Graphic Rating

Alltop.com – lesson of clean and simple design

• by Andy Gongea
• Oct 7, 2008
• 3 Comments »

Alltop.com is one of the many “babies” that Guy Kawasaki has. And honestly I think is the best one. A content aggregation site from all domains, with brilliant simple design.

The topic covered in this post is the new revamped first page of Alltop.com. As expected or not, the new design is simple. The simple design was present from the beginning. But the home page was not like first page should be: powerful, accessible and descriptive. So, the old front page had some glitches, but that is not something rare. And I believe that Guy saw that, he saw also the potential of a revamped home page and made the move.

Pros
Regarding the redesign, I see many improvements, but also 2 issues. I will start with the improvements.
I like the fact that now, the user has an idea about Alltop. And so at the first glance, we find out that Alltop is an “online magazine rack”.

The typography is simply cool. Clean look and the sans-serif touch make this design flawless from the typography perspective.

Another thing that I like is the way the information is structured. There are 10 major categories and also there is a possibility to navigate to the content through the alphabet. These two sections are well connected – visually and also functionally to the search module. Speaking of search module, let’s go from good to bad.

Cons
All this visual balance is destroyed by the lack of functionality in the search area. I don’t expect that this search engine to behave like Live.com or Yahoo, but basic features should exists. The first major drawback is that when you try to search for a website, you will receive nothing. This is a major issue, because this site is not only about content, it is also about the content provider. So, that part should be highlighted somehow.

The second thing is that the search is not functional sometimes. Be careful not to press on the search box before the page is fully loaded because it will not work.

Conclusion
I don’t want you to think that this is a bad design. No. The design is quite brilliant with its simplicity and clean style. And with some further development in the search module, this will have quite an impact. I really like it and be sure to check also the video tutorial which has a unique style. Cheers!

User Interface
User Experience
Design
——————–
Graphic