My Views of Presidential Candidates' Websites

Today I was browsing through the presidential candidates websites. Both Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s websites were very easy to locate. I used Google.com, and searched the names of the candidates and the first websites that showed up were the official ones. There was no doubt after I saw them that I was at the right spot, and there were no other possibilities. I first looked at Obama’s website which, through the use of HTML, made every link very large and the whole site well structured, and easy to follow. His target audience seemed to be everybody, because it is so simple it can be used by both computer professionals and beginners. The website was very simple and consisted of three basic colors- red, white and blue. This makes it look very patriotic, along with pictures of Barack Obama and Joe Biden Standing straight and tall, which also contrasted the colors used in the page. This website fit together very well and I believe whoever designed it did a great job putting it together. It is very simple, sleek and effective. John McCain’s official website was also very easy to find, however when I got to it I was very disappointed. At first glance it seemed very cluttered to me. There were too many different colors used which were distracting. Also the colors used didn’t contrast, which made them stick out like a sore thumb. This use of color was distracting and took away from the content of the page. This website seemed to be aimed at everyone as well, however due to its clutter, it may be more difficult for beginner users to use and browse through. As opposed to Obama’s sleek looking website I believe McCain’s is very rough around the edges and could use some tidying up.

I looked at Eric Pelkofsky's blog entree on this topic at http://surfer698-surfersparadise.blogspot.com/ and commented on it with my opinion.

Reaction to Screen Space 6: Color Design 101

After viewing this Screen Space, I have come away with a lot of knowledge on color design. I have learned that although I have the ability to use many colors I should limit myself to four or fewer colors. Any more than four will make the website seem too childish and may distract or disinterest the user. Along with limiting the colors, I learned I should also use colors that contrast. It is more visually appealing, when colors contrast, and do not conflict. When adding images I learned that the dominant colors in my image should contrast the dominant colors in my page. This makes the web site seem more professional and planned out. It is also a good idea to keep the background color lighter then the color of the text. This draws attention to the content of the text and doesn't distract the user. Along with using a darker text, also use alternate colors for things that need to be emphasized. Be consistent with the emphasis color, so that people understand that that color, means you are emphasizing a piece of information. One thing the article talked about that I would have never thought about was color-blind users. In the article it talks about color blind users, and how some cannot differentiate between colors, so it is best to also use bold, italics, shapes and other methods to draw attention to important information. I learned a lot from this article and it taught me things that will make my web pages more presentable and professional.

Here is an example of a bad website,
http://www.fredfrap.com/intro%20page%208.29.02.htm
This website is bad for many reasons. First of all the background of the page is too "loud". It has too much going on, and distracts the user from the actual content of the page. There are more than four colors used, which makes it look more like a clown website. Also the text color is lighter then the background, which makes it hard to read. The pictures also do not contrast the colors used. That is why this is a bad website.

Here is an example of a good website,
http://www.coldsmoker.com/
This website is good for many reasons. First of all it is very simple and effective. There are 4 or fewer colors, which do not distract the user. The website uses not only colors, but italics and bold to draw attention to important information. Also the background is a lighter color then the text, which draws attention to the content of the text and not the background. Also the pictures contrast with the other colors used in the page which makes it look more professional and planned out. That is why this is a good website.

Greetings

Greetings, my name is Chris Kapsaskis. This is the first blog I have ever created, and this is also my first blog entree as well. Through this blog I hope to express many different topics and stories that I find interesting. Hopefully this will spark your interests too and you can partake in my blog. Thank You.