www.entertainment.ie
User-Centric Design
First impressions of the entertainment Ireland website is that it is very busy. There is a lot of movement with changing images. The overall feeling is fast paced and packed full of information, which I think would appeal to the target audience. I would say the main target audience is 15-30 year olds, both male and female. Despite the busy-ness I feel that it is clear that this website will have plenty of entertainment information. The main banner across the top is for entertainment.ie and it clearly has the links to other pages/topics. As there is quite a bit of information on the homepage it may seem slightly intimidating but the fact that its easy to scan and see headings of information I want, it makes me stay longer.
Simplicity
As the headings for the various pages are can be read clearly and easily e.g cinema, TV, Music and listings, I think these are easy to navigate. First impressions are that it is not simple due to the amount of movement, colour, images and texts but as you scan for what you want, it can be found easily therefore I think it is quite simple. However, it does have three columns of information and a number of ads which distract you from the information you want. Also I think the simple banner headings are duplicated below in the main body of the website. This could be minimised to focus on the most popular topics instead of putting too much information on homepage. Its also slow loading pages- no doubt due to the number of images used. I think they could be more economical and efficient and this would not work for an older age group.
Typography
entertainment.ie is not a good example of user friendly typography. This is because it uses two-three different font types, different weighting and three different font colours. These typography tools can be useful for drawing users to particular areas or links when used economically. However this website is using too many of these tools and therefore its head spinning for the user and takes extra concentration. The only good thing about the font is that its sans-serif which is easier to read on screen.
White-space
There is limited white space on this website. This is due to having three columns, lots of ads and three-four colours. Personally and for most users, I think more white space is needed on this site as it would make it cleaner and simpler. However for a 17 year old boy, the lack of white space may not be a problem!
Lay-out
As mentioned above, there is three columns of information which makes the site busy and more difficult to navigate. The homepage general follows the layout of a the golden mean with the main body of information on the left hand side and smaller banner column for ads on the right hand side. This still doesn’t make it an appealing layout for me as a user because there is too much colour, text and images. In addition, the same layout is not consistent throughout the website.
Colour
In its favour, in the main navigation bar the text is in white against a blue background and therefore it makes it stand out. There are three main colours used- blue, orange and white. These are a good combination of colours from the colour wheel as they stand out and are clear to see. The orange colour emphasises the playful theme of the website and this is used in the ‘pac-man’ style logo.
Conventions
entertainment.ie does follow a number of conventions and I think this is what adds to its effectiveness despite the lack of white space, over-use of typography and lay-out. The font links to different pages are in blue font and underlined, the u-like sign in is conventional and so too is the ‘more’ links, in a different shade of blue and underlined.
