REVIEW

In our sixth and final assignment before the Christmas Break, we were asked to write a Web Usability Review for the site just above ours, which happens to be Franka Muller's website in my case. Upon entering the website, I was immediately greeted and perhaps pleasantly distracted by the large gif of a cat, which made me suspect that most of the content could be cat-related, as the website’s main subject remained somewhat unclear. It feels as if the HOMEPAGE has not been able to convey the website’s main goal as of yet, but I feel like this will be improved in an upcoming update.

There is, however, a clear visual hierarchy within the website, which comes to the fore in the navigation bar at the top, followed by the title of the page closed off with the content of the page, which is often accompanied by dividers to create clearly defined areas aiding in this structure. Some of the textual content indicates to the reader which hyperlinks would be clickable while all the links within the navigation and the text change colours while you hover over them with the cursor, indicating to the user that it is available to be clicked. There does not seem to be any design noise, however, the overall content design could prove itself to become more consistent, by making more use of a stylesheet that could be applied to each page to produce a more coherent whole.

When it comes to the texts, especially the PANCAKES and PROGRESS pages are easily scannable as you can indicate which information belongs to which title or subtitle by clever use of font sizes, lists and bold

writing. Additionally, the website does not include happy talk, which could obstruct the way people perceive your website. There are, however, some refinements that could be made. First, it would be recommended to change the New Times Roman font to a sans serif font, such as Helvetica or Arial. making the texts easily readable for more audience text alignment throughout the website, together with the appliance of a more consistent (by the means of the stylesheet). While browsing through the website, moreover, feels as if the title of the pages could be a bit more concise, or the titles within the navigation bar to help the viewer know where they are within the website. I feel like the titles which have now been used as headings would perhaps suit themselves better as subheadings tempting the reader to scroll further down the page.

The navigation menu still seems to be in progress. The menu is located at a prominent place on the top edge of the page but could become more noticeable to the viewer if the font size would be increased as buttons or a bar would be added to make a more eminent mark on the page. The navigation menu is consistent throughout the website and on all pages, a link to the HOMEPAGE is present, which is nice. The only thing missing is the Is there a 'you are here' indication, which could once again be added to the stylesheet.

Overall, the website has a lot of potential as all the assignments will still have to be completed and I look forward to seeing the final result.