Website - Week 1

(1)
• LEAD Portal
(http://library.thinkquest.org/08aug/02289/#?page=defining-leader§ion=perception)

Colors – There are different colors are used in the website. For the menu icons, colors such as green, blue, yellow and purple are used in order to grab the viewer’s attention. Since the background color is dark, the bright colors used for the website is showing out very well, and make the website to be interesting and colorful. When I scroll down the website, there is an animated menu with different colors, which makes me to be interested about it and gives me a desire of clicking one at each time to figure out what information they contain.

Contrast – There is a significant contrast of colors demonstrated in this website. Firstly, the people icon at the top of the website is in colors that can be showing out well from the dark brown background. Since the content background color is white, the menu icons which are in blue, green, yellow, and orange make a good contrast of colors. Because of these contrasts, the website is able to make the website user to be more interested of the website design and the contents of it.

Photos – There are not many real photos are used in the website, but some characterized icons. On the top of the website there are diagrams of people in different colors. On the side of the website, where the menu icons are, there are also some images of cartoonish looking drawings on them as well as on the bottom of the website. Since realistic photos are not used for the website, I think it makes the website to be less serious and give friendly look to the website users. Also, since the topic is about leadership, which may be boring and even hard sometimes, I think it is a good idea to give some cartoonish view to the website so that people will be able to enjoy reading the information on the website.

Font – Fonts are simple and not fancy, which makes viewers to read the information without having any reading difficulties. For the texts on the menu icons, they are decorated with some colors that match with the colors of icons, and for the information texts, they are in black and simple fonts.

Navigation – When you click any menu, it did not open a new browser, but it directly linked to the information on the same page. Therefore, it was very easy to organize what information I wanted to find, and the website did not become very messy even though I clicked on different categories for several times.

Overall, I think that the cartoonish design of the website was the most appealing. Since I am a visual learner, I prefer websites that have some good graphic designs so that I do not become bored out of reading information on the website. Nice choose of fonts and use of simple icons to visually aid the menu were another part that make the website to be a successful one.
 
• Portable Partners (http://library.thinkquest.org/08aug/01589/home.html)

Colors – There are not many colors are used for this website. Different tones of red are used for the general website design. If LEAD Portal one used different colors, this one tends to be simpler and more organized due to simple color choice. The background has a light tone of pattern, and the main website color is red, which makes the red part to show out better. Even though only one color is used for this website, it grabs viewer’s attention because the color is red and it’s very bright. However, if you just look at the title part for a long time, your eyes start to hurt a little bit because of its brightness.

Contrast – The background is covered with small round pattern, and the main website part is in red. Since the pattern tends to be dimmed, the strong red color makes a good contrast with the background.

Photos – All the information that is included in the website, there is a picture in order to give a visual effect to the information. I think it is a very clever choice to put some pictures to the information because it makes viewers to be more interested in the website rather than just reading a long article.

Font – Like the previous website that I visited before, this website also has a very neat and simple font. It helps me to find out information much easier, and makes the website to be organized. However since the website itself already has a very simple design, I think it might have been better if the website had fancier title image.

Navigation – The website was very easy to navigate. The topics were divided into different menu icons, and when you click it the information is directly linked from the previous website, which you do not require a new online browser to read the information.

The reason why I think this website is a good one is because A) it has an organized website design, which I was able to figure out information conveniently, B) the use of simple portable device icons as a visual effect of menu was very unique and cute.

(2)
• The Simphony of Chocolate (http://library.thinkquest.org/08aug/00696/intro1.html)

The first reason that I did not like about this website is its poor quality of graphics. There are some animated icons as the menu, and they look terribly bad. The image of chocolate box looks like it just got its shape from a photo. I think it would be better if they just used a simpler version of graphical images. Also the font to describe the menu is sort of hard to read. The colors that are used for this website are different tones of brown, but since everything is in brown it is hard to find some good contrast between the background and the information. Lastly there is a spelling mistake. I think it should be Symphony, not Simphony. Overall, the website is just full of animated icons with bad quality. I wonder how it got a first place from the competition.

(3)
My possible topics are:
• The wild animals (information about animals and their habitats)
• ISU Grade 10 (about our class)
• Travel Around the world (information about different cultures, foods, clothes, holidays, etc)