About me May 27, 2008

trying to get the about me page to match my current index. page at: homepages.nyu.edu/~ntk2 so used the card catalog theme and used complementary colors, for the most part-the card catalog color (yellow/brown), and then red as a color around it, and then olive, which is also kinda/sorta close on color wheel-who knows…..

homepages.nyu.edu/~ntk2/about.html

I’d like to CSS the whole thing and round the corners on the table on right. I sketched out the design of the site and it kinda made my head spin……

web design color palettes May 23, 2008

complimentary: using two colors that are opposite on the color wheel.

• caterpillar.com:monochromatic
• jetblue: complimentary
• www.intel.com: monchromatic (look at this for my site)
• www.nfl.com: monochromatic
• www.sephora.com: analagous

Brainstorming:

Because it’s an online portfolio, I want to use colors that are interesting but not too far out there. I might use the jetblue colors, or some monochromatic theme, though there is a lot of blue and grey out there. I’d like to use something a little bit different…..

blue, lighter blue, even lighter, white and black (monochromatic)

• http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.olivedesign.com/images/portfolio_photo.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.olivedesign.com/portfolio/case_studies/&h=345&w=345&sz=38&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=scAPjKBgIGA_TM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dportfolio%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
• ttp://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.olivedesign.com/images/portfolio_photo.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.olivedesign.com/portfolio/case_studies/&h=345&w=345&sz=38&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=scAPjKBgIGA_TM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dportfolio%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

Evaluating a website May 21, 2008

http://www.rga.com

I like a number of things about this site.  I like how clean and uncluttered it appears, though there is a lot of information presented-one is not assaulted with it, however. I like how the examples of products created are across a section of the page with textual rollovers providing further information. I think providing more information via text before the user has to commit to clicking on the graphic and entering a more robust example is a good instructional design practice. When you click on any of the examples, I like the flash slide-show type application that the product is displayed in. I also like the prominent X option at the top right of the screen allowing you to close the application and have the previous screen visible again. This reduces navigational issues, because it doesn’t require the user to navigate back and forth across pages.  I would provide a “skip” option alongside the splash page-I don’t think users, on the whole, like flash splash screens that they are unable to opt out of, and while it’s brief, I think providing an option to skip it altogether would be a useful addition.