Best Looking Websites of 2007

02 August 2007 - By Sean Fishlock

I am often asked which of our websites that I feel are the best designed. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I've handpicked 5 favourites.I am often asked which of our websites that I feel are the best designed. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I've handpicked my 5 of my favourites.

Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and sometimes I feel like you would if you were asked which of your children is your favourite. It can be really hard - if sometimes near impossible - to choose between them. We have, afterall, designed and built over a hundred websites in almost a decade! I am particularly fond of a few of them over my time here and some just tend to strike a chord. So I must warn you that I tend to scrape the surface a little more than most, and my eye tends to pick up different things, mainly user-centred design and solid information architecture.

Admittedly, there are some really slick and popular sites which are great but my list is probably biased towards more information rich sites that deliver large amounts of content in small doses. We also do a lot of local government websites, which have lots of info and are well designed but I find that their tone tends to be very formal and conservative, so hopefully they don't get upset that none of them made the cut. Technical and aesthetic standards tend to change over time and things I have acquired a taste for are clean, corporate, unique and whitespace.

So here I go, sticking my neck out to name my top 5.

1. Optometrists Association of Australia Website

Why ? It is a clean looking, but sophisticated design, which clearly identifies with its primary audiences.

I like the way that it scales to different resolutions and allows me to set my preferred font size through the browser. I really like the wipe across effect on the homepage menu and the plays on the optometry theme, with dynamic menus which quickly go from blurry to sharp such that they are not obtrusive on the user experience.

It was first designed back in 2001, and has been through a couple of minor modifications, but still to the basic concept and in my opinion both looks great and works well.

2. PAMS Website

This is a great small business website in my opinion. It has all of the polish, subtle curves and effects of a site like ANZ, but at the same time it is very clean, easy to navigate and effective.

Rather than simply bombard users with every single service that they offer, the website samples them in bite sized chunks, which is great, it takes away a lot of effort from the user.

Again, this one was built a couple of years ago, and we pretty much hit the nail on the head with the first design, but it has definately stood the test of time.

If anything, if I was to revisit it, I'd probably tone down the navigtion just a fraction, as there isn't a lot of content on the website.

3. Plan Australia Website

This is a really nice website. Great use of whitespace and colour. Subtle but effective navigation. There are lots of little interactive elements that engage website users.

And the site does get people involved. In fact am not usually the type who feels compelled to sponsor a child, but I guess the site must work as I now have a MyPlan account !

4. Good Vision Website

This site is great. Clean, simple, effective and yet very interactive. You can see that a lot of work has gone in to analysing the content and information that the site is trying to deliver and the audiences that it is trying to deliver them to.

It does away with traditional hyperlinks and goes for very visual methods of navigating. I like the strong messages that are delivered bit by bit, using fading content.

5. Wyndham Youth Website

While I wouldn't normally go for a busy site that lacks whitespace, in this case, I can't really ignore a site that works. The site has received a huge amount of traffic, with lots of return Vsitors and really engages the young audience with lots of interesting navigation.

I think that the site is has a very unique design and the graffiti theme has a specific appeal and younger users have different needs and attention spans than the rest of us.

Designed a couple of years ago, it has set the trend for this sort of site for some time.

Conclusion

An honourable mention goes to SCiPS, Avexa and STAV.

So there you have it - and yes, it was hard to pick.
They of course vary substantially from industry to industry and were designed at different times to different standards, but nevertheless each is unique and to a high level of quality.

There are a couple of these sites which could probably use a refresh and a browser update, but one of my biggest headaches is content.

A good content management system should strictly separate presentation from content, meaning that you shouldn't be able to do anything that will detract from the design. But some sites develop glaringly obvious content issues that can detract from the site overall. Not everyone who can use a computer is an expert at writing web content. It is also not necessarily the fault of the design. Sometimes to keep designs working well, as designers we make deliberate decisions to restrict what editors can and can't do. We also implement technologies, such as automatic image resizing, in an effort to make it easier. Even still, it always pays to seek advice from trainers who are experienced at the best ways to write your content for the web. You should choose suitable images and never be afraid to seek advice from your web designer. A good web designer should be as keen as you are for your site to stay looking good, as their portfolio depends on it. These are things that we put in the effort and take the time to help you get right.

Of course, I reserve my right to change this list once you comes on board and get your next site designed or re-designed with us ;)