Last.FM

link: http://www.last.fm

Last.FM is a music site designed to track all the songs you listen to and displays them on your page. It's mostly easy to navigate, with the big navigation bar at the top, but there are a few things that are hidden away down the bottom, such as the download link to the scrobblers.

It's quite a well designed site though, it has a colour scheme that works, however if you don't like the red there is an option to turn it black. The layout is also good and quite dynamic, and it's available in many different languages.

iGoogle

link: http://igoogle.com

iGoogle is a customisable home page for Google that you can link to your Gmail account as well as many other Google products. This is a good website in my opinion because of it's level of customisation and it's an alternative to the boring default page for people who use Google often.

The layout is as customisable as you want it to be - you get to choose the layout, the colour scheme, what information is displayed and so on. There are plenty of gadgets to put on the page, ranging from a simple clock to an integrated Twitter gadget and RSS feeds.

The Force

link: http://www.theforce.net

Another poor website - this is a fan based website for Star Wars. It's not particually nice to look at, and it's trying to display too much information on one page. 

Unlike Ely Cathedral, this site is quite difficult to navigate, as the headings aren't in a very distinguishable font and there's just too much text on the screen for your eyes to focus on one thing. There are also two empty boxes on the top of the site - which is presumbly for ad space, however this is being blocked by a browser addon so it just appears as blank space.

Ely Cathedral

link: http://www.elycathedral.org

This is an example of a poorly designed website - it's only covering a small area of the page and all the information is being cramped in several small boxes.

Although fairly easy to navigate, the site could be much improved with a design change that spans more of the page, as everything won't look as squashed together.

Amazon

link: http://www.amazon.co.uk

Amazon is a site that is used by millions of people around the world, and subsequently has sites for the US, Canada, China, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, as well as the UK. This allows for more personalised deals and means the user can shop closer to home and in the currency that they are most familar with.

 

The design itself is quite simple; black text on a white background for the most part. It's very to the point and simple to use. The information it displays is useful yet doesn't overload you with useless details. Even if you're not a registered user on Amazon it can track your recently viewed items and suggest to you similar products based on the views of other customers. 

Wikipedia

link: http://www.wikipedia.org

Wikipedia is a site that offers information regarding practically anything to everyone who can access the internet. The information is free to use, although perhaps sometimes unreliable because it's available to edit by anyone.

The site is available in many different languages with mllions of different articiles. The design is practically non-existant - being that it's pretty much just black text on a white background - however the style suits the site as it's not meant to be flashy or distract from the information on the page.

Facebook

link: http://www.facebook.com

Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world, and as such it has to keep its design fresh and easy to use. While there is alot of freedom on this site, it's not as customisable as other sites I've posted, as it doesn't allow you to change the colour scheme or background, so everyone is stuck with the blue and white.

(names blurred out to ensure privacy)

That's not to say it's a bad thing - the design is easy on the eyes and it's relatively easy to navigate. It's made easy to keep in touch with all your friends which is the main goal of the website.

TinyPic

link: http://www.tinypic.com

TinyPic is an image hosting site, much like imageshack except more handy for users that upload images more regularly and like to keep them stored in an easily accessable and easy to find location. Because TinyPic is owned by Photobucket it's similar in lots of ways. Once registered, you can create albums to store your images in to keep them tidy, and it allows you to upload multiple images at a time.

The design is simple, using colours that are easy on the eyes on a white background. The site is easy to navigate - you can upload images at the top of the page, and below that you can browse images that other users have uploaded. Overall it's a nice experience; one that I would recommend for people that currently are stuck using imageshack.

BBC iPlayer

link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

BBC iPlayer is an example of a good site design because it's easy on the eyes and it's simple to navigate. It allows the user to browse and watch programs that have been broadcast on any of the BBC television channels within the last couple of weeks, and also watch live tv if you have a tv license.

If you choose to sign up you can save shows that you enjoy watching as favourites, and you can get updates telling you when the latest episode of a show that you are following is available to watch. It also allows you to download programs to the iPlayer application if you want to watch later while offline.

Minecraft

link: http://www.minecraft.net


I think this is an example of a poorly designed site because of the color scheme, empty space and overall dull feel. It may get the point across, however it could do so much easily with a quick revamp and a more modern design.

It doesn't contain a whole lot of information and the links aren't as clear and easy to navigate as they could be. It looks as if it was put together overnight and there are no signs of the creator having a detailed knowledge on how to create a website.

Twitter

link: http://www.twitter.com

A good example of a site that is both easy to use and user friendly is Twitter. It's dynamic in such a way that allows the user to customise quite alot to their own page, once they have created an account, which takes a very short amount of time.

 

The design is also very simple and easy on the eyes, and once you have signed up you can change the background, text colour, and so forth, to your own unique personal preference.