Epicurious

Epicurious.com

Intended Audience
People interested in food and recipes. Subscribers to Gourmet or Bon Apetit magazines.

Usefulness of Content
There is a ton of articles on various food subjects. Lots of recipes. Extended versions of articles form the above magazines. Forums for food discussions. All in all lots of content, all regarding food. One of the best sections is the recipe search (important enough to be in the main banner). Brings up tons of recipes that have been published in either magazine going back more than 10 years. Each recipe found comes up with a descriptive name, date and magazine of publication, user rating, and come other icons for quick reference about the recipe without opening it (such as a wine glass signifying that the recipe includes wine recommendations to go with it). One issue I have is the quantity of ads. Once you leave the front page they even devote part of the primary (top) banner to ad content. The intermingling of ads and content on the right hand side makes me miss content among the ads.

Consistency of Design
Pretty consistent. Same major banner (though it changes color based on the section you are in. The content is always in the center, the ads always on the right, a submenu usually on the left. If there is a bit of inconsistency it has to do with that left menu bar - it changes/appears/disappears and can be confusting.

Ease of Navigation
This is where I have a bit of a problem with the site. They have so many links/menus on some pages that you can become disoriented. The content sometimes presents you with another menu of choices. There are some things that they make very easy - finding a recipe. As mentioned earlier the right hand side of the page sometimes intermingles content with ads making it easy to miss them.