8 Well-Designed Sites and What You Can Learn From Them

Making a website is a process that requires a good amount of technical expertise, but there’s one thing web designers should never forget: that it is the visitor’s experience that counts the most. For that reason, it’s sometimes good to look at web design from a perspective other than the technical standpoint, and take a look at what generally makes a website enjoyable for someone to visit.

The websites we’re about to look at it aren’t necessarily supposed to be examples of the best websites ever; rather they are meant to be examples of sites that do at least one thing particularly well. These sites could be almost any site at all, because almost every site has some aspect about it that can be learned from.

Finally, some of these pieces of advice will overlap, but that’s just because it’s such great advice that you should hear it twice. Also all of this advice isn’t meant to necessarily be used at the same time on the same site, because, well, we can’t have everything we want.

And without further ado, here are the sites!

KINEDA.com

I’m not exactly sure what this site is about; it seems to basically feature hip-hop fashion news and other trendy stuff. But it doesn’t really matter what it’s about, because it’s clean and sharp design immediately drew me in and made me want to start clicking on things.

The interesting thing is that Kineda essentially seems to be just a wordpress blog, but that does not hold it back from being a fantastic design. Its use of high-quality pictures and a simple design, with a solid, readable font,  straightforward white-on-black background colour scheme, and newspaper-like columns makes the focus entirely on the content, and not on anything that the reader shouldn’t be interested in.

The result is that the site has a look very much like that of a magazine, which naturally makes visitors to the site want to dig in and start reading. Just like in a good magazine, nothing gets in the way of the visitor’s experience with the content.

The Lesson: You don’t need crazy-fancy web design to have a great site; a simple wordpress blog with a bit of thought put into presentation can do wonders for the visitor’s experience.

Also, even though print magazines and the internet are two different mediums, there are always lessons to be learned from print when designing a site. Magazines and newspapers have been around a lot longer than the internet, and many of the basic lessons learned by magazine designers are transferable to the world of the web: use columns for readability, include a good amount of high quality pictures to break up the text, and choose your font well for maximum readability.

Finally, pictures of hot Japanese girls never hurt.

NARROWDESIGN.com

This site is a good example of how to make an appealing style of navigation. It’s also a good example of a site that is different and interesting, yet still completely focused on the content.

The main content of the site is a series of links to sites designed by the owner, which is pretty standard. But what is interesting about the links is how they are presented and how the user navigates through them: by simply moving the mouse the links scroll up and down.

This unique method of navigation immediately puts the focus on the links, which is how it should be, considering they are the main content of the site. The user simply can’t ignore them, because upon first moving their mouse they see the links move; the visual cue to pay attention to those links is immediate. This kind of navigation is also very intuitive, making sure the visitor isn’t confused at all by the somewhat unusual approach.

Also, when a link is clicked on, the user isn’t immediately sent to a site; rather, a preview of the site is shown. By getting previews of the work the visitor gets an idea of the content, while still having the opportunity to stay on the main site and play around with the navigation system.

The end result is a site that the user will most likely start using right away, with no other cues than the unique navigation style.

The Lesson: Thinking about how users navigate your site can be very important, and giving visitors a particular way to navigate can bring more focus to your content, whether it is composed of text, pictures, movies or links.

And you don’t always need a flash site to take advantage of navigation; most of the time visitors will just be scrolling up and down and clicking on links, but there are still design decisions to be made. Want everything to be one screen? Then you’ll most likely need links to navigate the site, while not cluttering your screen with too much text. Want users to scroll through your site? Then keep links to a minimum, and what links you do have should open in a new tab, because losing your place on a long webpage and having to scroll back can be annoying.

By putting a bit of thought into how you want visitors to navigate, and a bit of planning and design to support that vision, you can make your site that much easier for visitors to use.

LEGWORK STUDIO

I usually don’t like sites that have a lot of weird stuff going on in the background; they tend to be confusing and end up scaring me away. But this site managed to hold me in just long enough for me to click on the about button, which scrolls you down to a cleverly embedded video that looks like it’s part of the background.

