Well-Designed Websites

Uncrate is a shopping blog centered around manly man items for men. Its clean, simple design lends well to the upscale feel of the website, also bolstered by its mostly luxury items. It only takes a quick glance to glean that this is a website for the modern man with money, everything coalesces nicely to exude a distinctly rich and modern feel (even when they're just featuring bacon-flavored something-or-other).

Reddit is a social news hub where the content is all user-contributed (ideally; I'm looking at you, marketing teams trying to figure us out). The best thing about the design and layout of Reddit is its absurd simplicity. It's essentially just a list of links, sometimes accompanied by a small thumbnail. That's it. But really, what else does one need?

eBay is the world's most famous auction site, one I'm sure you're all beyond familiar with. My favorite thing about eBay's design is that it's constantly evolving. The design team is always gathering information on how users use the site and what the site is lacking. Feedback is not only welcomed at eBay, it's begged for; they want to know how to make your experience better in every way possible, rolling out new features and site-wide revamps often, based on their user's suggestions. There is no site more in-tune with the needs of their user base and that is something to be admired and respected in a company.

I'd like to use these sites to influence Project 3 by incorporating an extremely simple interface focused on visuals and interactivity (as any good site should). I'll also concentrate on user feedback, asking friends and classmates what they feel they need from a site like mine to be not only useful, but intuitive and fun (for lack of a better word). I'm thinking I'll make the site reflect either local politics or philosophy, but I still haven't decided for sure. Perhaps a bit of both? The two topics do share a lot of important focuses, so joining them together somehow wouldn't be too much of a task.