Critique_kayak_kamili

Mir S Kamili Critique [|kayak.com]

__**High Level Aspects**__ From a high level aspect the information architecture of the [|www.kayak.com] is very simple and to the point. The homepage consists of a vertical menu on the left hand side which is the primary way to navigate around the site. There are no adds displayed on the homepage or on any other pages that are linked by the menu. This, in my opinion, distinguishes kayak.com from its peers. Kayak.com does provide an option of registration but its not required to make the purchase. Besides allowing us to purchase tickets, kayak,com also lets us search for the nearest car rental services and helps to plan an entire vacation. The way the site is organized makes us believe that the primary function of the site is to offer search capacities. However if one uses the search feature it pops up two windows one of which is an add and the other contains some search results. It should be noted that these search results are in addition to the search results displayed on the main page. The information on the pop page seems to be similar to that on the main page and as a result the purpose is vague. As already hinted above, there is no need to have an account with the kayak.com to make any kind of purchases. This could raise some privacy concerns depending on how kayak.com secures its transactions.

__**Mid Level Aspects**__ The website remains consistent with its display of information through all the webpages that are linked to by the menu on the left side. However once the main page displays the results of the search the menu disappears and is shifted to the top in a smaller font. This confuses the user and in my opinion could lead to thinking that there is no universal control on the website that could take the users directly where they started. All webpages contain similar scroll bars and light and dark displays of information. These light and grey areas are more apparent in the search results page. Further to the credit of kayak.com, all their search results are displayed in the same format making them consistent with the rest of the website.

The color scheme of kayak.com is comprised of light colors. A light silver background is consistently used throughout the website. The color combinations of orange, blue and black on light silver background help to display the colors and bring them to front. The font used on each of the webpages is very readable and is organized such that it doesn't clutter the page.
 * __Low Level Aspects__**