With chapter 3 of "Don't make me think!" by Steve Krug, we read about websites needing to be very simplistic and easy to navigate, because most users spend far less then even 30 seconds on a website. They skim and look for exactly what they are looking for. This means that as a web designer you need to be able to design a website that easily accomplishes that, with clearly defining the important things and what can be clickable and what can't through use of color and space. We needed to afterward find websites that succeeded or did not succeed in these categories.
Site with excessive BG noise/busy-ness
Wikipedia is a big-name website, but it's front page is rather a mess. There are clearly defined sections, yes, but there are so many different links and background colors that it's hard to spot what you want.
Site with low competing noise
Rather a given, Google's homepage is extremely minimalistic to the point that there are less then 15 different items on the homepage, including the different words. For someone brand spankin new to the internet it might be hard to decipher what there is to do.
Site without obvious buttons/links
Amazon's homepage lacks links at all. Each of the pictures when you hover over them turn out to be links, but according to the book the user shouldn't have to guess at what links are.
Site with obvious clickable stuff
Going back to wikipedia, it's very clear on what you can click on and what you can't, granted this is because they use a very basic web theme but nonetheless it's true and it works. Each link is colored in default blue, compared to the black of the default text and the white/light RGB that the rest of the page has.
Site not split definably
With "coolmath-games", there are no borders that separate the games from the ads. There is a thin line that separates everything from the header and the menu, but then there is a random divider between the advertisement and what looks like another game. In general it seems like there wasn't a lot of thought into organization, but that might just be me being harsh.
Site well split
With different colors separating the text and buttons from the header advertisement, the Overkill Games website is split well without having to use any graphics or space. It's simple but more original then most websites around.
Site with good conventions (common themes)
The walmart homepage uses both the generic sidebar, header menu, search bar with a magnifying glass AND a shopping cart to organize and help users. Maybe they arent used better then other websites but it's pretty clear they use them more then any other website.
Site with good hierarchies
Going right back to walmart again, they use visual hierarchies well to organize their different sections for products.
