The Bad and Lame of Jazz Musician Web Design

Hey, dudes and dolls! We're back with new web design to critique, so take five and cool down while this hipster takes you on a trip to check out whose web designer had the chops for the job, and whose designer really laid down some clams.

The Bad

(As I'm sure you all remember, in jazz, "bad" means "good"!)

This week, our prime example is the official website of saxophone luminary John Coltrane.

Fact: Saxophones are the sexiest instruments.

I won't go into this with a lot of detail today, but: I'm not a huge fan of websites that have a "landing page" like this. You know, where you first arrive at a display page and then have to click to truly "enter" a site. In this case, however, I can easily overlook it. The "landing" part is below the website's header. Even with the strong hierarchy the album name provides, the header is easy to spot. Coltrane's signature is also an icon that links back to Home. The navigation is right below the icon, so that anyone visiting the site can easily find the information they need. The user experience is as sweet as Coltrane blowing his popsicle stick, man.

The Lame

Sometimes a hep cat's smooth and solid style just doesn't find its way to their website. And when that happens, well, it's a real drag, Daddy-o.

Take a look at the website for legendary jazz pianist Thelonious Monk.

Yes, that Thelonious Monk. Yes, really.

We're still not gonna talk about the "enter the site" page deal, because there's so much else to talk about. The background that doesn't fill the screen, for example. The piano border that similarly doesn't fill the viewport. The paragraphs of unreadable tiny blue text beneath a banner that says, "DON'T TRY TO READ THIS STUFF JUST ENTER ABOVE." Do you mean the first link, which leads to a flash page? The second? The third? What is the difference between the "Thelonious Monk Store" and the "Thelonious Monk Zone"? Help!

Telling the whole truth, if you click through to the store, that website is real gone! But how many people would even make it there?

Thanks again for joining me for this week's UXploration! Which artist has your favorite website? What have UXplored this week? Let me know in the comments, and I'll catch you cool cats on the flip side.