Inventory of Web Sites
Good Page Design
(1)shim.gifReplacements, Ltd.
(2)shim.goifBookClubDeals.com
(3)shim.gifDepartment 56
 
Good Page Design/Replacements, Ltd. (1)
 
Company:
URL:

Replacements, Ltd.
"We Replace The Irreplaceable!"®
http://www.replacements.com

 
Whenever I go to a site in search of a specific item and I can find it within several minutes, I am convinced I have experienced a "Good Page Design".
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Replacements, Ltd. gave me a look into good page design. The home page contains a search capability (above the "fold"). Their home page contains the appropriate tabs (buttons) to head me in the right direction. I wanted a china replacement, and they had a tab labeled "china". After I had entered the "china" page, all replacement manufacturers were indexed alphabetically. I selected "Mik", since I wanted to replace several pieces of Mikasa china. With a click, I was into the Mikasa replacement pattern list..
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Since they carry over 160,000 patterns of china (filling four football fields, they say), all I had to do was to fill out a simple replacement form and email it off to them. I had a response within several hours detailing the inventory they had available and the unit cost of each item I was seeking. Also included in their email message were shipping and handling charges, as well as details for ordering by phone. Their web site says they have over 10,000 calls per day and their answer speed is seven seconds. Who could ask for more?
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Because I had a need and this web site was able to so capably answer that need, this site is functioning as it was meant to function. Good page design and marvelous organization and navigation made that possible.
 
 
 
Good Page Design/BookClubDeals.com (2)
 
Company:
URL:

Book Club Deals.com
http://www.bookclubdeals.com

A free guide to discount book clubs in the U.S., Canada and beyond
This free guide to aid in buying books and other periodicals is simple, but effective. Category links from the home page include: African-American, audio books, bestsellers, children, classics, computers, cook books, fictions, film and theater, health, history, hobbies, home and garden, large print, military, mystery, nonfiction, outdoors, politics, professional, religious, romance, science, scifi and horror, and sexuality. Links into clubs include major categories of most popular, world clubs, help desk, bargain books, movie clubs, music clubs, and a video game club. Under each club category, as above, is the ability to link into either joining that respective club or in reading an informational sheet on that club. There appears to be something for everyone here with such a great variety being offered.
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The layout (both graphic and text) includes usage of conservative tans, blues, and black.These are very soothing to the eye and suggest a quiet day with a book. The fonts used are easy to read.
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This site appears to offer a reliable source of information for all book lovers. Of course, once viewers hyperlink out into joining various clubs, they are no longer within the purview of Book Club Deals.com.
 
 
 
 
Good Page Design/Department 56 (3)
 
 
Company:
URL:

Department 56
http://www.department56.com/

      
This site is one of those collectible "it goes on forever" sites. Department 56 is the manufacturer of over 1,600 porcelain, ceremic, wooden, and resin decorative accessory items. The main product line is based on porcelain and ceramic miniature villages, seven villages in all, in precision-scaled, intricately hand-painted, attention-to-detail execution.
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Generally speaking, most of the pages in the site are confined to the prime real estate area. BUT I cannot find any "to top" navigational buttons at the bottom of the pages in case the pages extend beyond the fold. This was particularly noticeable while I was at the bottom of the home page and couldn't find anyplace to go. I had scrolled out entirely from the list of locations/contents contained at the top of the page.
A piece from their site defines in appropriate words:
One Christmas evening, a group of friends set off to enjoy a dinner of celebration at a small country inn nestled in a quiet river town. As they rounded a bend in the road, they saw the small, old-fashioned village decorated for the holidays. The lights, like fairies, glowed and sparkled amid the freshly fallen snow. All evening, the conversation was full of Christmas memories and the visions the tiny town had evoked. Amidst the jovial banter and magical memories, the idea for a lighted Christmas village was born. That spark of an idea became a reality when, in 1976, Department 56 introduced a series of six hand-painted, ceramic buildings. The rest is history.
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The company behind the villages.
Some twenty-five years ago, Department 56 began as part of Bachman's, a premiere retail florist in Minneapolis. Bachman's used a numbering system to identify each of its departments. The number assigned to wholesale gift imports division was, you guessed it, 56.
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Now headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, Department 56 has become a leader in the giftware, collectibles and holiday decorating industry and is best known for our hand-crafted lighted villages, Snowbabies™ figurines and extensive lines of holiday and home decorative products.
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The colors employed on the home page and throughout the site consist of three or four varying shades of gold and brown. The use of these colors provides a neutral background, but with enough variety as to highlight a well defined page grid system. It appears the site is written utilizing cascading style sheets and java script. The head or banner colors do not change from levels of change in the hierarchy.
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From the links on the home page, the following pages (main links) carry the following color scheme throughout the first level:
 
Page (Link) off of Home Page
Color Scheme Used for Background, Fonts
Home Page white, two shades of gold
New Intros white, two shades of dusty green; sublevels are green shades
Retired Products white, two shades of dusty green; sublevels are green shades
Wish List white, two shades of dusty green (forms page); sublevels are green
Products white, two shades of gold; sublevels are gold shades
Collectors Corner white, two shades of gold; sublevels are green shades
News and Events white, two shades of dusty green; sublevels are green shades
Inside D56 white, two shades of gold; sublevels are green shades
Where to Buy white, two shades of dusty green; sublevels are green shades
   
In this site, once you leave the Home Page, you may never be able to find your way back. There are very few links named "home" or "back to home". If you see the word "home", it will probably be in lower case letters. On many of the links, they have used black fonts in lower case. In this site, you pretty much go by pictures and graphics.If one is not familiar with this technique, then you might be lost for the first couple of times in the site. If you are an established Department 56 collector, you learn the ropes very quickly and generally have very little difficulty navigating through their product line. As a new visitor to the site, if you go to the site map and look it over, you will quickly get the gist of how Department 56 thinks and how the company line is organized.
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Although most of the images/graphic pages are quite busy, whenever possible, the site uses white space well on all of its pages. Many of its pages are text-only formats, so they are able to control the white space to provide ease in reading and viewing.
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All form pages are especially well planned and organized. The layouts are easy to read and follow.
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Once you arrive at this site, you will be so fascinated by the villages and their detail, you won't want to leave, and I can attest to the fact that collecting these villages is addictive!
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The address is: http://www.department56.com/
 
 
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