introduction page with some kind of tattoo art in the middle of some text that looks like it was created on the word art function of Microsoft Word. The introduction, although not as creative as it could be, gives a little bit of optimism that the rest of the site will be a little better, until you click to enter and are lead to the homepage.

The homepage has a background image that has horrible resolution, and is hard to make out what the complete image actually is. The photo centered on the page, I would assume are the tattoo artists promoting the business. The links on the side have a low quality flash feature that just makes the page look less artistic as it should be, since it is promoting artistry especially permanent body art. You would think these people would have a better idea of how to design a well functioning yet creative site. Furthermore, there are links that lead to several different pages that tell about the business, but no link that leads to a portfolio of the artists work. This would make viewers or potential customers less inclined to choose Mystic Flash for their body piercing and tattoo needs.

The color scheme of the site is off, especially the color of the font on certain pages. It is hard to decipher what some of the text says over the background. This is due to the fact that the text does not contrast with the background enough, rather it blends in with it and making it illegible. This is shown on the contact page, which is the most important page for the business to get in contact with potential customers. The contact page has the names of two artists in a crazy graphical text positioned in a confusing way. At the bottom in smaller unnoticeable text are the number and email address of the business. The background image has bad resolution once again, as well as being inconsistent with the rest of the background images of this site. The contact information is hard to read against the background and functionally not suitable. This is distracting and personally, would make me not even want to contact Mystic Flash.