Testing:
I will perform a test on my website by sending a questionnaire over Gmail to a number of people. By doing this I will find out if my product meets all of the design specifications set. The questionnaire will also ask for feedback on my website. This feedback could then be used to improve my product.
What is the Research Section?
The research section contains a large amount of information that I have gathered from a wide variety of sources. It is concluded with a bibliography to show the sources in the project.
The first section of my gathered research relates to the Human Ingenuity while the second part relates to Approaches to Learning.
Human Ingenuity
The History of the Electric Guitar:
Before the electric guitar was invented there was the acoustic guitar which contained a hollow body creating a soft and melodic tone, the acoustic guitar is pleasing to listen to and is still a popular alternative to its electric cousin if the song wants a softer sound although there was a problem. This problem was that the acoustic guitar was a quiet instrument which could hardly be heard when playing alongside different and louder instruments.
In 1924 an engineer named Lloyd Loar who worked for a now multi millionaire guitar company Gibson invented the first ever magnetic pickup (, April 15 2006). A guitar pickup is what converses steel guitar string vibrations into electric signals which can then be amplified through a speaker system. The first pickup had a rough and dirty sound although it was a great starting point.
Six years later in the 1930’s the first electric guitars were manufactured and marketed by the Electro String Company which was founded by Paul Barth, George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacker (, April 15 2006). The guitars the company manufactured were named “frying pans” they were made out of aluminium and had an extremely small body. A picture of the frying pan guitar is shown below.
These “frying pan” guitars were quickly becoming popular amongst jazz and blues bands because of their louder sound which gave the guitarist an opportunity to be heard amongst the loud brass sections of the bands. Although the “frying pan” guitars had a major problem due to their construction. This problem was that the guitar was cast out of aluminium and didn’t have a solid body; this caused the guitars vibrate while being amplified though a speaker which creates a loud and irritating noise known as feedback.
In the 1940’s the first ever solid body guitar named “The Log” was created by today’s guitar legend Les Paul. This guitar was made by attaching a guitar neck to a solid piece of wood without the sound holes which an acoustic guitar would have which reduced the amount of feedback created this is because the guitars wooden body didn’t vibrate as much as the past aluminium body did (, April 15 2006). A picture of the log guitar is shown below.
Around the same period of time another inventor named Leo Fender invented a new solid body electric guitar of his own design. It was introduced in the late 1940’s and it was named the Fender Broadcaster although it was quickly renamed the Stratocaster which has became one of the most iconic guitars of all time. The Fender Stratocaster was introduced to the public in 1954. Leo Fenders success quickly inspired other guitar manufactures to release their own mass produced electric guitars. Such as the Gibson guitar company introduced the famous Les Paul not long after which also became quickly popular. Both of these guitars are some of the best quality instruments that money can buy today and can be used for almost all genres of music. The photo on the left shows a Gibson Les Paul while the photo on the right shows a Fender Stratocaster.
During the 1960’s and 1970’s cheaper guitars started to be produced because the more well known guitar brands instruments (Gibson and Fender) proved to be too expensive for the average person to purchase. This allowed more affordable guitars to become popular in the market although they did not match the quality in sound and playability of the expensive electric guitars. In the 1980’s the Japanese started to mass produce and sell guitars of similar quality to the higher standard electric guitars although with a much cheaper price tag. These guitars forced the famous American guitar brands to market less expensive although high quality versions of their classic models. This change in pricing resulted in electric guitars being more accessible towards more people.
Still guitar companies such as Gibson and Fender are producing the most well known and top quality guitars on the market. Although more recent guitar brands such as Ibanez, B.C. Rich and ESP are worthy competition. All of these brands are producing new guitars with innovative materials, designs and shapes and feature new technologies and software to produce even better sounding instruments.
History of the Electric Guitar (Timeline):
1924- Lloyd Loar invented the first magnetic pickup. He figured out that he could convert the vibrations created by guitar strings into electric signals. These electric signals could then be amplified through a speaker system. The first pick up design was crude and simple, although it slowly refined into the pickup designs that we see today.
1931- Adolph Rickenbacker, George Beauchamp and Paul Barth founded the Electro String Company. It was this company that manufactured the first electric guitar “The Log”. Gibson (a huge guitar company today) saw the success of these guitars and decided to build their own guitar, the ES-150.
1940- Guitar legend Les Paul manufactured the first solid body electric guitar “The Log”. This guitar was built out of wood which reduced the sound of feedback which its predecessors suffered from due to their materials.
1950- Leo Fender mass produced the first electric guitar, the Fender Broadcaster. The success of the Fender Company then inspired other companies to mass produce guitars such as Gibson.
1954- The Fender guitar company constructed the Stratocaster which is said to be the most iconic electric guitar of all time.
1960- New Japanese guitar companies began to mass produce cheaper guitars which were around the same quality as the American models. This caused the American companies to produce cheaper guitar models.
1970- More and more guitars were being produced. There was now a large variety of different looking and sounding guitars. New guitars were also being produced for different styles of music.
