There are many different ways a user can navigate around the Internet. Hyperlinks can be used to navigate you from one link to another at a click of button; site addresses can be also used. The Internet also has a keyword system where users can type in a keyword and the Internet will take you to the relevant site. Search engines such as Yahoo, Lycos, and google also help user search for information. All a user has to do is type in what they are looking for and a list of websites will be shown all related to what you are searching for.
We were asked to design and create a website on any given subject of our choice. I worked in a group consisting of three others pupils. We organised the group so we all had equal say in the work on the website and equal part in helping to produce the website.
Before getting started we carry out research and evaluated different sites on different subjects. This would help us not only decide on the subject of our website but also help us understand what types of technical devices we would need to use in order to make our website successful in attracting its target audience. We visited sites related to football, music, shopping, and news. These websites allowed us to observe the important components required to create and design our own website. We looked at the technical devices such as fonts, styles, themes, links, structure, language and target audiences of the websites.
After evaluating the websites we brainstormed ideas for our website based around music, and football. We decided to design and create a website on the subject of football in the United Kingdom. We named our site , we called it this as it related to football and was unique as we found a lot of websites with the same names. The website was aimed at people from age of 15 and over, generally at males as they find football more interesting then females do. The purpose of the site was allow football fans to get information on the top teams, results, fixtures, online polls and the opportunity to purchase the kits of their favourite teams.
We used a cool, street style approach to our website as the majority of people visiting the website were expected to be young. We used dominant colours like black, red, and fire colours as this website was aimed to attract passionate football fans that see football as a dominant sport. Keeping with cool street look we added instrumental in the background to keep our audience interested, the instrumental was from the hip hop genre which usually known for its street, real, cool image this went perfectly with image we wanted to put across. We also used eye catching effects like the title of the website on fire; we thought that this would be effective in keeping the audience interested and also intrigue them. Most of the sub titles and links were typed up in capital letters in red to catch the audience’s eye.
We chose to use easy to read language so people would not have any problems in reading the text. A lot of the language used is ordinary and casual because we knew different age groups would visit the site. The real indifference of language was in the title of our website ‘On YA head’ the reason for not using correct English spelling was because the phrase is commonly said this way. Another reason was when we looked at the Internet many websites used metaphors, so we decided to use a metaphor for our title. The types of metaphors we saw on the Internet were things like ‘Surf the Web’, ‘Homepage’, and ‘the World Wide Web’. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily describes one characteristic is used to describe another, hence making it understood but not directly expressed. I think the title went down well with our audience, as this is a title football fans could relate to.
We used a lot of persuasive language on our site as we had links to kit supplier’s one example being ‘Buy It Now!!’ this quote instantly attracts the audience, as it is strong and aggressive. Persuasive language is used by all good websites. Another example is ‘Click Here’ this is used all over the Internet, the quote is telling you to ‘click here’ which was used to send an aggressive feel out to the audience. Aggression is also associated with football. We tried to use similar language to football magazines such as Match the reason for this being that Match is one of the most popular football magazines around. We used lots bold headlines, with lots of colour just like Match. This magazine always uses language for football fans of all ages. So we used similar techniques on our website.
Our website also had visual images as some text have to be shown alongside visual images in order for the text to be understood, the visual images also help with the presentational outlook of the website. We added a picture gallery with images of some of the best players from around the world in action. These pictures were copied from many different websites to get a wider range of images to attract our target audience. We also made links using images to the some of best football related sites on the Internet, this would allow the audience to navigate themselves from one football site to another quickly and easily.
We had to make the decision on what was more important, language or visual images? We had mixed opinions on the matter, as some of us felt that language was more important as it informs the audience and some of us thought visual images were more important as they keep the audience interested, as well as help maintain a good presentational outlook to the website. We concluded that the importantence depends on the target audience and what they would like, in addition to the type of website. We kept a balance between the two so people in the audience who would like to see visual images could do so and the people in the audience who wanted to read or see the language could also do so.
I believe that our site had a substantial amount of success in more aspects than one. We succeeded in our purpose in attracting our target audience; this could have been done more effectively if we had received more time. The reason most websites are successful is because a majority are attached to a big names or are rare and different. I feel that if we had advertised and added our site as a link on other sites then our website would have even more successful in attracting our target audience.
After designing and creating our own website I have learnt that it is much harder than it seems at first. It is very time consuming, we had so many ideas that we wanted the website to use but we couldn’t because of the limited time and because we didn’t have the facilities needed e.g. graphics software like Photoshop, and 3D studio max this was the down side. I now understand that the Internet is even bigger than I thought at first, it is also a very successful business venture. Websites need to be designed with professionalism and capital in order for them to reach their potential.
I believe that the Internet has a very promising future, as it hasn’t reached it peak or met its match. The Internet is a fine resource and doesn’t need to be changed or altered in any way. Changes will cause a risk of a decrease in the interest of the audience; adjusting to the new Internet may be difficult and hard to understand. Changes may mean the whole system may have to change. But the question is if it is changed will it still be the Internet?
