Improved Experiences
Finding User Experiences to Develop
Experience #1: Tyranny of Distance
http://tyrannyofdistance.com.au
Identify
Tyranny of Distance is an Australian café and lounge, and my personal favorite place to sit and enjoy a leisurely coffee when visiting Melbourne, Vic. The café’s eclectic and bohemian aesthetic is attractively carried over to its website, which accurately portrays the atmosphere of the location. Stunning photographs and key information (such as location, hours and contact information) are clearly identifiable. Unfortunately, certain common web elements are left out and not all of the visual components are ideal. These issues make it hard to find certain content without clicking through the whole site or becoming distracted by the overwhelming imagery.
Recommendations
1. Include a search bar/option
2. Make sure broken “sliders and links” are corrected
3. Increase margins on content pages
4. Decrease the size of images
Experience #2: Fulbright U.S. Student Program
http://us.fulbrightonline.org/#&panel1-1
Identify
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides grants for English Teaching Assistant Programs and individually designed study/research projects for Americans in locations around the world. The website is generally well laid out and intuitive, however it has sizing and color issues with its text as well as contrast problems between copy and background images.
Recommendations
1. Increase the size and weight of the text in the navigation, search and footer sections of the website.
2. Increase the opacity of the text boxes layered between text and background imagery.
Experience #3: Rocket News 24
Identify
Rocket News is an explorative and celebratory news blog filled with content of varying topics (and seriousness) catering to ex-pats living in Asia. It has a loud, colorful and brash layout, which reflects the site’s personality and varied content. The layout is visually entertaining and draws the viewer’s attention in, however it can become overwhelming and difficult to sort through and process. This is especially true with the navigation bars, which are overwhelmingly crowded as well as the side “Most Popular” section, which is jam-packed with tiny and indecipherable information.
Recommendations
1. Remove abundance of “blue/lined” links
2. Decrease the amount of text in sidebar/right-hand navigation.
3. Create clearer/less crowded hierarchy of content in the main feed.
