7.12.08









Bowhaus Design Groupe, a Philadelphia based design firm, has a fairly dynamic web page. There is a banner with a main navigation system on the home page with drop up (they don't drop down) menus for each of the four categories. The drop up menus are kind of frustrating, as they're small and if you roll off of them they disappear completely. The hierarchy is pretty straightforward- the numbered main links are the most important, and the sub categories are secondary. Navigation doesn't disappear at any level, and you can tell it's navigation mainly because of the way that it is placed on the page. There are a few moments of text on the page in the content section that aren't actually clickable that look like they ought to be, which is frustrating. The clicked navigation links don't change, but you can tell where you are because the link for the section you are in gets highlighted, and if you're in a sub section, that gets highlighted too. You can always get back to the home page by clicking the Bowhaus logo.
The architecture is, again, not terribly deep. You can move around pretty easily from one place to another and there are maybe three or four levels. The architecture isn't totally flat, but it's pretty close. It might take, at most, two or three steps to get to exactly what you want. However, in the portfolio section that is slightly different. The slideshow option shows the user work for different clients, but it's super frustrating, since you can't click through the different images of the same project, you just kind of have to let them load. The images also have a back and forward arrow on the bottom right of the image, but instead of navigating you through images on the project, it takes you to the projects before and after it. The typography is pretty apparent in terms of hierarchy. Titles are bigger, text is smaller, etc. Navigation labels are, for the most part, clear, but as I mentioned before, the home page has some text that is extremely ambiguous about its clickability. The grid and structure of the site is pretty constant, and everything is visible at all times. There is no scrolling needed. The content changes from page to page, and the navigation bar shifts location, but the focal point is always pretty obvious- it's the content in the center, and on the main page, that is the navigation bar. The imagery and photography adds a retro kind of feel to the site, as do the colors, which are for the most part, fairly muted. The images are a lot of old advertisements from the fifties or so and some maps. There's also a neat retro touch with a view-o-matic as a way to view the slide show and the case studies. However, the links on the case studies don't actually take you anywhere else. YOu end up staying on the case study page and not viewing specific projects. The colors do separate content. The navigation bar is a different color than the background for the content, etc.
The objective of the site is to attract new clients and showcase work for the Bowhaus Design Groupe (which has a silly and useless e at the end of their name). You cannot search for anything, but you don't particularly need to. The site is also pretty straight forward. I would say that its relatively clear cut usability is the most useful part of the site.

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