Student Website Review

Marianne Burns

Joie Lin

allaboutnlp.com

3 Strongest Aspects about their Site

The basic design of the website planned is sound, having a look that is sharp but simple. The basic color scheme leans towards dark colors, using a black for the navigation bar at the top, while images are used to color the space inside. The font chosen also fits, as it also comes across as modern and sharp but without any really fancy curls. Its business-like without being stiff.

The theme of the site - Natural Language Processing or NLP - so far matches with the webtsite design shared. Its technical and to the point, rather like a computer (mostly) with plenty of space for explaining its topic and what its for. The other pages are clearly defined by their navigation links, showing what they will be talking about so the user will not be confused while they are navigating.

The interface of the site seems effective. While the other pages are still under construction and currently skeletal, the structure allows for them to be navigated to and explored without issues. They are named appropriately for ease of efficiency. They also work nicely with the layout and design of the page, so there's no strange disconnect trying to find them either.

3 Areas That Need Improvement

While the design itself is overall very well done, there are a couple areas I think it could use some tweaks. A couple of the pages are very similar in their design which, while understandable from a technical point of view, may not be as visually interesting. This could potentially lose a user's focus, resulting in them potentially moving on from the page. The main image, if its to be by itself instead of incorporated with the main page title, is a little bit too big, taking up most of the page when it is first opened.

In thinking on sizes of things, this could detract from how the site may look on mobile, as opposed to the PC. The interface might not crunch as well on a mobile screen as it would for the pc, so the grid should be taken somewhat into account to fix that. The font between the title and the navigation bar may want to be different as well, both for visual interest and from a design perspective.

Simplicity makes things easy for builders, but as designers we have to keep our viewers in mind. While the simple aspects really work for the site as it stands, it could use a little bit of change in both its framework and shape to help keep user interest. It has the definite working framework, just needs a few tweaks to be amazing.