1 February 2008 - 23:35Martha Stewart vs. Oprah

Martha Stewart and Oprah are both bigtime players in the media market. They each have their respective television programs, magazines, radio programs, and various endorsements. I was surfing sites as part of research for a design I’m creating, and I was interested to see how the womens’ enterprises measure up on the web. Check them out:

MarthaStewart.com

Oprah.com

Say what you will of Martha, but the folks behind her web site have done an amazing job. MarthaStewart.com is absolutely gorgeous. There is a lot going on, yet it is presented in a simple and clean manner. The color palette is vibrant without overpowering the content, and it does a great job of distinguishing the content areas. Martha’s site also features stunning photography which dramatically ups the classy factor!

Oprah.com, on the other hand… is kind of overwhelming! There is so much going on here that I have trouble focusing on any one section. The color palette, while rather blah, does not offend me. However the splashes of taupes and browns seem to be used haphazardly without a clear motive from a usability standpoint. I see a lot of brown gradients and boxes, but they’re all over the place. Rather than accentuating points of interest, they make me feel claustrophobic. I think that discarding these unnecessary design elements and replacing with white space would give this site, and its user, a lot more breathing room.

Another weakness of Oprah.com is the lack of consistency. If you navigate away from the main page via the dropdown menu in the top right, the “mini sites” are inconsistent and there is not always a clear way to get back to where you were before. This site needs an organizational overhaul in my opinion. Let your goals for functionality lead and then the design will follow.

I didn’t mean for this to become an Oprah bashing entry - I have nothing against her. Quite the opposite! Oprah’s got the daytime tv circuit on lockdown and personalitywise, I think she beats Martha. But that’s just my opinion. However on the Web turf, Martha wins this match hands-down.