Visual Design
When designing a website its design is very important. It can either give off a very professional look or a look where the user may ask, “Who the heck designed this?” Those types of questions are the ones designers want to stay away from. When judging the design of a webpage, there are four things that should be taken into consideration, alignment, proximity, repetition, and contrast. According to Williams, “These principles are the underlying factors in every designed piece you see anywhere, on screen, or in print” (Williams, 2006).
Alignment
Both Rutgers and Connecticut do a good job with alignments. All the text is going straight down the page with the same alignments. This is important because when all the alignments are different and information is all over the place the website looks very unprofessional. The alignments on every page are the exact same as the user navigates from team to team or page to page. The one thing we felt that could be improved on both websites is maybe to center the information. All of the information on each website is floated to the left leaving the whole right side open with a plain black background (Rutgers) or a plain white background (Connecticut).
TopProximity
Understanding proximity will help designers place content with the same relationship close to each other and content with a different relationship away from one another. Understanding proximity will make it easier for users to navigate through the website and also give the website a better appearance. Uconn does a poor job with proximity on certain areas on the web page. Their menu to the far left they list all of the sports teams’ at the University. They list them in order of sport and do men and female for each sport. We found it easier on Rutgers website to find a sport because they have two separate tabs one labeled men’s sports and the other women’s sports. Those two tabs are located right next to each other and have the same relationship. With Connecticut’s although the sports are together the complete list of all the teams makes it look squished together. Both websites have some proximity issues because on the home page they have a lot of information right next to each other that do not have a strong relationship. Looking at Uconn’s website going down the page it goes from ticket sales, to travel information, to radio information, and etc… These subjects all have to do with the athletics but do not share a strong relationship and are all right underneath each other with very little spacing. Rutgers does a better job of this they do not have as many things going on at once. Since they use a lot of menu tabs the home page is not as clustered therefore more things can be spread out.
TopRepetition
Repetition allows the user to quickly be able to link each page with the website and be able to tell each page is a part of the website as a whole. Both Rutgers and Uconn do a great job of that there is no change from the basic outline for each page. Although, the content changes you can still tell that you are on the same website because the borders and the design look exactly the same. The logo appears in the same spot and the same colors are used on every page. This is very important because if this switches the user can quickly tell that he is not on the same website created by the same designers. This is apparent when you click cheerleading or marching band on either website, users quickly see the change in the layout and can tell that this page no longer belongs to the website.
TopContrast
Contrast draws the user’s eyes to the page and intrigues them to explore and look into the website. Having good contrast on a page allows the user to scale the page and determine where he or she wants to go. Rutgers website and use of red helps the contrast out because red stands out and attracts users. They do a good job with the usage of the red and pictures to help their site stand out. Also, because of the spacing on the page you can see where things separate. Connecticut uses blue on the website but the majority of the website is white. Although, this is different from the red in Rutgers website the white helps everything else on the page stand out. These are two different methods that we believe both get the job done. Each of these websites has some form of hierarchy they just choose to design it in different ways. Rutgers main menu is at the top of the page while there is another set of menus underneath it and more menus to the right of it. Connecticut does the same thing with menus on the top and left side of the page. Both sites are an easy read and are both very legible. The things that need to stand out do so and the things that don’t are smaller. When it comes to scalability Rutgers has the upper hand. Like stated earlier, their spacing allows the user to see things more clearly. Although, all of Uconn’s information is on their page, a lot of it is thrown right at you. Their lack of spacing makes the page looked a little clogged and squeezed together. That makes it harder for the user to see right away where they want to go.
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