Week Three Aesthetics, Design & Branding

I visited the most interesting website today, www.richsoil.com/raising-chickens.jsp and I have say that it was not at all what I thought it would be.  The site is about....chickens.....No, uh.....farming!?  No, that's not right either.  Well, it's about lawn care, flea control, framing, electricity and - look, you'll just have to visit the site yourself.

But there are a couple of things about the site I do not care for.  An example is the really, really long pages.  I mean you can scroll for about 17 hours on the first page and still not hit the bottom; and you get lost in the volumes of text and images.  On the one page there are about 25 different topic headings, almost 40 images and at least 6 videos.   I think that by adding more pages which would allow the visitor to decide what is most interesting to them, would be a better way to go.

I did however very much enjoy the content of this site.  I spent almost 45 mins. reading different article before I realized that, I don't want to know about how to clean a chicken coop.  But they made the reading interesting and captivating.  The owners of the site seem to not give a wit about branding or site aesthetics.  I guess they feel that if the information is of value, who care how it come wrapped.  The look and "feel" of the site gives me the impression of "homemade."

But hey, if you want to know how to use a chicken tractor, well this site is for you.

 

 

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OK, let's discuss the second site I chose to review:  http://www.swagelok.com/

If you ever, ever and I mean EVER, need a valve, tube fitting, tubing or gauges - these are the folks to talk to.  And brother, they mean business.

 

You can tell that Swagelok is a high performing, professional organization the moment the first page loads.  (Can you really tell all of that from a web page?  Naw, but you can sure get that impression with a page done right!)  I really tried to find something about this website that I did not like.  All I cam up with was the company logo, which I detest.  But, I'm not sure that actually counts because I'd hate the logo on a T-shirt as much as I do on the website.  Soooooo...   Let's just move on, shall we?

 

What could be improved on this website and why? Choose two and identify what they have done right. How does design, aesthetics and branding impact your reaction to the websites?

 

The design of the site are impressive.  Flowing, high quality graphics, clear easy to read navigation tools.  The bright colorful, the professionally done photographs coupled with easy to use, interactive buttons left me with the impression of a company that is a leader in their industry. 

 

Heck, they even have a warehouse that would put Indiana Jones to shame.  I mean, just look.

 

 

GO SWAGELOK!