Audience
Using secondary and primary research I have narrowed down my target audience. This means I am now able to target my audience more specifically.
Part of my secondary research is using audience theories to help identify my audience. One theory by Burton suggests socially and media grouped audiences. Using this, my web site needs to only target Internet users who are rock or metal fans. This would be the target audience as a media group.
Also using Hartley’s theory of seven subjectives I can identify more specific groups of people. I can do this through gender, age group, class and nation. In my case the majority of my target audience would be males, which are in their teens to early/mid-twenties, who are working or middle class people that live in the richer countries in western civilisation e.g. Britain, America etc.
The above stuff on audience is true, but you need to then state in a couple of sentences what you will have to include in your website to make sure that you attract that specific audience.
I have also looked at audience behaviour theories to help me identify the requirements or wants of my target audience.
Through using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I can learn what my web site must offer people if it is to be a success. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs he lists eight basic human needs in order of importance. In my web site I have decided to incorporate numbers three, four and five. They are affiliation, esteem and knowledge.
Affiliation will come from the use of message boards of forums, as this will create a community within the site that they can be a part of.
Esteem comes from gaining popularity and confidence by chatting and gaining respect among fellow fans either on the site or in day-to-day life. Also, by establishing a strong and positive band image I will be able to offer esteem through association.
Knowledge can be obtained through the information about the band presented within all the areas of the site. Visitors will be able to learn more about the band and their music. Knowledge can also increase esteem as you can use the knowledge to gain popularity.
Full explanations of audience theories can be found in Appendix 2.
Here you should have quantitative and qualitative primary audience research data- this is results of your questionnaires and interviews- you should state main conclusions and how you will make sure that you use this information in your planning.
Planning
I planned the construction of my site by looking at my list of product conventions Appendix 1 and Appendix 4. I decided what conventions to stick to and which ones to break. The reason I want to break certain conventions is to create a more original site instead of your average run of the mill site; after all I want the web site to stand out from the others in its genre.
First explain why you chose a music band and then why you chose to use an existing one and who they are. How did you use your knowledge of their image to help to think f the style of your own website?
Firstly I planned the general layout of my web site Appendix 3 which shows basic layout and positions of banners, slogans, text, pictures and so on. After this I decided on typeface. I printed different fonts and then choose two fonts and printed them at different sizes so I could consider my choices carefully before making my final selection Appendix 6.
Then a colour scheme had to be decided before I could even consider other aspects of the site. This was done by using my radial analyses to see which the most popular colour schemes were and how effective their use was Appendix4.
I then decided that the best way to plan the rest of the site was to see how my target audience thought the site should look like and what it includes. I created a questionnaire with questions designed to simply find out what people expect from a website. These can be seen in Appendix 6.
Using the questionnaires I went about planning different ways to implement different parts of the web site to fit in with my target audience’s own views about web design. Animations, banners and interaction proved to be the popular choices for many people.
So I planned to make animations from photos of the band as pictures capture more than words. I then made a plain but bold banner to feature on most pages. The only way I could find to make the site interactive with the equipment available to me was to create a guest book and message forum.
Somewhere in the above you need to add how you write drafts of the articles etc and then developed them and what pictures you took of the band (you will need to pretend that you took some of the pictures at least).
Construction
I made the site using FrontPage. The first thing I did was to add a background and set font and hyperlink colours. I chose a plain black background, as this is a very typical colour used by bands as it shows dominance and boldness. The font was white as it too is a popular colour with bands and it shows up the most on a black background. Again for hyperlinks I used another popular colour with bands red, a choice that highlights a sense of danger and power about the band.
For typeface I decided to go against the convention of using a plain, simple font. I still wanted the fonts to be bold but to have a more modern feel about them. So I went with Bauhaus 93 for the titles because it’s very bold but has a modern, less simple feel to it. Originally I had planned to use Forte as the font for the text but it was too fancy and wasn’t very suitable for my site so I changed to Cooper Black, which is again a bold but soft font which is easy on the eyes.
I decided to use a 3-frame page so there was a banner present on all the main pages of the site and for a navigation bar to make it easy to switch between pages. This type of site is more modern and complex than a normal one; a lot of sites use a frame at the top of the page for navigation with a banner within it. I thought to make the site a little different and more original in its field I would use another frame.
The relevant pictures and text were then inserted where necessary. On the whole I thought text would be best kept to a minimal to avoid long boring chunks of text. I also positioned it so it was easiest to read. I decided that pictures would best be kept central and to have two per row on picture pages to make it look symmetrical and even.
I then added the animations, which again were centralised to make it look more professional and ordered. They were put with the pictures that the animations were made up of.
Evaluation
Colour:
Black background- this is a very dominant colour that has an implications of darkness and power.
White text- this shows up well on a black background adding to the boldness of the text and also has connotations of purity.
Red Hyperlinks- red is a very bold colour that often shows danger and power. It also has many associations with blood and death. Explain why this is a GOOD thing.
Logo:
Red and black- as explained above these colours give a certain message to the audience to create more excitement and interest in the band and to help their image.
It’s fairly large but not so large that it takes the focus off the main pages and content of the site. It’s quite a bold and modern logo which promotes a modern feel to the band instead of the more recognised gothic approach will still promoting a bold masculine feel to the site.
With many bands the logo is the band name, sometimes made into a banner or just on its own in the bands trademark font. This is true of my logo it is the bands name Soap Dish put into a banner the only difference is Soap Dish do not have a specific trademark font so I choose a bold font to match my titles and text.
The shape of the banner is the standard rectangle as it can be centralised and drawn out across a whole page, which draws people’s attention to it easier and normally enhances the logo’s boldness and identifies it as the logo.
Type Face:
The main text is larger than standard font size to create a superior image for the band and to add to the masculine representation of the band elsewhere in the site. The font it self is a rounded soft easy to read font in white which makes it very bold and has connotations of the purity of the band which adds positive imagery to the band.
The titles use a very bold and large font designed to impose a sense of power over the audience. The background behind the text is even highlighted white so the text itself can be black again adding to the sense of power and raw darkness emerging from the light. This is to build a mysterious and dark side to the band thus allowing them to attract all types of people as fans and visitors of the site.
Line of Vision:
1 Slogan (banner)
2 Page Title
3 Navigation Bar
4 Text
5 Pictures
Why did you want it to go in this order and how did you make sure that it did? You could explain the name- you don’t mention it anywhere in the report except for the last sentence.
You need some comparison between your site and a real, named one from the net. A couple of paragraphs will be fine, explaining what they have in common, but also acknowledging and explaining if possible, any differences. Try to use media terms, e.g. connotation, camera angle/distance, motive etc.
I believe that I have created a web site that will be a success. I have incorporated appropriate product conventions like colour scheme into my site but set new and original ones in other areas such as typeface to add originality to the site and to avoid being overlooked as a copy or standard site. The visitors have to want to return to the site and take more of an interest in the band for it to prove useful for Soap Dish; I hope by making the site original and different I will do just that.
End with a coupe of lines on what you’ve enjoyed/learned during the project.
Gary- you’re a little star- I have hardly changed any of it, and what you have to do hopefully won’t take too long (must be in on Tuesday…)
Well done
☺
