The York Gallery website is overall clear, content rich and functional with a simplistic and traditional structure. However it can seem more text heavy and more confusing in the navigational tab which is something I would say is important when creating a website. The site uses a top-level horizontal navigation bar with drop down menus which is used on most websites for its practicality and adds to the overall predictability of the website making it easier to scan over. The clear primary navigation categories at the top of the page make navigation an easy task for the user despite the wall of text you’re faced with when hovering over each category which is something I dislike about the website. Calls to action are quite frequent especially on exhibition pages but they are often text based rather than buttons which makes them hard to identify against the other text within the page. The presentation of events, exhibitions and workshops have clear chronological and categorical organisation with each item having enough context for quick understanding. Overall, I would keep the overall layout but change the wall of text that comes up when clicking on the top navigational buttons.
The website for The National Gallery is content rich, visually consistent and aesthetically pleasing but leans heavily toward broadcasting information rather than guiding user journeys. The navigation for all aspects of the website was contained in a drop down menu which decreased the amount of clutter on the front page but might be harder for new visitors to locate. Calls to action are frequent and always have the same button which creates a familiarity and makes it easy to spot on all the pages its on. The website has good categorisation as events are tagged with different types of customers like families, members and a simple for everyone tag which makes it easier for users to navigate easily and see what best fits them. The use of imagery is frequent which I think is important considering the nature of the website and entices the user into wanting to see more of the exhibitions . When on the booking tickets section, the benefits are explained clearly but getting to the actual section of booking tickets is more difficult than it should be and is under a wall of text and photos. Overall I think if I was to redo this website, I feel as though I’d try to make the pages less content heavy as the website right now is leaning towards cognitive overload due to too much information of varying subject. I would also try to include more information which would help towards planning such as custom itineraries based on interests, time and crowds.
After looking at these two very different examples, I think the user would need an app that’s easy to navigate and has no features that can’t be accessed from the landing page easily to make it easy on the full range of the age demographic. They would also need a balance between information and imagery as too much imagery and too little writing risks a page looking empty while too much text can create a confusing wall that the user might misinterpret.
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