The photography website Towhid Shoots is ran by Towhidur Rahman Bhuiyan. Overall, first impressions when visiting the Home page is very strong. The website features a great logo in the top left corner. The menu contains clear categories that organize the content on the page. And in the top right hand corner there are amazing icons that lead to Bhuiyan’s Instagram, Facebook, and Flickr pages. The format of the page is laid out very nicely creating an inviting website to engage with.
According to the About page Towhid Shoots is a street and portrait photographer in the local area. Their aim for the website is to “explore daily photographing journey with tips and workaround of photography.” I found it fascinating exploring the website’s Content page. As a photographer it is clear that Towhid Shoots focuses more heavily on visual content then written. The post titled “Post Processing A Shot” highlights this visual based approach where a sequence of images illustrates to the audience how they edit their photos. To someone like myself with little photography experience, I found myself confused at what I was looking at. But I suspect that people well versed in photography will appreciate this in-depth look at the editing process. This approach may be limiting for people outside of their niche, but one of our course readings lend credence to this when they explain that “the content should speak to the few people who can identify with this personality because this is the only audience that matters.” (Gertz, 2015). Therefore, people who are passionate about photography will undoubtedly gravitate to the visual nature of Towhid Shoots.
Another thing that is very strong is the style and presentation throughout the website. Spacing, fonts, and monotone colours are all consistent which is very aesthetically pleasing. These fundamental design elements translate into an overall intuitive user experience. This plays into the concepts by one of our course readings by Victor Kaptelini that overviews the concepts of Don Norman affordances (Kaptelini, n.d.). Even though I am not passionate on the area of focus that Townid Shoots explores, the website’s great format, layout, menus, content, etc. are easy to comprehend and pleasurable to navigate. This encapsulates my affordances to traverse the website. However, someone with a disability who does not have the affordances I possess will struggle to navigate such a visually complex and technically intricate website. Therefore, it is wonderful to see that Towhid Shoots prioritizes accessibility features. A blue icon is found on the left-hand side of the website that when selected features a pop out window with Accessibility Tools that range from readable fonts, increasing or decreasing text, etc.
All the elements mentioned above contribute to a superbly excellent website experience. However, one point of feedback is to fix the “Street Photography” button on the Public Content page. Currently, it does not work which is confusing to see since the rest of the website is generally without flaws.
References:
Gertz, T. (2015). Design Machines. How to survive in the digital apocalypse. Louder Than Ten. Retrieved from https://louderthanten.com/coax/design-machines
Kaptelinin, V. (n.d.). Affordances. The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, Chapter 44. Interaction Design Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/affordances
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