Today we had our second workshop for web which followed on from the workshop yesterday. To start we were asked to write a list of five possible pages for our website. I found this task very hard as my summer brief covered so many different areas and is so wide that five pages does not seem enough. I will have to whittle it down further and further until it gets to a focussed idea which there is a gap in the market for.
For the purpose of the task I tried to make my pages quite concise and in simple categories. I chose to have:
When I looked at my diagram I noticed that I had 6 pages instead of 5. I had not counted my homepage or index. Loraine pointed out that the way which I was going to layout my website the homepage would just be a page with a navigation bar on it and nothing else. With this in mind I could either include one of my pages on my homepage, for example putting the history on the first page. Or I could merge some of my other pages together and keep it to five.
I looked into which pages I could merge together and thought that the design which would be specifically about the map design and Harry Beck could be linked with the lines. This could open up a whole new avenue for me to look into why the lines were coloured in specific colours, what those colours mean and if they are actually drawn to the scale of a map. These are things that I will need to develop over time by mapping out the pages and receiving feedback from my peers.
After we completed this task individually we then, as a group, came up with a list of what should be included on a website.
- Homepage - Indicative content and intro
- Contact page - Enquiry page/form, Social media links, Telephone number/address
- Information/About page - Ethical statement, facts etc
- Gallery/portfolio - important that there aren't too many sub-headings
- Forums/posts/user posts
These characteristics are more specifically tailored to a site about a person or business, my subject matter does not need this type of layout it would be more related to an archive layout maybe.
After we had done this task we were asked to draw out a map of our homepage. I found this task quite premature as I was still unclear on the content of my site. I have such a broad range of information that it was quite difficult to map out a idea for people to look at because I, myself was not sure about the content.
When we started the task I struggled to draw one idea, a way I tried to overcome this was by drawing out several thumbnails of ideas which allowed me to look at my ideas on one large sheet of paper and choose different aspects from each.
After drawing out several thumbnail ideas I chose the one which I thought might be the best, I drew this out full size and added notes.
After the group had drawn their individual homepage idea we were asked to leave them on the table and move to another to give feedback on someone else's idea. I would have found this task very helpful had we all known that this was going to happen. I had not labelled my idea clear enough for other people to understand it and many other people had not either. Other than the slight issue of not fully understanding the content it was a really helpful task as it allowed us to look at how other people has mapped out their homepage.
The feedback I received was:
- Clean design
- Maybe create more focus, are you trying to communicate too much?
- As you have done circular navigation buttons on the homepage centre how will you do the nav on the linking pages as the information will be in the centre?
- Quite a lot of white space - can this be utilised to give user more info?
- I prefer the second design on the thumbnails page
- Design on the underground? I don't understand this category
- Aesthetics are very relatable to subject and the simple layout helps the direction
- Great synthesis of design & history of the tube through circle buttons
- Possibly the buttons could connect like the tube line in as an interactive feature
- Unsure on target audience
- A lot of empty space
- Maybe reassess scales
- Might as well make an impact in the space you have
- Looks clean but I think audience will want more on first glance, like news (travel updates) train times and being able to book tickets
- If it is just about the history etc then maybe change title to make more obvious
- I dont like the black/red background - maybe a photo? White wall tiles from the underground?
- I think circular buttons need to be bigger
The feedback I received surprised me, I was not expecting people to be as constructive as they were. This session was very helpful to me and gave me lots of scope for improvement and development of my site.
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