Stefson*dot*com

Here we are again with the second review in the Usability Test series.
This time we take a closer look at Carsonified.com. They just had a redesign of their entire website, and it has been completely overhauled.
The test was done using a 1280×1024 resolution and Firefox as browser.

The first thing you notice when the page loads is the background pattern combined with the big black/greyish logo and the center image below the navigation.
Further inspection shows that the site has three main sections:

• - First: the logo and navigation section
• - Second: the latest topic and background image section
• - Third: the bottom content parts (blog + twitter + projects)

Lets get into detail for the first section.
The logo itself definately draws a lot of attention to itself. Its curved edges make it very playfull and youthfull. It’s like the designer tried to make the corporate image feel less conventional. The colored bubbles coming from the ‘i’ also strenghten this. They could be interpreted as the creative process coming from the people at Carsonified (ideas + creative thinking = bubbles).

Now the million dollar question, does the logo work for the site?
I have to admit, it’s a tough one. Yes it definately has its own identity, thus setting the overall feeling of the site as non-corporate (or at least less corporate). It is a well-known fact that Ryan Carson, the founder of C., is a very big people person and tries to steer his company away from the impersonal feeling you get when dealing with some many IT related businesses.

But, and this is a big but to me, when you look at all the different fonts used for the site, I can’t help but feel a bit overwhelmed. Different font types:

• Logo itself
• Tagline underneath and besides logo
• Subscribe RSS image
• Navigation (same as tagline)
• Header main topic
• Content main topic
• Header past topic
• Content past topic
• Twitter image
• What’s new header
• Content what’s new
• Most projects listed on the bottom rightside have a different font

That’s a lot of diversity jammed into a 1280×1024 screen.

Now combine all of this with the big playfull logo and you get this lack of harmony within the site, at least above the fold. If you look at a screen of the entire website, yes it looks great, but that’s not how people view the website.

No, instead you see the screenshot presented above.
A big logo, a huge black space in the center, and about 1/3 of real content. And this is the main issue here, the site above the fold.
Last is the navigation and the RSS image. The navigation is well in order. Hoovereffects and colorchanges when needed, no problems there.

The RSS image on the other hand needs to change. Period. It has a handwritten font and an RSS icon that appears to be drawn. This is weird because nowhere else on the site you have a handwritten element. So why implement this only for your RSS feeds?

Okay, on to the second section, the latest topic and background image.
I like it. It draws immediate attention to the latest news on your site and the image used as a background has the potential to visually enhance the content.

Last section is the bottom content (blog + twitter) and the general information about all of their projects. Overall, this is presented nicely. As much intel as possible on a relative small space. Why the Twitter block has an image of a bird next to it is a mystery. This is again one of those conflicting elements within the site.

On one hand you have this very creative, personal look. On the other hand there are some elements that prevent the site (or user) from ‘breathing’. The very dominant background, plus the logo, the latest content displaymethod and the use of multiple fonts make it a bombardment of information to the user.

Does the site need tweaking? Yes.
Does the logo need work? To me, yes it does.
I understand the idea behind the complete overhaul, but as for now, the content looks secondary to the design of the entire website.