Links
Competative AnalysisResearch Into Sound Effects
Research Into Visual Cues
iTunes Design
iTunes Dance genre
iTunes Punk genre
Evaluation
Nokia
The side bar “Playlists” and “Help” hide if you want them too on this site. They start open Fig 1 so if you click on them they minimise Fig 2. This could confuse an in experienced user if they click help and the options disappeared. This only happens with these two sidebars the others are fixed.
The main header on this site is able to change by clicking on the options to the right Fig 3 and then left Fig 4. This is a good feature it looks modern. I don’t like the text that goes vertically up the page, it makes it hard to read. I don’t think a lot of users would even notice that there were options at either side for you to click on. It was only because I was studying the page that I noticed them. If I came to the site looking for a song, or to read the latest music news, I could have easily missed these options.
When you roll over an album or a single cover the image doubles in size and some information about the track comes up Fig 5. This is a good way to show the album and gives the user a feeling that they are actually interacting with the website. Under the bestseller section of the website the albums don’t get any bigger and you just get an alt tag description Fig 6. This is not good for keeping the site consistent because there are only three albums on the whole page that don’t enlarge.
This site doesn’t support Firefox web browsers of any kind Fig 7. This was a big surprise because the site looks very technical and a professional and has as obviously gone through a number of design stages. I think for a big name like Nokia not to have their site uploaded and ready to work on Firefox lets this site down quite badly.
Woolworths Downloads
This site uses a purple/pink colour as a background for each song and shows the price of that song in red Fig 8. The two colours clash and make the number look blurry and less visible. If someone was even slightly visually impaired they would struggle to read this. The gradient of the colour purple dims as the tracks go down the page so the ones at the bottom are much clearer.
This site has an interactive sub header where you can click through the latest releases. The next, stop and back button Fig 9 seem detached from the images, so much so that I thought I would be clicking next to see the next album or track chart which is underneath the links Fig 10.
The sample button on the track list doesn’t change the cursor when you move the mouse over
it Fig 11. This
could be a issue for less experienced users as they may click the album to try
and find the sample of it.
If a user clicked on Power Ballads Fig 12 on the homepage of this site it would bring up songs from the ads Fig 13. If you wanted Power Ballads you’d have to click on Dance, Dance, Dance. This would confuse anyone and shows the designers cant be that professional in their work which would give a user less confidence to give them there bank details to purchase a song from the website.
Bleep
The images as links on the left of the page are two small to tell who the artist is or what the album/Single is Fig 14. Especially with the songs being new releases a user would have to guess at which genre of music they thought they were clicking on just from one small image. This would be good if you knew the album cover beforehand and liked album covers in general but you don’t get the album cover when you buy online so I don’t think this works.
The contrast between the pale green background and the bright green text makes it hard to read Fig 15. It looks as if the text should stand out but it doesn’t which means you have to try a lot harder than you should have to in order to read it properly.
The site is laid out in three sections a search information and then basket. The search is a good idea for any site but if your search happens to be something quite vague it will show a number of results. This is a problem because the only way to go down the list is to roll over the small arrow at the bottom of this section Fig 16. The list then scrolls down smoothly but relatively slowly this means it would take you along time to see all the results. If you click the mouse the speed increases but then appears to flash on the screen which could be classed as a accessibility issue.
Summary
Music.nokia.co.uk
This site was by far the most technical site I have analysed. It contained a lot of information and used a lot of advanced web design techniques, such as CSS roll over’s.
This site would suit anyone because although it contains a lot of information it is all well structured and the colours used are not offensive in any way.
The site is very clean and has a number of different ways in which to search
for a song, such as, naming the artist or clicking a genre of music. All
these good features however are let down by the fact that this site doesn’t
support Firefox web browsers at all. I think in todays world a big company
like Nokia should support all web browsers and it shouldn’t say you
have to change what you are using if you want to use the site.
This will annoy a lot of people and they will probably go somewhere else for the songs. I would say this site is a clean, modern looking website, but has no real wow factor and this would appeal to most people who use the internet to download because you don’t really notice the design, just the images.
I would put this site in a modern/technical style of website.
Woolworthsdownloads.co.uk
The Woolworths download site really suffers from sticking to the Woolworths
corporate identity. I think this is one case you could argue that they
could have tried to distinguish themselves from the store a little to
appeal to a more select market.
The images are all compressed poorly and the purple and red colour scheme is a poor contrast. I think the fact that half of the big links on the right hand side don’t work shows that this site looks and feels amateurish, and when you are paying money over the internet this is the last feeling you want to have about a site.
I think this website is aimed at young females and I would put it in a young/teen style category.
bleep.com
Evan though Bleep uses small images with no track name or artist to start
with, it was by far the easiest to use. Its one page layout never changes
and if you knew the song you were looking for you would find it pretty
hard to get stuck or lost using this website.
This was the only site I reviewed where you could look up a record label and it would give you everything they had released to date. I think this is a good feature to have some labels tend to stick to one kind of music, so if you like an album by a particular label more often than not you will like something else in their collection.
I think if the text colours were more contrasting to the background it would improve this site which would then give the site more visual cues which would lead you over from the left section to the right. I like the style and the big chunky “1 2 3” as a background is a good design and makes the site look modern.
I would put this in a street/urban stlye of website.
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