Orbitz vs. Expedia

Today I am going to take a break from design sights once again and compare two very popular sights for booking travel information. Orbitz and Expedia are two websites with one shared main purpose, for the user to be able book flight, hotel, and car information all at once, or separately along with the options to book cruise and activities for anywhere in the world.

Both Expedia and Orbitz have navigation bars at the top or their home webpage’s.  On the Expedia website it links the user to the Home, Vacation Packages, Hotels, Flights, Cruises, Activities, Deals/Offers, and Rewards webpage’s.  The Deals and Offers text on the navigation bar is a different color than the rest so it has a higher hierarchy than the other navigations probably because they want the users to draw attention to that specific webpage. What I don’t like about this navigation bar is that there are vertical slash marks that group the navigation links and I don’t find that to be necessary, I think it would look better if it were after each title of the navigation links. On the Orbitz navigation bar users have the opportunity to link to the Quick Search, Vacation Packages, Hotels, Flights, Cars, Cruises, Activities and Deals.

All of these titles have the same hierarchy and are positioned and separated equally unlike the navigation bar on the Expedia website. Once you’ve clicked on one of the navigation titles and are taken to its specific webpage the title on both websites are either colored or highlighted so you know that you are on the specific navigation webpage. Also on both websites the navigation bars stay the same as you navigate to different webpage’s within each websites, even after you’ve clicked on advertising links.

Since both Expedia and Orbitz cover all of those travel topics there’s a lot of information that needs to be on their webpage’s. This makes it a little confusing when looking for specific information. On Expedia it’s easier to get some information without having to do a search for it like on Orbitz for information like information on the hotels that they are affiliated with.  

Since there is a lot of information on both websites the type used for both are sans-serifs fonts to make the information easier to read. There are many A head, B head and Body Copy going on both sites but on Orbitz I enjoy the grid structure and how they separate the information given. On Expedia it’s more cluttered because there might be more than the needed information for the users.

Like stated before the grid structure on the Orbitz website is very clean and consistent, all the information on each website is usually placed strategically so similar information will be found at the same places. On the Expedia website it seems as if there are about 3 different grid structures used for their webpage’s , this inconsistency gets confusing at time when you want to find similar information on a different webpage.

On both websites their concepts for imagry are about the same because they relate the images to their content so it mostly consists of vacation images. The Orbitz website has less images than the Expedia website, which I find to me more bland but it may be best because it makes the website less busy and straightforward. Even though the Orbitz website is very straightforward I do enjoy the images and the placement of those images on the Expedia website. They even complement the color palette used in the Expedia website which is blue and yellow, and since vacation picture usually consist of blue, green, orange and yellow colors all the colors complement each other.  The Orbitz websites’ color palette consists of white, shades of blue and little green, these color were probably chosen because they are very relaxing and vacation like alike the Expedia website.

Orbitz and Expedia are relatively search engines for vacation and travel bookings. Orbitz is very straightforward and more functional than Expedia because it just has its core needs for the users and not much more. Expedia gives more form and function because it has more of a visual effect that guides you through the website. Personally I would like the form of the Expedia website and the functionality of the Orbitz website so the perfect website for their purposes would be a mixture of the two.

Check them both out at: expedia.com and orbitz.com

Vogue.com

Shaking it UP!

Hello All, I's shaking it up this week and am going to talk about Vogue magazine other than the usual graphic design website,

Enjoy!

Vogue is a fashion magazine that features collections, parties, cultures and videos all about the latest fashion. The actual magazine is pretty think in real life so that makes it appropriate that the website has a lot of information and pictures also.

On the home page of vogue.com lies a navigation system that is under a main picture/graphic that you can flip through. The Navigation bar is very legible having appropriate amounts of space between each work and differentiation between the primary links within the bar and the secondary one (s). When navigating through the website the navigation bar stays the same and actually moves along as you scroll down the webpage’s. Once you click on one of the navigation links the link does not change so you won’t know what webpage’s you have visited already. The site is very busy because there are a lot pictures everywhere but most of the time it’s not difficult to know where you are since you can access the navigation bar at all times.

This site seems to have a very deep architecture within it, as stated before Vogue’s magazine is pretty thick itself so it makes sense that its magazine has deep architecture with many webpage’s exploring and covering fashion topics and discussions. There are a lot of pages and links within those pages that takes you to a different webpage within the site or an external website that is affiliated with Vogue.  The deep architecture is also because the fashion topics that they cover are very broad and complex so the information that it conveys in very broad.

