Web Journal #5: Military

U.S. Coast Guard

The U.S. Coast Guard site uses a simple three column CSS design but its not very well organized and a user can become quickly lost.

The homepage starts out fine-- open layout with plenty of whitespace, a simple navbar across the top and subnav along the righthand column-- but as soon as a you select a tab in the main menu, you're taken to a completely different site. If you select NEWS it will open a new page and the navbar changes. It's like they've taken several totally separate sites and dumped them into one "news" page, but not bothered to tell anyone that's what they've done.

Web Journal #4: National News

CNN.com

CNN's use of an "all-american" color palette of red, white and blue", lots of "white space", and a straight-forward navigation make this site easy on the eyes and pretty easy to get around. The main navigation is at the top and stays mostly consistant across all links (except for Business, Sports, and Time.com each of which take you to a different site). Breadcrumbs help to show where you are at any time. Headlines, a list of Latest News, and Video links top the page. Scrolling down the page reveals a variety of features and links.

The footer has the same links as the header including a search tool and additional related links (Podcasts | Blogs | CNN Mobile | Preferences | Email Alerts | CNN Radio | CNN Shop | Site Map).

A few items that bother me are that one link, while not taking you away from the site, looks significantly different (Politics). Also, banner ads at the tops of some pages push the navigation up or down making it an inconsistent experience (Home, US, Health).

Web Journal #3: Airport

Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport (PHXA)

The Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport website is simple and informative. CSS driven, it loads fairly quickly. It uses a monotone color palette and is easy to read. Navigation is mainly on the left side and expands to reveal details under each of the 5 main headers. Its extremely easy to follow and provides a variety of important information.

However, it is heavily text dependent and uses few, if any, additional images to assist in way-finding. Sometimes you must leave the main site for features such as searching for flight schedules (a page that is NOTHING like the PHX site). Likewise, the airlines information page is simply a table listing of the 21 airlines which fly out of PHX. (but doesn't use any of their logos?) At least your a provided a link and phone numbers to Reservations and Baggage Services...

Then again, under Maps, Food & Shops is information about each Terminal including Museum Exhibitions featuring images of art and their descriptions. There's also an Image Library of ad-like photography of the airport and it's amenities.

Web Journal #2: Clothing Retail

KarmaLoop.com specializes in "street wear". The site is very busy...almost too much to absorb at once. But given some time, it wasn't too difficult to figure out the navigation.

Central to the home page is a slideshow of rotating images featuring models & logos below which is a linear menu of major brand names from which to select. On the left is a static menu showing "search", a "style salon" and "LookBook". These provide three different ways to search for what you like.The advanced search feature helps to fine tune searches based on gender, size, category, brand and price range. On the right is a vertical list of "top sellers" to choose from. Along the top are additional pop-ups that get you quickly to brands for guys or girls. Cart, runnig subtotal, account info, and customer service links round out the header area. Subsequent page layout is similar.

What's Hot? Lots of pictures of hip young models sporting the latest street wear.
What's Not? Really busy layout, but may attract younger customers.

Web Journal #1: Art School

Pacific Northwest College of Art: http://www.pnca.edu

The thing that struck me when first loading the page was the white PNCA logo on a black field at the top of the page. Next was the use of gray backgrounds and neon color headers (which seem rather old-school). Then the simple basics of "Inquire", "Visit", and "Apply"... obviously this school is in the business of attracting and enrolling future students. Interestingly, map, contact, and quick links are at the top of the page AND, as with most other art school sites, student work is showcased on the main page.

Layout consists of a main center column with sub-navigation on the left sidebar and additional links on a right sidebar.

Collages of imagery change out across the top of each page upon load. Student and Faculty feature profiles rotate on various page loads as well. (Great way to showcase the importance of both student and faculty work.)

Navigation is straightforward. No pop-up menus. No Flash. But, a simple gallery page featuring faculty and student work. You select which department you wish to view and whether it's faculty or student work. Then a set of thumbnails appears from which you select to view a larger example. 

One thing I found that needs fixing is when clicking on the menu bar for various pages. The box changes color on hover, but only the text is the active link. You can click and click, but unless the cursor is over the text nothing happens.