Silkstream were asked to design a brand new website for How Cute Is My Dog. And we love cute dogs, so….
What is How Cute Is My Dog?
How Cute Is My Dog is a website where dog lovers everywhere can browse through, rate and upload their own photos of cute dogs. There are spaces around the website dedicated for advertising and sponsorship, and aside from the blog the website will be mainly comprised of user-generated content.
The Web Design
The header of How Cute Is My Dog leaves room for advertising right at the very top, the logo, social icons, and buttons for uploading a cute dog pic and a signing up! There are also two buttons for searching and to bring up the menu. When clicking the instantly recognisable hamburger menu icon, the website darkens and the menu slides in from the right like on mobile websites, pushing the whole website over to the left while the menu is open.
When you click on the search icon a search bar will appear beneath, allowing the user to search for a cute dog.
On the homepage is a slider where users can browse the top-rated dogs by clicking the arrow keys to view each one. They can see the name of the dog, the breed, why the owner thinks they’re cute, and the dog’s rating out of fives. Clicking on “Read more” brings the user to the dog’s own profile page.
From the slider, users can click on the bone to leave their own rating. (I’ve given Rudy 5 bones because he is very cute!:)
When you’ve submitted your rating, you are presented with a confirmation display with quick social links encouraging you to share the dog’s page on your social media, providing How Cute Is My Dog with more opportunity for social growth.
If you want to add your own dog to How Cute Is My Dog, or you want to be able to comment on how cute dogs are and engage with the community, you will have to create an account. Filling in the signup form is easy:
Once you’ve made an account with How Cute Is My Dog, you will be able to sign in, add your dog and become an active member of the How Cute Is My Dog community:
Once you’ve logged in, you can add dogs and browse all of your dogs associated with that account. You will also be able to edit your account details like your name, email address, password and your profile photo is linked to Gravatar.
Adding a dog is quick and easy:
Once you’ve created your dog profile, it should look a little something like this:
You can share your cute dog’s profile page with your friends and ask them to rate you, or other website visitors can rate and share your dog and leave comments while browsing the dogs on the website. (Isn’t Chuee adorable by the way? ^_^)
If you go on the All Dogs page, you can find your dog listed in here for other users to browse through, and leave their own ratings and comments. You can search through the dogs on this page, and even display the dogs by breed.
How Cute Is My Dog even has their very own WordPress-powered blog where they can share news and articles for their community of dog lovers!
Another page on How Cute Is My Dog is promoting Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, raising awareness of all cats and dogs in need of a forever home, with links to how you can buy the “Battersea Dog of the Week” a present or even adopt them.
Other pages on the website not yet mentioned include:
- About Us
- Advertise
- Terms & Conditions
- Contact Us
Being able to contact the website owner is a crucial necessity for user experience. We’ve made it easy:
Links to every page are located in the footer, which appears at the bottom of every single page:
How Cute Is My Dog was built on our Silkstream CMS, and admin access allows the website owner to edit on-page content, including advertisements, as they please:
This is what How Cute Is My Dog looks like on mobile:
With websites like How Cute Is My Dog, mobile web design is particularly important as users are more likely going to be browsing this sort of fun website from their mobile device. With responsive web design, users can comfortably browse the website from any mobile device and all of the website content is resized and redesigned to suit a smaller screen.
Click for a closer inspection:
