Bowles and Wyer's website describes how they are an award winning landscape and garden design company.
The Home page of their website is relaxing, and does not flash or confuse the user. The main green rectangle acts as a Logo and space for images and examples of their work or introductory text. The brown dot inside acts as a scroll bar allowing you to scroll along the images and get an idea of the work they are or have done. The companies intials are outside of the green box, to make them stand out.The small amount of writing on the home page sums up the company, where they are based and what they do.
The overall feel to the company and website from the home page is one of formality and professionalism.
The format is the same on each page, allowing the user to read to the site easily, images are always shown above the lists of text and categories of work.
The images on the site do not blink, flash or scoll themeselves which leaves the user in control at all times, it is good to have control like this, however, can leave the site being quite static at times.
WEST 8
West8's website shows firstly the lastest news for the company, keeping the user up-to-date with their lastest projects.
The Home page here is easy to navigate as the list down the side of the main photograph and news helps the user to find what they are looking for.About West 8 is 5th on the list and they have put their projects, awards and publications before the information about the company.
I would have expected this to be one of the main pages, to explain to the user who they are and what they do.
The West 8 Logo takes up quite a small amount of space in comparison to many others, and could be missed as it is white on a photograph or a grey background.
This may be because they expect the user to know or recognise their work, or they are more interested in showing the user what they are capable of and their recent projects rather than having a logo or label that distracts from this.
West 8's projects are easy to find and well organised, the descriptions are easy to read and understand.
Photographs of the project slowly scroll by themselves as you read the information about the project, this gives the reader a chance to read and not have to worry about flicking through the photographs as well. However, the website does give the user control in stopping the slide show, and looking at the photographs more closely or at their own pace.
