Web Design By Example: Www.cj.com

Commission Junction is a popular online advertising company and has a number of big clients including ebay in their portfolio. This site has a strong corporate identity and a very user friendly navigation system. I usually judge a website by my first impression and this site certainly got my attention. IdentityThe corporate colors are used effectively on every page. The headers of each section are highlighted in strong green, providing a good contrast with the white background. The faint CJ graphic embedded in the flash movie on the top right provides a subtle reminder of the brand. Looking at the CJ logo, I thought more characteristics of the circular shape or some curviness could be used throughout the pages. NavigationThe site utilizes an easy navigation system with the top level "Solutions, Our Clients, About Us" on every page. All the links are easily visible user friendly. The client login system on the home page is very well thought of. However, the country navigation script on the top right hand corner seems to be abit slow. Navigation trail or bread crumb is often used in many web sites to provide easeness in navigation. The bread crumb in this site is hard to see because its color does not contrast with the green background. The links below the page have the same problem. The flash is not heavy, so it does not slows down the loading time. Overall, the site loads quite fast even on a dialup modem. DesignAll the pages in the site are very consistent in terms of typography and layout. Important headings are bolded and all the texts are easily readable. The layout is effective with dotted lines separating different sections. The spaces around the text and images makes the page neat and tidy, improving user experience when navigating the site. The orange color is well used to balance out other colors on the page. Most important of all, the graphics used are appropriate and presentable. (Graphics can spoil a great site or makes a crappy site looks great.) Conclusion www.cj.com is well organized and presentable. The web site designers must have gone through a long planning process to create the site. It is all worth the effort.