When you’re in charge of designing a website, the first and foremost thing to do is understanding what kind of audience is expected, who are your readers and which level of web or digital awareness they have. According to the results of this first and fundamental enquiry, you can decide which style is the best.

When I first saw Youth4bridge‘s menu (a website dedicate to the “exciting world of bridge”), I thought that its menu really speaks clearly and loudly and doesn’t want absolutely to be misunderstood: big rounded buttons strongly contrasted are, not very gracefully, lined up on the top right page. When you hover over them with your mouse a sturdy dark blue dropdown menu appears with big labels in it. The current active page is higlighted by a beveled graphic treatment and every major graphic element is clearly detached from another.

So, I think that Youth4bridge’ s designer(s) first decided they have to communicate in a direct and not too refined way and then accorded consistently their style to website’s and users’ goals (though the latters don’t have necessarily to coincide with the former).