I’ll admit it, this video is pretty much the only reason this site is on the list. Not to say that the rest of the site is poorly designed; it is perfectly functional, stylish site. But the video in particular was entertaining and funny, and managed to draw me in while explaining what the site was about with a ridiculous cartoon. Further, it didn’t feel like a tacked on gimmick, because of the way it was featured seamlessly in the site.

The result is a fun use of media that is not only entertaining for anyone that visits the site, but that also lets visitors know what the site is all about without boring them to death.

The Lesson: Don’t be afraid to get creative with different types of media to get visitors engaged. Movies, music, and sound aren’t always going to work on every website, but if it is an option then with a bit of ingenuity and some smart integration of the media you can make what is normally a boring affair that users might ignore into something that is engaging and fun. The internet is capable of so much more than just pictures and text, and smart use of these possibilities can make your site that much more engaging.

YOULOVE.US

First of all, this site has a really cute name. I’m not sure how much that’s worth, but it can’t hurt.

Right off the bat this site looks like a pretty design with a full background image of a nighttime cityscape, but doesn’t immediately blow you away with anything amazing. But as soon as you scroll up or down or click on a main link, the website does a very cool effect where the movement of the background gives the impression that the time of day is changing in the little cityscape.

The effect is interesting and engaging, but not distracting, since the buildings in the background stay in place, acting as a visual anchor so that the site doesn’t give that nauseating feeling that most full-scrolling-background sites give. Also, the site makes great use of colour, managing to change the background colour from dark blue to bright red without making the text unreadable.

The result is that you don’t even have to care what the site is about to stay around, because you want to keep exploring it to get more of the unique and attractive scrolling effect. And the better chance someone has of sticking around at your site, the better chance they have of getting into its content.

The Lesson: Keep visitors interested with whatever you can. Sometimes it doesn’t even matter how relevant the interesting aspect of your site is, although ideally it will be with something that gels well with the overall presentation and content of your site.

And you don’t have to come up with a groundbreaking new clever design to do this; a catchy title, a funny picture, some pretty colours, or anything else that might catch a visitor’s attention will help keep them around long enough to let your page make an impression.

VIGET LABS WEB DESIGN BLOG

This site is a simple blog about web-design, fittingly. It’s got the usual setup, with blog posts, an about section, comments, and so on.

What makes this site worth talking about is how nice it looks. It has a beautiful watercolour background that blends with the blog perfectly, and is just plain easy on the eyes. The colours used are soft and inviting, and this theme is carried through to the rest of the site, which can be seen in the pictures of the various editors, which have the same mild, faded style. The end result is a website that is a pleasure to look at.

The Lesson: If you have the resources to do it, make your website look as nice as possible. Some people might argue that information is information, and that it shouldn’t matter how many nice frills your site has, as long as it gets the points across. But the simple fact of the matter is that most people like stuff that looks nice, and a pretty looking webpage with some attractive graphics — even on something as simple as a blog — just gives visitors one more reason to stick around.

MAGNIVATE

Magnivate is a pretty unusual site: it is almost like a video game, in that you get to explore a little world with a character that you control. It’s a fun and interesting approach that will most likely get any visitor immediately involved with its interactivity.

But the epxloration you do on the Magnivate site isn’t just about exploring the strange little world you are presented with, because by getting your character to run around, you also end up learning what the site is about. As you reach certain points, information about the site is presented to you, making what would normally be dry and boring info become a quick and fun game.

By giving the visitor a fun way to find out what the site is about, Magnivate skips the whole boring about page that no one cares about, and instead integrates exploration of the site into the exploration of the game.

The Lesson: Try to keep things organic when explaining to any visitors what your site is about. A small about section doesn’t hurt, but ultimately you want people to naturally figure out what your site is about while exploring it, so that they aren’t forced to swallow any information about the site without first experiencing what it’s like first hand. When visitors interact directly with the site in learning about it, they build a much stronger connection with it than if they simply memorized a block of text explaining what it’s about.

Of course, you don’t need to take the same route as Magnivate; its flash-based approach takes the exploration-as-information idea to a very literal conclusion, but it’s far more elaborate than is appropriate for most sites. Nonetheless there are ways to make sure that users get an idea of what your site is about without first needing an explanation.

