I’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t pay much attention to the design of a website until it becomes a topic we actually discuss. I’m on the Internet all the time, but I had a hard time thinking of websites that I visit often that are also visually appealing as well as functional. I ended up choosing to feature Pinterest, Francescas and Refinery29.
Pinterest
The layout of Pinterest is just extremely user-friendly. And, although they’ve made layout changes several times, it still fits what it was created to be: an online bulletin board.
I also really like how organized you can be with Pinterest. You can create as many boards as you want to keep your pins looking neat and tidy. There are no extra ads or crazy colors to distract the user from their main goal, pinning!
Francesca’s Collection
The thing I love most about this website is how they change their design with the seasons. They are a clothing website, so that definitely makes sense. Using seasonal designs and colors puts the customer in the mood to buy clothes that correspond to the current season.
They recently changed to fall colors, so they aren’t as vibrant as I wanted the picture to be.
Refinery29
This lifestyle blog is also really simple. Lots of black and white with splashes of color thrown in to accentuate the stories featured.
As you scroll down through the home page, they change up the layout of how the stories are presented to the reader. I find this very visually appealing because, as I scroll down through a page, my eyes tend to glaze over if everything looks too similar.
Overall, the websites I chose had one thing in common: simplicity. If you had walked up and asked me what I would be looking for in a webpage, I probably would have said something like “Lots of colors and fonts!” Which I still definitely appreciate, but now I know that simpler is definitely better.