Web Design 2 - Competitor's Websites analysis

For AHR, took me some time to figure out their competitors because there are only a few which have almost the same concept as them (it's more difficult when some of them do not have an official website). So, I decided to look at a few types of websites:

(1) Roads which famous for dining/nightlife: Soho KL, Look Out Point, Singapore Orchard Road.
(2) Nightlife websites: Quattro, Zouk, The Opera
(3) Heritage Websites: Malay Heritage Singapore, Baba Nyonya Culture.

 and perhaps to combine their good points/elements/ideas together. =)

Click 'Read more' to read my research! :D



(1a) Soho KL

Main Page

Soho KL is located at Mount Kiara, and is famous for lots of high class restaurants and bars. Just like how the logo shows, simple and trendy. The glittering animation behind the logo successfully create the feel for the website.

Here is the page for people to view info about the restaurants. I like how they create nice scroll bar for lengthy text, and the overall feel is very consistent. They create nice roll-over effects as well for the main buttons, which is very suitable and at the same time appropriate.

For some reasons, for events page and  promotions page they have this Red colour glittering background instead of blue, haha. One thing good about this website is that when you clicked on the small thumbnails, a pop up window showing the bigger size poster will appear. It is convenient for people to read through and close the window, rather than need to go to another page (just to see poster) and go back to previous page  again later.


(1b) Look Out Point

Main Page

Look Out Point is a new famous hang out spot for youngsters now. It is located up a hill where you can enjoy nice food and look at wonderful scenery of Kuala Lumpur. The main page shows their selling point (the night view) very clearly, and the overall website feels comfortable to read.

This website has very long page, but the good thing is they provide the 'back to top' button. (though the button design could be improved) The main page itself state out almost all the important points about that place, too bad the logos shown above cannot be clicked, it will be better if they can direct the reader to pages that show the info about those restaurants. 

(Left image) Shows the info about the restaurants there. It is good that the working hours and all the details can be seen before the fold, and the overall pictures mood are quite consistent.

(Right image) This is the only page where the feel is a bit different. Good thing is they provide lightbox for pictures (easier to see) and also at the left hand side, there's a Testimonial side where people could comment on that place, which is something different and good. 


(1c) Orchard Road Singapore

Singapore is famous for Orhard Road. This is the place where you can find a lot of shopping malls, and restaurants for you to enjoy yourself and have some entertainments. The overall design is consistent, the stylish feel is alright and suitable.

They have good planning where they let you choose the thumbnails of some shopping malls, if you happened to click one of them it will lead you to the information about that shopping mall. And for the right image, they provide very big and clear posters. (unlike some other websites the picture is too small that we cannot read the text)


(2a) Quattro

Left side the the Main page. The colour and style is nice, as expected from clubbing websites. The image on the right is something I like about their website. How they use the lightbox effect. there's still a small row of thumbnails for you to click, and the image quality is good.

Their Menu page. You can click on the different catagories of food, and then will lead you to another page to read the actual menu (with price and so on, it will be better if got image to support). This is nice as in people no need to click 'back to previous page' so many times.

Their Promotions page. Give you a glimpse of what they have in there and if you are interested to know more about it, just click the image to read more. =)


(2b) Zouk KL

Main Page. There are two rows of buttons, the top one from left to right is the classification of the types of rooms there, and the left one from top to bottom is other important information about this place. Good arrangement, the design and colours are no doubt very suitable and nice. The most important Hightlights and Announcements are also on the first page, very nice flow.

The pictures used are all in very good quality. Left image shows how it looks like for the 'types of rooms' part, and the right image shows the event page. They have lightbox effect too for the pictures to flow smoothly.

The left image shows the list of Archive, and the right image shows the page when you click on one of the event, the poster of the event and also the event overview will appear. I like this planning, it is easy for people to undertand and more user-friendly. =)


(2c) The Opera

Opera has very strong own identity, just like the name. Nice design as well. The one on the left is the home page and the right image is when you click 'enter site'. The overall design is consistent, only one very big problem is that their menu page is missing =/ well...

Even for their Contact page, they still frame the thumbnails up nicely. The right image shows the footer part.

In their About page, they have few info and they seperate them well, if you click read more then you can read the entire information instead of just putting them all in one page. This is quite user-friendly. =)


(3a) Malay Heritage Centre

I also research some heritage websites to find ideas on how they apply culture elements into their visual to make the whole website interesting. For this website, they have simple yet beautiful illustration for the main page, and the buttons are nicely designed.

They have more interesting pictures for different sections inside this website. All of them are related to malay culture, so that people can read about their background and at the same time can see some interesting visuals.  I like the overall feel. =)


(3b) Baba Nyonya Culture Promotion

This is the main page. Nice design, I like. =) The overall design consistency is there too.

Give you a view of how they look for different pages. I think they could input more content, but here I can study their design. They have different pictures of Baba Nyonya cultural items on different pages, which is quite interesting. 

Waw. Long post, lolx~ MORE updates coming soon. xD