In the communication industry getting a good website is one of the holy grails in design. So who has a good design and what is a good design? A good website represents what you need it to be. Through design a website shows the ethos of an organisation, service or person. It also must be accessible instantaneously. A steep learning curve is a big no no in web design. The first website I think of when it comes to the design showing the ethos of the company is SpaceX’s website.
The images are big and bold. The over all site’s lay out is sleek and easy to navigate at a glance. The main image shifts in between one of three images which are links to different feature stories about the company’s achievements and one on the investigation into the loss of a rocket. At the top are other very clear links to the launch vehicles the company manufactures and a smaller set of links for careers, the press and merchandise.
Lower down are direct links to the featured stories and SpaceX’s social media. This image is a link to one of those featured stories. This particular one is about making rockets reusable.
Intuitive usability is something SpaceX has in spades, but it still doesn’t hold a candle to what I think is the pan ultimate of intuitive user interface. That is Netflix.
I am yet to find a site that consistently manages to improve on the UI the way Netfix has. What more could you need to just pick up and go on this site? If what their analytics find is not to your liking there is a browse icon in the top left along with a few other self explanatory navigation tools to help you find your way. Lower down is a wide selection of videos all separated into their genres. Finally at the bottom of the page are links for more specific tools to customizes the website.
When we think of academic or government websites we think the exact opposite of Netflix’s or SpaceX’s web design. Indeed this next site is very much in the thread of the clunky academic science news websites. However, I think Science Daily is one of the nicer ones.
It is a website of encyclopedic word vomit, but remember it is a science news site. That is the way it is supposed to be. The real question is can you find what your looking for easily and the answer is yes.
This site has a bit too much content to try and totally cover, but at the top there is a menu of different topics and disciplines in science. Lower down the top stories are compiled from all the different disciplines and as you scroll further down you will find each discipline has its own section on the home page with the top stories from that discipline displayed with images.
This section then links to ether the story you select or the entire discipline’s page. All in all it is a very well organised website for all the information presented on it. This page is like a well written table of contents to an encyclopedia.
Each of these sites has the most important part of design, that is they serve their purpose effectively. That is what it means to have form follow function.