WEBSITE EVALUATION OF

http://www.wix.com/ashleytaylormedia/alco-wareness

Ashley Taylor

CODES AND CONVENTIONSWhen I was researching on other sites I came across many codes

and conventions that they all had and I tried to include these into my work. Such as a top navigation bar, nearly all the sites I looked at had a navigation bar some had them on the top some the sides and some at the bottom I felt as if the navigation bar went better at the top as it is one of the first places that someone will look upon entering a site. Another good key feature that I used from many other sites is the way they have all there text and images to seem to flow together such as there will be an image to catch your eye and then all the supporting/relevant text will be near by. Something that I saw mainly on YouTube but it was also on the red cross site was video’s on YouTube they are user uploaded and they are the main attraction but on the red cross it showed me how they can be used to draw people in and then after seeing this they want to stay and hear more about it another thing that I included on my site which I saw was becoming a trend for the bigger site’s who receive a lot more viewers is social interconnection of the site. Such as there are links at the bottom to social networking sites which you can then inform you about the company and so forth.

AUDIENCEThe site has been produced to be aimed at people of an age of 18+

this is the sort of age range of people that will come visit the site. I do know that there will be people of a younger age looking but this isn’t a marketable point that should be made. The main people that will be visiting are those who have problems with alcohol, who also are willing and wanting to make a change to the amount of alcohol they drink or the problems it is causing them. The audience will also consist of people who are looking for general information about alcohol and the effects it can have.

There are a few things that I did to the site to attract the audience to it such as colourful pages this will cause people to stay on the site as it looks more presentable. Another thing I did to improve the amount of viewers I got on the site is the interactivity and animations that I put onto the website this aids to the colourful pages making it more presentable it also gives the viewer a feeling that they are using a well made and hard worked product. With the various images/text and videos that I have across the site this keeps people interested in the information that is there and it also could contain what they are looking for which would obviously keep them on the site.

REPRESENTATIONThe way that the social groups that my site is aimed at are all in a

positive light, it shows that people with the problem of alcohol have a problem but they have the ability to help themselves. It does this by telling what it is doing to them and the effects it can have which will helpfully help people realise that they need to help themselves. There are also links to other sites which offer help which also show the person suffering can deal with this independently given the right tools and method.

When looking for a institution there are not many who are around for websites, especially campaign websites but I did manage to find one which would be the NHS they are a very well known health organization within the UK Government, Industries and Public eye. They are also known for there important part that they have on the UK’s health so any campaign to improve this is something that they are going to want to be a part of.

TECHNOLOGIESWhen producing my website I used a different selection of tools, they are as follows

Wix: This is the site that I used to host the website that I made and this also provided the tools to create the website

You Tube: This is the site that I used to host the video onto so it could then be put onto the website

AUDIENCE FEEDBACKAfter I completed my product I set out to get some audience

feedback about my website. To do this I couldn’t take it out and show people like a video as I had no means of this, so I put the link on a few social networking sites that I am a member of and then used a online questionnaire service to record there feedback a link to this is here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GMFTL5T from the responses I got I can see what other people feel needs improving such as “The written communication could be slightly better” there was also another main point that was made about possible improvements “the logo did not look very professional” however there were some good points that where made such as “yes i love it its the best website in the world about alcohol” taking in all these points I see what was good about my site and I also see what I could have improved and should have took more care of.

EVALUATION OF SKILLSFrom the beginning of the course I have learned many new skills,

one of which being how to use photo shop to a better standard with more of an understanding of what the tools do and when it’s appropriate to use them.

Another skill I have learnt is how to upload videos and make them viewable across the web I did this using YouTube and the various tools it provides

One more thing I learnt was to make a flash based website, this was one of the main things that took a while to learn as it was not easy to use at first. However I needed to use this as it was the best method of choice for my website as it allows for better aesthetical properties and for a more interactive and fun experience when accessing a website.

WHAT I HAVE LEARNT SINCE MY PRELIMINARYFrom my preliminary I have learnt quite a few different ways in which to

improve the look of my website as my preliminary had a very basic colour scheme with little in the means of interactivity. In my main task there was also a few animation features which improved the turn out on a aesthetical level, however these were not present in my preliminary. Also when I was completing my preliminary I didn’t improve the quality of the images to any degree apart from a few frames which were present on the website designing tool. Another main point that I learnt to improve was the amount of information and how much of which was present.

IMPROVEMENTSFrom the audience feedback I have received and from reviewing my work

myself there are a few improvements I would make if I was to make the website again.

× I would improve the quality of the video as I found that this area had not much attention payed to it as it is an important part of the site as it shows how I can bring different mediums of media together into one media text.

× I would add more in the means of information to the website as I found that there was quite a lacking of information when I compared this to other websites in this area, I didn’t note down in my research how much information there should have been as not enough information can lead to a visitor of the site leaving due to what they want not being there at all and if this is apparent for a lot of visitors then this isn’t good for views

× The logo I used was good but it could have done with some more work on it as the logo had little relevance to the topic that the site was discussing.

× When it came to audience feedback I think that the manner in which I distributed the quiz and the website was good but I think I could have increased the interactivity of both as this can help get more audience feedback providing me better means of improvement and a more interactive website can provide a larger amount of viewers to the website.