3. 1. What differentiates the homepage design today vs. the older version? (examples
would be content, layout, positioning, colors, fonts, images, etc.)
The very first design aspect I took notice of is that the older version has a very antique
feeling due to the choice of font color, the blurred image in the vertical navigation bar,
and most importantly, it has this cramped feeling because content is stacked on each
other. This is, of course, because the older version is mostly designed in HTML and you
are limited in design capabilities.
Furthermore, there is a literal lack of content and this does not build confidence in anyone
thinking about donating. In the newer version there are plenty of pictures of animals
which immediately makes me think “Ok, a pet rescue” versus the older version. In the
newer version there are plenty of reliable and trustworthy means of donating such as the
PayPal donate button. The older version lacks that entirely. The newer version makes
use of a short about-me section that really makes this feel like a website with ability,
while the older version, appears to be more of a newspaper ad.
Additionally, the layout on the newer page is spread-out, looks neater, and navigation
tools are easy to spot and use. The buttons even change their background color to help
others realize this is a button. The newer version makes extensive use of the box-design
method, or DIVS, which increases how you can place content, style it, and how it all
interacts with all of the other content on your website.
2. What were the goals of the older version of the website? Today?
The goal of the older version of the website is to provide a meet up location for people to
adopt pets and get as many people as possible to come by making use of the internet. It’s
a very simple homepage and it does achieve this goal.
When looking at the newer website the goal is now to create as many opportunities as
possible to get pets adopted. This can be by literally adopting them, donating to the
facility, or by showing support through social media. The newer website does a great job
at doing this.
3. Is the current site mobile friendly? (check the site at
https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly)
6. The easy answer to make this website look and feel better is to remove the border
surrounding the entire website because it is cutting into the <div id=”dropMenu”> on the
right hand side.
So now, instead of the content trying to fit into something it now has more room on the
website.
Next, the logo is chopping into <div id=”dropMenu”> on the left hand side and this can
be remedied by simply changing the background color of the box that happens to be
containing “by Judy” to white.
I would not charge for this.
However, the long answer is I would redesign the actual layout by creating 3 containers
labeled Top Container, Middle Container, and Bottom Container. Now, the locations,
spacing, height and width, paddings, margins font, and background colors can be chosen
down and displayed down to the pixel.