The type that is chosen for the website is Georgia for its body text, but because Vogue covers other brands and companies, there are a lot of brand names and its typographical styles. The typographical styles throughout this site are very broad and various so determining the hierarchy between in the text is very difficult.  There are some techniques are used to make the headlines more prominent like its bigger size and centered alignment but it still gets a little confusing nonetheless.

There is a grid structure that is followed by the webpage’s and for each webpage the same grid structure is followed. to a certain extent, with the main text/topic column in the middle and on the right and left column lie advertisement linking you internally and externally. The sections usually stay the same with the placement of advertisement, contact and social network information at the bottom. The focal point of the webpage’s, other than the homepage, is the logo and navigation bar underneath with the headline of the specific page.

The Vogue website has a too many pictures and graphics for my liking, I understand that it’s a fashion website and people like to see all the pictures of the latest fashion but its too much for a website. Having that many pictures is only suitable for its magazine rather than its website so it would probably be better if the didn’t overwhelm their webpage’s with photos and flash video players with makes the webpage’s longer to load at times. Also, with the advertisements that are a little too big at times and other brand logos that are incorporated with the page there is little or no description explaining its presence.

Even thought I do not favor the photos I do favor the colors of the vogue website itself which is black, white and red. There’s just a lot of colors going on with the other photos that sometimes you lose the simplicity of the original design or style. I find this site useful with its fashion trends and how they organize its topics and information. But I would rather if they use less flash because I can tell that a below average or even an average computer would have trouble processing all the information used for its website.

Studio7Designs

Studio7Designs (studio7designs.com) is a design company located in British Columbia that specializes in “creating strong branding for social and environmentally-conscious companies”.  
It has over 15 years of experience and has done projects for companies all over the world.  It looks that recently they have become an environmentally friendly web design company and, director Aran Down, has done this by solar powered web hosting, eco-friendly hardware, paperless office, recycled programs and more.

On the home page of Studio7Designs lies the navigation bar with the options to get to their Portfolio, Branding, About Us, News, Services and Contact.  There is no hierarchy among the navigation links and as you navigate through the site the bar stays the same giving you the opportunity to go home or to go directly to another option.  When clicking on the navigation link the color does not changing thus it doesn’t give you the opportunity of knowing whether you visited that specific web page or not. 

This site is very organized and the grid structure is pretty simple, obvious but creative and varies for each webpage.  When navigating through the web page’s of the site I haven’t gotten lost or have been unsure what they web page I was on is about. 

The hierarchy of the type in this website is very apparent the topics or titles on the navigation bar has a higher hierarchy than the subheadings that lie within the link so when clicked on and taken to the specific webpage there are subtitles that navigate you through the specific webpage because of all the information they provide.  The font that is used throughout the site seems to be Helvetica and the body text varies by color and size because of the content of each webpage but it is usually a gray color.  The usage of the body text, headings and subheadings relating to its color, size and placement are correctly and strategically placed to provide the content of the site.

As stated before the grid structure is very clean and appropriate for the specific web pages.  The focal point for each web is usually a tie between the specific webpage graphic which is usually a banner graphic of the specific webpage and the website’s main graphic which is a graphic tip of the earth.  These take up an appropriate amount of the web pages with the navigation bar splitting up the two.  The photos and graphics are very strategically placed throughout the website and I find it very enjoyable when reading their content there is an appropriate sized graphic or photo when needed. 

The color palette that is used in this website, excluding their branding and portfolio work, is based on the main graphic of the earth.  Those colors green, blue and purple along with a little brown are the main colors of the website.  A different shade of a grayish, tanish color of the background where the body text lies is used to split up the context of the content and sometimes a graphic or photo is used to split up this content also.  I think these colors where chosen because they are such a sustainable company and they care about the earth so a visually pleasing graphic of the earth is a statement of how important it means to them.  The colors for this website was chosen to support their design views and mission statement.

This site is very pleasing to navigate through and understandable when reading its content.  I am very impressed about their different usage of grids and graphic, photo placement and even the graphics themselves.  All of the web pages are very clean and its content is very informative but to the point.  I would say the only negative comment about this site is that they do not have a search bar, but personally there isn’t anything that I wasn’t able to find.

So If you find my options and description about this website interesting please visit: www.studio7designs.com