For example, make sure to give the user plenty of options in exploring the content of your site, so that no matter what they click they’re getting content that the site is focused on, and not periphery stuff. A lot of blogs do this well, by not only showing the latest blog posts up front, but by also giving the archives or last month’s posts in a sidebar, or implementing an option that allows users to access a random post. With lots of different ways to get to the same content, the user will quickly figure out what the site is about just by clicking on stuff.

TED.COM

Ted.com is a site meant to showcase various talks given at TED conferences. The site actually has quite a few things going on, with a fair amount of links and options that the user might take some time to become familiar with.

Nonetheless, TED’s main focus, the videos, is undeniably the first thing any visitor will notice. The central feature of the site is a neat visualization of various categories of videos, and it presents the visitor with an interface that immediately asks to be investigated. By making the video visualization feature so prominent, TED gives the visitor direct access to all the videos, and also organizes them according to a number of interesting and intuitive themes, making the visitor comfortable to dive in and get acquainted with the site’s content.

The end result is that, even though TED has a fairly busy design with a good deal of periphery information, most visitors will ignore all that info and instead make use of the much more intuitive visualization feature.

The Lesson: Your site’s content must be the main focus at all times, because it is what the visitor is there to see. If anything gets in the way of that, then the visitor’s focus shifts away from the content, and they may lose interest or miss the point.

Make sure that every design choice you make puts your content, whether that be articles, movies, music, or pictures, front and centre.

WEB ZEN

Web zen is a site that lives up to its name quite well: it is sparse and straightforward and keeps features to a bare minimum, letting nothing get in the way of the content, which consists of a themed set of links to interesting stuff.

It might almost seem ridiculous to have a webpage with so little on it, but the result is a very focused design. There is no explanation of what the site is about, but there doesn’t need to be, because the content is right there in front of the visitor. With no ads, blocks of text, or distracting graphics to get in the way, web zen loses no time in getting the visitor to start digging in to the site.

The Lesson: Keep things simple. You don’t have to be as minimal as web zen, of course, but the basic design principles it embodies are important: if you have ads, make sure they don’t get in the way, make sure nothing that isn’t the main content is distracting, and if you don’t need it on there, get rid of it.

The challenge is balancing simplicity with the other important features included on your site: the more features you add, or have to add, the more complex the site becomes. But with a bit of organization and some smart cuts, a simple design that ensures the visitor doesn’t get confused, lost, or frustrated can be achieved.

Toshiba Announces Exceedingly High-Capacity 512GB Flash Drive

Today Toshiba released details of the world’s first 512GB flash drive.

The solid-state drive, which is part of a new line of 43 nanometer multi-level cell drives that includes 64, 128, and 256GB models, will come in a 2.5 inch format and is designed mainly for use with notebook computers.

Other technical details include a 280MB per second read speed and a maximum 200MB per second write speed.

With this announcement, Toshiba has become the first company to make a 512GB flash drive. I have to admit, this blows my mind just a teeny bit, since when I got my 512 megabyte flash drive a couple years ago it was the biggest available, and also wasn’t cheap. I look forward to the future, when, seeing someone combing through the carpet, I will ask, Can I help you find your contact lense? and they will respond, Oh, I didn’t lose my contact. I’m looking for my 4,000 terabyte flash drive. It slipped through the fabric of my jeans.

No price has been announced yet, but Toshiba plans to showcase the new 512GB flash drive at the next Consumer Electronics Show, January 2009, in Las Vegas before its April 2009 release.

Dante’s Inferno: You might have read the epic poem, now play the epic video game!

EA Redwood Shores, makers of Dead Space, are about to turn away from outer space and go to the underworld. The company has just announced a third-person action title called Dante’s Inferno.

Its tough to come up with new ideas for video games, but I think it is better to get inspiration from Fourteenth Century master works rather than the latest flash-in-the-pan movie. For those who aren’t familiar with this masterpiece, The Inferno is one of three parts of The Divine Comedy, a long poem by Dante Alighieri.

In The Divine Comedy, the poet is taken on a trip through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, in that order. Since there isn’t really any combat in this poem, I can imagine that certain creative liberties will be taken in this adaptation.

