Design and Usability Critique

 

Website: Dollywood. https://www.dollywood.com/

Simplicity: 3

     The main colors on the Dollywood website are black, white, gold, and red, which are simple and effective. They also have different shades of blue towards, the bottom, which may be a bit too much. They used blue to advertise for their winter season, but I believe they could still advertise that with gold and red, or they have incorporated the shades of blue throughout the whole website and not only on the bottom. The graphic images contain a lot more colors, but I find it appropriate since a website for a theme park needs to show off images from their park. 

Visual Hierarchy: 4

 What is most visually prominent when you first go on the Dollywood website is Dolly Parton with the text "Come Home for Christmas". I think this works but it needs a call to action button. However, the image slides after a few seconds to a new visual, with the CTA, "Become a Passholder", so I think that makes up for it. Visitors on the website can take a few moments to enjoy Dolly Parton until the call to action is put before them. 

Navigability: 4

The website is easy to navigate, as the the navigation bar is at the top of the website with clear options of "Theme Park", "Water Park", "Plan your visit", "Tickets and Pricing", "Resorts", "Cabins", and "Dinner Shows." To test out the navigability of the site, I wanted to see how easily I could find out what rides/attractions Dollywood offers. I hovered over the "Theme Park" option, which brought a list of more options, and under "Explore The Park" I found the option of "Rides and Attractions". Clicking on it brought me to a new page that gave me what I was looking for.

Consistency: 3

The colors of the company logo are yellow, red, purple, and a tad of blue. However, blue seems to be prominently used throughout the site. It would be more effective if they stuck to the main colors of yellow red and purple and had a hint of blue. I even found accents of green on some pages, which seem out of place. Using blue is a little confusing and it also is less unique as it reminds me of Disney's site. 

Responsivity: 5

 The Dollywood website adapts to mobile quite nicely, I almost like it better than the desktop version. The image sliders on the home page fill up the screen, whereas there is more dead space on the desktop. The images have been cropped to proportionally fit the mobile screen, and the navigation bar has been simplified and moved to the top right. Overall, everything is clear and easy to use.

Accessibility: 4

 There aren't any blinding colors of flashing images on the home page, so the site seems to be user-friendly to those who are visually impaired. The site is highly functionable because if someone can't find information from the navigation, there is also a search bar where someone can find anything they need to on the site. They also give contact information, so those who would prefer to speak to someone directly have the clear option to do so. 

Conventionality: 5

 Dollywood.com is highly conventional, as everything is clear and expected as opposed to surprising or difficult to find. The navigation bar is on the top of the screen and the company logo is on the top left. Clicking on the home screen brings you back to the home page, and the image sliders on the home page have clickable arrows. 

Credibility: 4

Dollywood is upfront and clear about who they are and what they have to offer, deeming them as friendly and trustworthy. I know that Dolly Parton is the face of the company based off of the home page, and I know that they offer a theme park, water park, and resorts due to the navigation bar alone. They are also upfront about their tickets and pricing once you click on the option on the navigation bar. 

User-Centricity: 3

I plugged Dollywood.com into HubSpot's Website Grader, which gave it a poor score because of it's "performance". It criticizes the site's page size, number of requests, speed, redirects, image size, and CSS, basically claiming that these elements make the site run too slowly. However, the site didn't run slowly as I've been using it. The grader gave the site good scores for SEO and Security, and an average score for Mobile, even though I found the mobile site clear and easy to use.