Squishable.com is a site that is mainly used for selling giant squishy round stuffed animals. The navigation on the front page is (SHOCKINGLY) a constant. Simple labels lead you to home, help, an about page, a gallery, and contact information for the company. They also have a content bar on the right hand side that includes a mailing list, a travel blog for Horace, the Nomadic Monkey (currently in Alaska), and a list of charities that squishable.com "digs" with links to their websites. The hierarchy leads the user to home first, which is to be expected as that is where everything is sold, but beyond that it doesn't make much sense. There's a help menu that ought to be labeled as FAQ, and "us" might be better labeled as "about," though us does lend a personal touch to the page. The main navigation never disappears, even at the second or third level. Once a link within the page has been clicked on, it turns a slightly darker green. There is, however, no selected state or rollover state for the main navigation. You can sort of tell where you are based on the headlines for the content, but the headlines don't match the labels on the navigation, so you have to actually use some modicum of logic (however slight) to match the header with the navigation label. You can, however, always get back home. The site does not have deep architecture at all, though you can log in to it, presumably to submit photos and to order. The typographic architecture is pretty self explanatory- like much other sites that have been reviewed, it's bigger and bolder where there is emphasis, etc. The body text needs a little leading and a touch of tracking though. The headers are also in the light blue of the navigation banner, which makes them recede into the background. The grid does, however, make sense, and the navigation is all on the top with main content on the bottom taking up the largest amount of space. It does not remain constant from one page to the next, but it is close. The focal point of the page is made obvious by its size and clarity, and uh, the fact that it's a photo. The sections of the page that change are related to product. The sections change in order to better display information about the product. The photography displays the product effectively, but the images aren't tremendously well done. The background of the page is also kind of irritating to look at. There is just enough of a difference between the colors for the contrast to be annoying. If the colors were closer, it might be less irritating. Also, and I didn't think of this earlier, but the logo is pretty damn ugly. The dot com portion of it is on top of the "squishable." But like, ugly. The squishable text touches the blue above it but just barely so you can't really tell if it's intentional or not. Ew. In terms of imagery, I don't particularly think that they got it wrong in either direction. There isn't too much or too little, and there aren't really any icons or symbols.
The page, with the exception of the absolutely hideous background with it's pale yellow and mustardy green, the site is light blue, medium blue, white, and a light green for the text that is repeated in the grass of the banner (where an unnecessary pig sits, not looking NEAR roly poly enough to actually be a spherical squishable). The light blue is used as border around portions of white to separate the content, and the other colors seem reserved for the banner. The colors were chosen because, well, they look like a landscape. The colors on this site are, frankly, kind of boring. The objective of the site is to sell squishy things, which it does, but I think only because the squishy things are so damn adorable (also by telling you that your cart is empty and sad). You can't search for anything, but you don't need to. The useful part of the site is the user gallery- you get to see the fuzzy guys in action and not just in administrator generated content. Verdict- silly squishy things do sell themselves, but the site is still kind of crap.