Believe it or not, Universal has actually bid on movie rights for this game, beating out Paramount, New Regency, MGM, and Warner Bros. You might want to check out the trailer below, as it appears horror in video game has been taken to a new level. How could you not? The game’s tagline is go to hell, for crying out loud.

It appears that EA is planning for a hit with this. I can’t wait to see what other masterworks from the Middle Ages will be adapted into video games. Perhaps The Canterbury Tales or The Song of Roland. How about Doctor Faustus, where you must make a deal with the devil and fight to get yours?  Bound to be a hit.

Source

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSMPmuXzrgQ[/youtube]

Wonderfully Excessive Tekken 6 Trailer Released

A new trailer for Tekken 6 was released at the recent Atari Live press event, and it showcases everything that the Tekken series has come to be known for.

The Tekken series, initially released in 1994 as an arcade game, is a well-established 3D fighting game. The last few instalments have made the shift out of the traditional arcade setting and onto the PlayStation console.

In a first for the series, Tekken 6 will also be available for XBox 360, which will very likely widen its popularity and ensure solid sales.

Though I’m not a hardcore fan of fighting games and usually wouldn’t be too excited about the release of one, I make an exception for Tekken. Growing up, me and my friends lived as arcade nomads, travelling from arcade to arcade looking for new Tekken players to challenge. Memories of wasting enormous amounts of quarters have a permanent place in my heart, so news of a new home version on XBox 360 piques my interest.

The new trailer showcases plenty of in-game footage, showing off some new characters, including a really fat guy, which I’m sure most Tekken fans are excited about.

And for anyone who isn’t familiar with Tekken, the trailer is chock full of over the top cinematic action that anyone can enjoy. It views like a summer blockbuster movie trailer, complete with glimpses at some of the game’s campy but entertaining cut scenes. These scenes include stuff like explosions and a character driving around on a motorcycle for no apparent reason then shattering an entire glass building with one punch.

Kongregate Offers Free, Community-Designed Online Games

It’s a situation we’re all familiar with: you’re bored, trying to kill time, or just looking for a break, so you look to the web for some fun distractions in the form of free online games. There is a plethora of sites available that offer up such entertainment, but few that include as many quality features and games as Kongregate.

At its core Kongregate is a site driven by community game submissions. Users make their own Flash or Shockwave games and upload them to the site, where anyone can play them. Almost every genre is covered, from action, adventure and RPG, to puzzle and music-based games. For a start, check out I Wish I Were the Moon, an experimental point and click puzzle game, or Ragdoll Cannon, a game, not surprisingly, about launching ragdolls from a cannon. There are even multiplayer games available, which allow users of the site to play together or against one another.

One aspect that sets Kongregate apart from other free gaming sites is the quality of the games that are offered. Like any community-driven site there will be a share of lemons, but the majority of Kongregate’s games are fun, interesting, original, and well-designed. One of my favourites is The Several Journeys of Reemus, a very well illustrated point-and-click adventure game with some hilarious dialogue, creative characters, and a unique and wacky story.

But Kongregate isn’t simply a collection of free online games; as its name suggests it is also a social networking community where people can meet, talk about their favourite games, discuss strategies, make critiques, add friends, and set up multiplayer games with one another.  Kongregate has the usual forum-based discussion area, like many websites, but what makes Kongregate unique is that every game comes bundled with a chat room that allows you to chat with other people on the site, look at high-scores, and so on.

Multiplayer games even allow you to chat with other people playing the same game as you. Unfortunately, there are no rooms for people playing single-player games to chat in together, a feature I hope will eventually be added. Nonetheless, this focus on community gives Kongregate a notably social aspect, taking advantage of the possibilities offered by social networking sites, and making the web-gaming experience feel less isolated and more like a visit to Facebook.

Kongregate has some other inventive features that make it noteworthy. One of the reasons that many of Kongregate’s games seem to be of particularly high quality for free online fare is the support offered by the site. Kongregate has built in mechanics for game-sponsorship, so it is very common to see various websites sponsoring the game you are playing. This gives the site’s game developers more exposure and more opportunities than simply uploading the product of their hard work to a site that may not reward the author’s contribution.

