Fourth Blog Post
For this week, I decided to look at the website for the band "Uh Huh Her" . My first opinion of the site is that it is very visually loaded with information. The color palette is dark with a mixture of red, black and white. The site is fixed to the left and the size is fixed as well, so since I have a big monitor and I get a lot of black space to the right. There are a lot of photographs in the main page, and there are a lot of diagonals too, which help to break that box effect. Immediately, you get a very visually loaded site, yet the background is blurred out and I think that sorta helps give the site a sort of softness and misterious feel, rather than having bright fully focused pictures. The primary navigation is located to the right and it is in a vertical list. The font and the hover state of the links is really cool, and it really follows the dynamics of the site. The same navigation links also appear as a horizontal menu in the bottom where there are icons and graphics to display each link. I think it's a great idea to repeat the navigation and change the style in order make it more dynamic, yet I think it's hard to f igure out that those images at the bottom of the page are also links. Also at first one is not sure what clicking the pictures on top will do, but by doing it once you find out it is used to change the background and get more smaller pictures of the girls in the band. Again, these pictures keep the same style and color palettes in order to keep the coherency of the site. I also think it's a really smart move to put the sign up for the site form right there. I know a lot of people aren't totally willing to look for that form and don't really like to fill things out, but I believe they are more likely to do it if the form is right there.
Although I like how the site manages to keep the consistency in colors and the repeated navigation, they really ruin that consistency when they change every page for every link. I know they are trying to make it dynamic and varied but it forces to user to have to "learn" how each different page works every time. After they have gotten used to the navigation in the home page, each single page changes it and is not even clearly showing how to go back to the pain page. In some pages there is not even a navigation bar or a home button so you end up with the problem of having to click the back arrow in the browser. This is not functional. It is not like it's super complicated but it could be improved. Another problem is that in some pages the whole thing is centered, in others it's moved to the left and in others its moved to the right. In any case, it plays with the eye and it makes it harder to locate things. When talking about the design, I really like it though. I love this band and their website does go with their style and their music. I think they just need to work with making their website easier to navigate. Keep things looking a bit more similar and not getting rid of the navigation bar. In this case, maybe include a secondary navigation or just making a decision of which things should be kept all accross the site.
Although I like how the site manages to keep the consistency in colors and the repeated navigation, they really ruin that consistency when they change every page for every link. I know they are trying to make it dynamic and varied but it forces to user to have to "learn" how each different page works every time. After they have gotten used to the navigation in the home page, each single page changes it and is not even clearly showing how to go back to the pain page. In some pages there is not even a navigation bar or a home button so you end up with the problem of having to click the back arrow in the browser. This is not functional. It is not like it's super complicated but it could be improved. Another problem is that in some pages the whole thing is centered, in others it's moved to the left and in others its moved to the right. In any case, it plays with the eye and it makes it harder to locate things. When talking about the design, I really like it though. I love this band and their website does go with their style and their music. I think they just need to work with making their website easier to navigate. Keep things looking a bit more similar and not getting rid of the navigation bar. In this case, maybe include a secondary navigation or just making a decision of which things should be kept all accross the site.