2-Matt Bloom-Carlin

I feel that the website for the Seattle Space Needle is a clear example of obvious design.

http://www.spaceneedle.com/home/

The websites goal is to sell you tickets to the space needle.  Therefore any good web designer would realize, that if there is one thing that should be completely and utterly obvious, it should be how to buy the tickets.  As you may be able to make out in the bottom left, there is a box reading “BUY TICKETS”.  Three things make this button obvious design: the box is orange against a light blue navbar (making it stand out), and the box inhabits the less cluttered side of the website (it stands against the background of the background of the site), and it is incredibly clear about what it does; it is the button which you click to “BUY TICKETS”.

If that was it for the site, we might say great; it introduces you to the site, sells you on the line “Seattle Starts Here” and makes it easy to buy tickets…but that’s not it. 

You may be able to make out the words “SCROLL UP” located in the top center of the page.  If you are really astute you may even be able make out some sort of weird vertical numbering on the left hand side of the page.  It turns out that’s an altimeter, and if you SCROLL UP you start rising up a virtual Space Needle.  It even shows a little elevator on the tower that goes up and down as you scroll.  I don't know if a site can get more obvious than using a scroll wheel to navigate a tall vertical structure.

While you rise it offers you both information about the city and the Needle itself.  Then at the top it asks you if you want to buy tickets for the restaurant.  And lets be real, you do.  This website is too beautifully and thoughtfully designed to do anything less than spend a preposterous amount of money eating caviar and getting drunk inside a giant metal toothpick.