The Change that the Electric Guitar Brought to Music:
The main revelation that the electric guitar brought to music was the huge increase in volume. This increase in volume allowed the guitarist to be heard amongst the other loud instruments of the common band. Now the guitarist would not only be able to strum the rhythm of the song but they would also be capable of playing creative melodic lines or other solo parts other the songs rhythm without being overpowered. Techniques like these are still used today. Suddenly the guitar brought a new change to music and was no longer known as one of the lesser instruments in the band. This opportunity of having more volume gave many new guitarists at the time such as Jimmy Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Van Halen, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page a chance to express their unique playing styles which would eventually lead to revolutionizing music altogether. These guitarists eventually became musical icons and with guitars being easily affordable at the time many younger guitarists could inspire and maybe even develop on their fantastic ideas to change the face of popular music today. Another revelation that the volume of the electric guitar brought to the music industry was the increased size in concerts. No longer did musical concerts have to accommodate small crowds because of unamplified instruments. The amplified sound of the electric guitar allowed concerts to expand from only a few hundred people to thousands. This was fantastic for the music industry as it enabled them to make a huge amount of money of concerts. It was also great for bands as it increased their renown by a massive amount giving them more money which could be used for producing, and recording more songs of an even higher quality.
What Impact has the Electric Guitar had on Society:
The electric guitar has had a huge influence on society over the years. Although it was not the instrument itself which caused the impact but instead it was the famous musicians who used them and the expressions which they wished to show. Much of this has caused the rebellious and disrespectful societies which we live in today.
This began in the early 60’s when music began to take a different appearance. This was because the lyrics began to promote things such as drug use and anti-social behaviour. A great example of this was shown in 1969’s Woodstock Festival where some of the greatest musical icons at the time were playing at the time, some of these even featured musical legends such as Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young and Santana. Most of whom sung about the benefits of drugs and how they create peace and happiness which had an effect on the audience. This is a quote from Juan c. Morales who attended the 1969 Woodstock Festival:
“Woodstock was a time of social changes in human freedom and expression. We learned not to be ashamed of our bodies in the nude, we smoked grass to expand our horizons with the music, we spent time with our kids our pets. It was very much focused on a new standard for families...the music of the late 60's that appeared in Woodstock 69 was some of the best around, very expressive of its thoughts and messages. Indeed an experiment...but one that worked! That festival set the standard for peace, music, people and expression and showed to the world that all was not just violence and hatred...it was LIFE!!”
This quote is proof that music is influential to society and it was the electric guitar which allowed it to be.
Another band which also had a tremendous impact on society in the 60’s was The Beatles. It was the electric guitar which allowed this group to express their feelings for cultural bonding and peace and this had a great effect on the people at the time. The Beatles were icons and their fans copied and respected them. For example the band had long hair at the time and soon after a huge amount of people in Britain grew their hair long. This shows that a music (which could not be here without the electric guitar) can have a massive impact on culture and society.
Another example is a Grammy winning rap metal band named Rage Against The Machine who were formed in 1991. The band protested against politics and other activisms and once again the power of the music allowed them to get their message across. Soon after many people began to protest against the government and other things the band detested.
Approaches to Learning
How do People Learn?
This segment of my research shall prove to be extremely useful. This is because it will teach me the skill of teaching others. The ability of teaching others is crucial in my project because without this skill it shall be impossible for me to communicate the information that I have gathered to others.
People learn in different ways and no learning style is better than others, they are all equal. There are three types of learners, although some people are a combination of them all. The styles of learning are:
.Listening Learners .Seeing Learners .Experience Learners
Here is an example for how each type of learner learns (, Randall Shirley):
.Listening learners heard their mother, believed the information, and never touched a stove.
.Seeing learners watched their brother touch the stove, and never touched it.
.Experience learners touched the stove; but only once!
To make sure that my website reaches its max potential, it must be able to appeal to every style of learning. To do this it must contain written information for the seeing and listening learners (writing also works for them listening learners). I shall also import photos and maybe even video clips into the website as these shall also benefit the seeing and listening learners as well. The video clips would be great as watching it shall be great for the seeing learners while the sound would benefit the listening learners. As for the experience learners it is a difficult task mainly because they tend to dive into situations rather than researching them. Therefore a website probably would not be the best source of information to teach them. This is because they learn by self experience.
How People Tend To View Websites:
Here are some tips that I have gained from the website . These facts are on how people tend to read through websites. Therefore they are crucial to understand as I must know how a person views a website to inform them.
. Reading from the computer screen tires the eyes. For this reason people read 25% slower on the internet than they do when reading print. This is why website text should be briefer.
. Around 79% of people scan through text rather than reading it word to word. For this reason it is important to highlight key words within text as this aids scan ability.
. Most readers on the web are impatient when finding the information that they want and there is millions of different website on the internet for this reason it is important that my website grabs a person’s attention. People don’t enjoy long and complex texts and scrolling. This is why pictures and highlighting is useful.
