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Holland America Line International Cruise Line

Low-level Items: Spellings, Font, Color, Layouts, etc.

The homepage of the Holland America Line cruise company features a color scheme of shades of blue and white, which are consistent with the company's logo color scheme. Their layout is simple with login and contact information at the top right, followed below by a horizontal navigation bar of cruise aspects with their own drop down menus for constant shortcuts to various pages in the website from any current page. Below this is a large slideshow of cruise vacation related activities and a form for checking available cruises, and finally a number of links for more specific website destinations.

Middle-level Items: Consistency, Error Handling, Writing Style, Menu Design, etc.

When exploring the website, the menu bar first appearing on the homepage remains constant at the head of each new page, but also highlights the particular section that the user is currently in. When the user happens upon a page not found, the website redirects to the site map in hopes to help find the intended destination. All the text is easy uncomplicated language and easy to follow instructions. There is no worry of getting lost in this website because the user can click back to be returned to their previous page, but if all else fails, the user can simply click the large Holland America banner and be returned to straight to the homepage.

The error-handling is great in regard to setting up a cruise. The home page has a form with a number of drop down menus that get updated to exclude options that conflict with a previous option (for example, opting for an Alaskan cruise restricts the departure port to Seattle since it is the only applicable). This is helpful so that a customer can't make any mistakes from the start, and don't need to be bothered with typing things in by hand.

High-level Items: Information Architecture, Navigation, Audience Appeal, Privacy Protection, Credibility, etc.

The static navigation bar across the top of each page enables the user to move throughout the site simply. Each page features a slideshow of pictures related to the page the user is occupying. Pages for Alaskan cruises show Alaskan scenery and pages for Hawaii feature tropical landscapes. These images and those of happy people enjoying their vacations seem to encourage the user to give in. Each user's privacy is ensured by requiring them to register an account through email before making any purchases, although logged in status isn't required to look through the site a read the descriptions of available cruises. Any legal information is included unobtrusively in the page footers, and in case the visitor is not an English speaker, the website offers a multitude of translations immediately at the top of each page that stays when further navigating.