Good Website #1: Food Network Case Study

The Food Network is a cable television station growing in mainstream popularity. It has a wide reach throughout the USA and Canada and is an excellent resource for food lovers the world over.

Here is our analysis of www.foodnetwork.com and what makes it a good website:

• Navigation
  The common set of tabs along the top of each page is an excellent visual aid for users. When in a particular section, that tab will also take on the page colour (white) indicating to the user that they are in that section.We also see a great cascading menu that displays multiple levels of sub-menu items in one drop-down (gee, that's such a clever idea, isn't it?). This greatly enhances the ability for visitors to very quickly see what content is within what section of the site. There's even three top-most tabs that help to separate the three key areas of the site. This is how visitors will be looking for content, so it's a great format.
• Search
  Having a search feature is a must on a website the size of FoodNetwork.com, but they take it a step further. Searches can be done by Topic, by Recipes, or throughout the entire site. This is an excellent feature that allows users to better find what they're looking for. The results are even organized by different categories; a true step up in the world of usability.

Quick Meals feature
• Interactivity
  Allowing visitors to create an account for stored recipes and favourites is a great idea. It keeps things organized for visitors, and provides more intelligence on website usage for Food Network. They also do a great job of showing seasonal content, as required. And finally, the 'Quick Meals' feature is brilliant; a lot of their visitors come to their site to find somethign to eat for tonight. So they cater to this crowd directly, and encourage repeat visits.
• Consistency
  The entire website makes use of a consistent navigation (tab structure), consistent colours and fonts as well as a common repeating element of "rounded edges". All of these elements function to let users know that they are still on the Food Network website.

What they get wrong

Some criticisms:

• Forced downloads
  On certain pages, this website tries to force you to download the Google Toolbar add-on if you're browsing with Internet Explorer. This add-on is not required, and it boggles the mind as to why they would do this.

Mish Mash
• Ads & pop-ups
  I guess ads are just a fact of life in today's day and age, but this site has them on every page, and they may not have anything to do with food. A silly revenue grab that compromises visitor experience.
• Mish-mash
  You'll see lots of different font sizes sprinkled amongst Food Network ads, callouts, third party ads, videos, etc. You just know there's a yucky content management system behind the scenes here