How to make my Final Product Attention Grabbing:
Before I rush to make my website I must carefully decide on the research that I shall include, it is extremely important that I do not use large blocks of information without visual images or paragraphs as it will make my website seem visually boring and not worth paying attention to. In fact studies show that a website usually has around 11 seconds to grab the viewer’s attention (, 3/23/07). It is just as important that the text is easy to read. To do this I must make sure that the writing has no grammatical problems, is without complex sentences or passages, that my writing is bold, clear and quite large and that the text doesn’t get blurred by a background. Another essential is to make sure that my websites information is well organised so that the viewer knows where to find the next piece passage.
Website Writing Tips:
The writing within my website is of extreme importance, as it is this information which is used to inform the viewer. Here are some tips that I have gained from on website writing:
Short sentences, words and paragraphs
A single idea per paragraph
Concise text - half the word count (or less) than writing for print
Objective language to build credibility, rather than exaggerated claims or overly promotional words like "great", "tremendous" etc.
Highlighted text for important words
Links to different websites
Meaningful headlines and subheads, avoiding cute or clever lines
I must remember that my website should not have overly complex pieces of writing, but instead should be more brief and impactful. This is because a viewer of a website usually scans through the text instead of reading it completely. Therefore it is essential for the viewer to pick out short key words.
The most Basic yet Important Rules of Website Design:
These are the most important rules that a website must have . Without these rules a website would be without an efficient layout, visually boring, uneasy to navigate around and would be difficult to read. Therefore these rules are essential in website design if you want the site to appeal to the viewer. Here are the rules ():
The website should be easy to read- This is the most important rule in website design. To make sure that the website is easy to read you should select the background and font colours with care. It is important to not use background colours which over power the texts. The safest choice is to use a dark coloured text on a light coloured background. For example it is easy to read black text on a white page.
The size of the text is also very important, smaller text can be difficult to read while larger text seems like it is shouting at the viewer.
You should keep the alignment of the writing on the left side of the page while the titles should be in the centre. It is best to keep the visitor comfortable and with most passages (when writing in English) the text is on the left. Without an easy to read text the website would be unable to inform people with a good amount of information. This is because the difficult to read text is to infuriating to read.
The website should be easy to navigate- To create a website which is easy to navigate all the graphic images and videos should be clearly labelled. All the colours used should be selected with care (the background colours should not obscure the text). It is also important that navigational buttons and links are easy to see and find.
It is important to remember that the viewer should be able to find what they want within three seconds.
The webpage layout and design should be consistent throughout the site- As with any other document created on computer the layout and design should be consistent throughout the website. As this makes the website seem professional instead of being a mess.
For example if you use a drop shadow as a special effect in your bullet points, you should use drop shadows in all of your bullets. Link-colours should be consistent throughout your web pages. Typefaces and background colours, too, should remain the same throughout your site.
About Wix Website Designer:
Wix is a free website designer which has an easy to use interface therefore making it extremely beneficial towards people new to website design. This is because Wix has pre website templates that can be used and backing designs both of which can be altered to the user’s specifications. The website allows the user to enter information, pictures and flash video it also contains all of the tools used in a complex website designer. There reasons make Wix an excellent choice of website designer for beginners such as myself.
Wix Website Designer Guide:
The first stage when using Wix website designer is to become used to the programmes interface. Here is a screenshot showing you the different tools available and how to access them:
Bibliography
, Bob Martin, The History of the Electric Guitar: How Music was Changed Forever, April 15th 2006. I used this website to gather information for the history of the electric guitar, I found out information such as who created the first electric guitar. I believe that the information that I have collected is correct as I have compared it to other websites such as .
, Jay Villaverde, How the Electric Guitar Changed Music, Date Unknown. Another website used to gain information about the change that the electric guitar brought.
, Dina F. Mandoli, A Great Website is..., March 23rd 2007. This website was useful for gaining facts and information on making a website attention grabbing. It gave me many facts that I didn’t know before such as a website only has around 11 seconds to capture the audience’s attention.
, Gray Rollins, A Brief History of the Electric Guitar, Date Unknown. This website was used to backup the information that I gained from other websites.
, Peter Sax Smith, How the Electric Guitar Revolutionized Music, Date Unknown. This was another useful article that I gained from the website. It contained information on the change that the electric guitar brought to music. It taught me that it was not the instrument but instead the guitarist which gained the ability to play it fantastically.
, Etheos, Website Content Writing Tips, 4/5/2009. This website proved to be very useful. It gave me a better understanding of website design and how people read a website. Therefore it teaches me how to inform people.
, Smith Whitley, How Modern Society and Culture Relate to the Electric Guitar, 13/3/2003. I used this website to develop a better understanding on how the guitar changed culture. For example successful artists that used instrument managed to shape culture the way that they expressed themselves.
, Randall Shirley, Which One Are You, Date unknown, viewed on 29/10/2010. This website was used to find out how people learn. I believe that it is a reliable source of information as the website is so well known. This was great for my approaches to learning section.
, author unknown, Basic Rules of Webpage Design and Layout, 2006, viewed on 20/10/2010. This website was useful as it states the most basic and important rules of creating an efficient website. Without it I may have forgotten some of the key rules leading to a less professional seeming website.