Also, every game on Kongregate is given a percentage of the ad-revenue generated by the game, allowing indie developers a chance to make a few dollars off of their creations. Finally, the site’s users can purchase “Kreds,” which can be used to donate funds directly to game developers. Aspects like these further strengthen the community aspect of Kongregrate, ensuring people that quality games are rewarded, and giving community members the feeling that they are doing their part to help, all while having some fun.

But it isn’t just developers that get special benefits from Kongregate; players have a chance too. While it isn’t fully worked out yet, as Kongregate is still in beta, the infrastructure for a points system is in place, whereby players gain badges and earn points for completing achievements and challenges. Points earned will increase your avatar’s “level,” and prizes and rewards for reaching high scores are being planned.

The Kreds I mentioned earlier can also be used to buy power-ups and virtual items, enhancing the experience for the player.

Social and reward features like these are what turn an experience with a website from a casual visit to a compelling and personal experience. Rewards, points, avatars and special achievements that are tracked and viewable by all other players give the site an integrated and professional feel, akin to using XBox Live.

Overall, Kongregate has some fun little games to play, but more importantly it also seems to be taking the next step in online gaming, towards a complete community-based form that will keep players interested and benefit designers at the same time.

The Addiction of StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon has carried many web surfers deep in the night, into the wee hours of many mornings by offering a never ending stream of interesting randomness that is always just a click away.

It’s an adventure. Your clicks bring you to visuals and sounds you never would have expected to find on the internet. Before stumbling existed, web surfing consisted of search engines and links given to you on web forums or by friends on IM. Surfing used to be a mundane process where you knew what you were looking for and only needed to find a way to get to it.

Stumbling has brought us unseen destinations, exciting vistas of information and opinion and stupidity, the exotic dangers of a random NSFW page, and the mindless time wasting flash games we would never have found otherwise. StumbleUpon has given people a reason for being on the internet when they have nothing else to do but explore.

Everything is within your grasp, everything is only a click away. Whether you know it or not, when you stumble your way through the internet you are set on a quest. Your quest is to see the entirety of the internet, its best and its worst. The more clicks you take, the deeper into the web you travel and the more difficult it becomes to leave. You enter a vastness that is impossible to comprehend, yet it is all veiled behind the mask of the click. That click, the next one might take you to something wonderful, some amazing thing no one else has seen before, you might discover the next greatness that will make you an internet rock star to your peers. One click, just one more, just one more, one more…

Parents have always told their children that it is best to take things in moderation, this also applies to the click of StumbleUpon. Most stumble addicts out there know who they are, and that’s a good first step. No more stumbling through papers and meals, no more stumbling until the crack of dawn scares you into your bed. We can enjoy StumbleUpon, but we must not abuse it. The world misses you, and we only want to see you again and we hope you are doing well.

It is the evolution of the web. We’ve moved past railways and roadways and are now flying through the internet, teleporting from destination to destination. There is a new world to explore, and its all at your fingertips, just one more click away…

PlaySEGA, Sega’s casual gaming site, goes online

Yesterday Sega launched the beta of PlaySEGA, an internet based gaming site that includes flash versions of various Sega titles, such as Sonic at the Olympic Games, as well as third party puzzle and arcade games.

Following the suit of Nintendo, whose family-friendly Wii has opened the gaming market up to an untapped demographic, and Microsoft, who recently updated the XBox Live interface to include personalized avatars much like Nintendo’s Miis, Sega seems to be looking to make their way into the new casual gamer market.

Signing up for PlaySEGA is free, and comes with an avatar that can be personalized by playing the selection of online games and accruing PlaySEGA “rings,” which are the site’s internal currency for buying new clothes, houses and other knick-knacks.

Sega has also announced that in the future they will be establishing a VIP only pay portion of the site, which will include exclusive content and is rumored to include classic games such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Chu Chu Rocket.

Nick Phil, the Network Business Director of Sega Europe seems excited about the future of PlaySEGA, saying, “What started off as a small project within the SEGA Network Group has now caught the imagination of the entire company. He continued, I have suggestions for new games filling up my in-box, from the CEO, to staff I’ve never even met over in our Japanese, European and US offices.”