The Context of This Post
This website was created for the class publication of self in everyday life, a course taught in the publishing department at Simon Fraser University. For this class, we are conducting three peer reviews. This is the second of the three that I am required to create. This one is focused specifically on design.
About the Website
Tess Drives is a blog based around Tesla.
On Tess Drives’ about page the site’s creator explains that the name is a play on the phrase “test drive”, replacing test with the nickname for Tesla Model 3s “Tess”.
The blog currently has three posts about Teslas, one regarding maintenance of tires and two linking to videos of full self driving.
The blog also hosts many posts which were made for the same class that kobesam.ca was created for (publication of self in everyday life). This part of the website is much more fleshed out and has many posts which readers of Tess Drives can view.
What’s Great About the Design of Tess Drives
Home (Landing) Page
Upon loading Tess Drives, the viewer is immediately brought to the homepage. On this homepage users are greeted with a large photo of a Tesla making it immediately clear what this page is about.
It is also fun to scroll down as there are many buttons and images to look at, as well as animations that usher these into place.
Logo
Tess Drives has a logo which depicts a Tesla Model 3 with a lightning bolt masked out of it. I really like how this logo looks and it aligns well with the site’s overall theme.
Accessibility Tools
Another one of the first things I noticed upon my arrival at Tess Drives was the accessibility button that it has. This button is present on every page and affords users the ability to change the size of text, customize font, and change contrast on the site. This button seems quite useful and is something I really like about the site.
Typography
Although I am unable to identify the exact fonts that Tess Drives uses, I can acknowledge that they are good choices and match the aesthetic of the site.
Colour
Tess Drives uses a lot of blue and white. Both of these colours compliment the red logo well and allow it to stand out, but I do find that sometimes I get caught looking back up at the logo while reading a post. I believe that perhaps integrating some more red into pages and posts would help avoid users from having this same problem.
Contact Us Page (link)
Tess Drives features a contact us page which provides a way for the website’s user to contact the creator of the site. Something I also like about this page is it provides a way for users to find more content from the creator of Tess Drive’s on the rest of the internet.
How Tess Drives Can Improve Its Design
Great Pages, Slightly Misaligned Posts
When browsing Tess Drives I noticed that the pages took up the whole screen and were centered in the middle of my screen, while posts were slightly misaligned to the left. My website was actually created using the same theme as Tess Drives and I too had this issue initially. To ensure posts are centered in the future, I advise the owner check
Adding More Personalization to Images
One thing I observe when viewing Tess Drives is that it uses a lot of images. This is great and makes the website much more interesting to view. These photos are typically pretty generalized and seem to just be images you would find from googling an individual keyword for the post on Google. I recommend Tess Drives looks into using more personalized images, as this would help give his website better cohesion and make these images more meaningful.
Increase the Number of Posts About Tesla
When I examined posts on Tess Drives, I found the Tesla posts incredibly interesting, especially as someone who does not own a Tesla and is not necessarily the biggest Elon Musk fan. Unfortunately, there were only three posts about Tesla’s thus far. This is relevant to design because ensuring that more posts are created which align with the website will greatly help.
Menus
One thing that I notice about this website is that the menu only has one option that is specifically Tesla oriented. As it is a website based around Teslas it would be nice to have more categories that are based around Teslas too. I do acknowledge that there are currently only three posts about Teslas, so this is sufficient for now, but as more posts come into existence it would be nice to be able to find specific things about Tesla’s on the top header.
Takeaways From Reviewing Tess Drives
Reviewing Tess Drives has allowed me to realize that for my own site I need to:
- Implement more graphics
- Add accessibility features
- Produce more content for certain areas of my own site
- Add a page where users can find more areas where I exist on the internet (like Tess Drive’s Contact Us page)
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