Navigation Bar

 Navigation Bar

Real Simple uses pull down menus for their navigation bar. I think it is pretty self-explanatory and simple to use. Now that I am getting more accustomed with the website I can easily go straight to what I want and find what I'm looking for without much thought.

Pull-down Menu

Most of the content is categorized by subject matter within the department. Once the user clicks on a subject in the navigation bar the site takes him or her to a page that is templated the same way. There is a large feature with a photo and blurb explaining the topic and underneath are smaller stories in the same category. The reader can organize the subject matter by most popular and most recent.

The navigation bar appeals to the person who doesn't come to the website very often. Real Simple doesn't assume that all people who visit the website are subscribers, which is great for casual visitors.

The drawback of their navigation bar is that it can be hard to find the latest content. Most of the stuff that pops up are the most popular stories, but overall Real Simple does a good job of organizing their stories.

New Daily Content Item

There are many different aspects on realsimple.com that refresh daily. The Daily Find is a section online that is complete service journalism. Each day Real Simple gives relevant information to the reader, the topics span from the "Best Kitchen Trash Bags" to today's topic, the "5 Grooming Gifts For Him." 

The Daily Find 2/14/2011

This is a great section for online because it does change daily and can be relevant for holidays and themes that the print publication might not be able to fit into print or isn't timely for the print version. This is also great because readers are able to browse through the many Daily Find archives. 

The drawback of this section is that I cannot tell if these are recycled ideas from past Daily Finds that previously ran or if they are unique ideas every day. The Daily Finds are not dated, so there is no way to know the uniqueness unless you are a frequent observer of the website. From what I can tell, since the beginning of the semester each Daily Find has been new each day. There is also a newsletter that accompanies this section. I have signed up for it and will update with information about how the two complement each other once I begin receiving the newsletters.

Web Only Multimedia Piece

Real Simple does not have a multimedia tab on the website that holds videos or web-only pieces in one place. The reader has to look for multimedia interspersed throughout the site. However, each main section of the site has some sort of multimedia piece associated with it. Real Simple does a great job of incorporating new information that is different from the print publication on their website.

After looking through a few different videos, I came across an interactive beauty makeover tool. The way the tool works is that a reader must upload a mug of him or heself to the site, then after thumbing through a variety of different options for hairstyle and makeup choices the user will need to select the best fit for his or her style. A list of the products that the user picked throughout the makeover process will appear as a sidebar. The ending result is completely new look that the user can recreate. 

This type of multimedia piece is interactive for the reader and is used as a supplement to Real Simple's Beauty and Fashion section. Although this tool doesn't necessarily give an accurate portrayal of what one would actually look like with different makeup or a different hairstyle, it does get readers involved and active on the site. Below are some screen shots of the tool and my ending makeover result. As a side note, I just want to say that I was only experimenting with the tool not actually trying to make myself look better.

 

Splash Page for the tool

Opening page of tool

 

My end result