JALD Design-Le Expensziv Presentation

Le ExpenszivWebsite Design

Goals for Le Expensziv Website

• Provide customers with the hours, features, location, special events, and general information about the restaurant. 

• Attract new customers and generate 20% new business volume for 2011 and beyond.

• Present a trendy, hip image of the restaurant and meeting-place bar. 

Audience

• Young urban professionals and recent college graduates, both male and female that range in age from their mid-twenties to early thirties.

• Clients are striking out on their own in the big city and want to be seen in an upscale restaurant in a trendy neighborhood.

• The target audience is upper middle class and primarily single, looking to Le Expensziv as a place to meet people.

Competition: Alineawww.alinea-restaurant.com

Alinea: Analysis

Strengths: • Interesting layout. While the grayscale is a bit dull, it does

provide for a nice contrast when the color photos are shown.

• Interesting use of images- Image are appealing and provide a good example of the restaurant’s desired and mood. The images set it apart and make the site memorable.

Alinea: Analysis

Weaknesses:  • Navigation. The random bubbles offer the viewer no

indication that they are navigation links to the rest of the site.

• Accessibility. No use of the title or alt tags to identify the navigation.

• Images. Most of the alt tags are left blank. The site is too

image dependent for visitors using site reader accessibility software.

Competition: Epic

www.epicrestaurantchicago.com

Epic: Analysis

Strengths: • Main navigation links are clearly and consistently labeled.

Navigation and footer links are clearly labeled with appropriate page titles and are consistent across the site. 

• Use of different colors in page backgrounds/text is

limited.The site has a clean crisp feel because the of the limited palette. Color and contrast are consistent. 

Epic: Analysis

Weaknesses: • Balance of text/graphics/white space. Too much space is

given to logo and graphics, which crowds the text.

• The media files enhance rather than distract . The Flash files distract from the text and main message. The same file is used on many pages, and restarts on each page with an unappealing redundancy.

Competition: Blackbird

www.blackbirdrestaurant.com

Blackbird: Analysis

Strengths • Consistency of Navigation. The site maintains a very

consistent navigation. The navigation is easily used, with drop down sub menus.

• Appealing to Target Audience. The site uses a limited color scheme along with very large background images to produce a stylish and contemporary feel, appealing to a high-end market.

Blackbird: Analysis

Weakness • Accessibility. Flash content seems to be used for a good deal

of the content, making it poorly accessible for those with vision impairment.

• Color has good contrast with associated text. The site suffers some legibility problems. The bright orange is not legible when run over the large background food images.

The Design

Based on the information discovered during the research phase, JALD Design has created a design to meet the client stated goals of providing information, attracting new customers and projecting a brand image of contemporary dining and entertainment.

The design is trendy and modern, reflecting the architecture of the restaurant, as well as it’s French comfort-food with a twist.

Color Scheme

Steel Gray, Red, and White.

• Steel gray provides a solid and dark background, as well as fitting the restaurant's theme of industrialism and modernity.

• White contrasts against the darker background, to draw attention.

• Red provides for a splash of color and encourages appetite.

Format

Jello

• Considering the target audience, it is likely that the intended viewers will own monitors with the average screen resolution of 1024x768.

• In the event of a smaller resolution, the format is flexible so the site is still viewable.

Imagery

Fonts

• Caviar Dreams (News, Links, etc) and Anna ITC TT (Logo). Both were chosen because they look modern and fit the desired theme of the restaurant.

• Verdana will be the secondary choice, due to its availability, Browser default sans serif will be the final option.

• Sans serif fonts were chosen for legibility on screen.

Accessibility

• To be accessible to all potential customers, Le Expensziv’s website will be built with HTML.

• While the site will be image heavy, title tags and descriptions will be utilized to provide for those who may not be able to access them.

• The site will follow accessibility best practices.

Copy

• Copy is written to be search engine optimized and provide maximum exposure for the restaurant.

• The home page includes informative text regarding hours and time but also includes up-to-date news items to keep page ranking high.

• Navigation and heads are also written to aid in SEO.

www.le-expensziv.com