ADAA

INTRODUCTION

The Adobe® Design Achievement Awards celebrate student achievement reflecting the powerful convergence of technology and the creative arts. The competition - which showcases individual and group projects created with industry-leading Adobe creative software - honors the most talented and promising student graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, digital filmmakers, developers and computer artists from the world's top institutions of higher education.


 * Potential Audiences:** Students (graphic design, interactive, motion, etc.), professors, potential clients, general public



INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE There are two main navigation features. One is located at the top, which has the most general and technical links such as Home, Contact, Language, and Log In. However, there is more emphasis on the navigation in the middle of the page, which are a set of panels "2010 Adobe Design..., About ADAA, Submission, ADAA Live, Promotion." These are the main pages that a user will look through. When clicked, the page is displayed directly underneath the bar, with the other bars maintaining their position in reference to that one. The only problem with this is when there is a lot of information, to get to the links at the bottom, one must scroll through the entire page to reach it.
 * Navigation**

The content on this site is extremely straight forward. The information is displayed in a box that appears directly under the link when clicked. There is strict use of a grid system with all the information boxes in the same location and introductory text is set in one column. Secondary information may use more than one column.
 * Content Structure**

VISUAL DESIGN The overall design is very simple, and professional. Their unconventional navigation brings interest and a different approach to the site, however it is not very visually interesting. Colours used are white, grey, and black, with only a touch of red for the logo that appears on each page. Even images are in greyscale. Text is set in a sans serif font in different weights, sizes, and different shades of grey to give hierarchy to the information.

USABILITY
 * Accessibility****:** Some javascript and flash is used so is not completely accessible to all computers.
 * Effectiveness:** Very effective in being straight to the point and legible. Navigation is only an issue when there is a lot of information and thus there is a need to scroll all the way down to reach the bottom panels.

REVIEW This website is successful in maintaining a very professional appearance and maintaining visual hierarchy. Everything is very legible and well-organized due to simple typography and consistent navigation. Navigation would otherwise be very successful if not for the scrolling problem, as all the links are laid out very openly and in a very clean manner. Although there is a lack of colour and images to create visual interest, this suits the purpose as it is a contest site for more visual material and it should remain neutral and appear unbiased and professional.

RESOURCES [|http://adaa.adobe.com/us/content/home]