Food News Journal: Website Design Critique

Food News Journal (FNJ) uses a simplistic approach to their overall website design. Unlike the traditional grid layout of a website where the navigation bar is either on the left hand side or beneath the masthead, FNJ showcases a basic form of it on the right side of their page. There, they provide links to exclusive areas of their website as well as opportunities for email subscription and information on website contributors.

FNJ’s web page has fairly good usability. Everything is straight to the point, convenient to get to, and easy on the eyes. As far as page unity is concerned, it appears they tried to use a similar scheme to tie it together, with black, orange, and green seemingly being the primary colors there. It should be noted, however, that they use a handful of different fonts and sizes which dampens the cohesive factor of the web page. In addition, their placement of widgets and social media links is a bit clumsy — perhaps grouping them all together would have been a better choice.

Their use of contrast is mediocre. For the most part, FNJ uses different font colors to distinguish the section of the website you are on, but some of them are either in bold, italics, or another font class entirely, which makes it difficult to tell if it’s a link or not.

Web page hierarchy is something they do excel at. Right away, your eyes focus on the most important aspect of the website — their food news section down the middle of the screen. It is also evident that FNJ wants to make sure you know exactly where you are as the size of their nameplate is astonishingly large.

FNJ is certainly consistent with their web page design layout. No matter which link you decide to pursue within their site, the overall feel of their page remains the same. That is, the navigation bar, widgets and links, and advertisements are located in identical spots each time.

I would recommend sprucing up their web page design by eliminating some of the boxes that enclose sections of the website. With so many of them, it gives the page a cluttered and messy appearance. Also, I would suggest looking at different options for distinguishing between the various areas of the site.

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