Communication Brief

Project Overview

This project is a college radio website, located in America. The name of the company is CJLO, and needs a complete layout, design and structure; basically, a whole new web site.

The single purpose is to give the website a new, fresh look. It will be easier to locate the information provided, as well as a new color theme and navigation.

The secondary goal is to attract more listeners. This will be done by a more compelling layout, and also by introducing My CJLO, which is a community on the website where students can share information, playlists, and personal information; a place to connect with new friends, and share your opinions.

The longterm goal is to make the site grow bigger, and expand the My CJLO project so that people will use the site not only to listen to radio and get new/reviews, but also to connect with other people.

Audience Profile

This website is made for young adults, mostly college students. The typical visitor for CJLO would be a college student, either male or female. Young adults with future goals, between the ages of 18-25. Since students seem to spend a lot of time on their computers, the online activity is rather high. Activities may vary. On the new CJLO, visitors can now create an account, and share information. Although this was possible before the update, new features will be added, and it will be more like a community. Other that that, the visitor can browse news, read review and of course, listen to the radio.

Perception/Tone/Guidelines

The audience will enjoy the website as before, but the goal is to engage them with the community, and to connect with other people/students.

Communication Strategy

The over all message for this re-design is to welcome people, and try to get more personal. CJLO should be a place not only to read news/reviews, but also to find new friends and new music. By introducing My CJLO, and advertise on the school campus, visitors will be able to find, and connect with other people. The success of the project will be measured by the number of people visiting the website, and listening to the radio, as well as the number of members in the My CJLO, section. When people are using the website not only for the purpose of the radio, but to find new music and friends we have reached our goal.

Competitive Positioning

What makes CJLO different from all the other companies because of the new feature; to share information, and find friends.

Targeted Message

Music Community

 

Sitemap

http://www.alistapart.com/

I pick A List Apart for this assignment. This is the same site i picked a couple of weeks back when we were to pick an article.

What can i say, i like the site i guess. It’s simple, clean and easy to navigate. I think the typography is great as well. To start with, the font used on the navigation is great. It’s stylish, but not too much. It’s also kind of thick, but still easy to read. I like how the top of the font on the navigation is flat. It’s hard to describe, but it’s like someone pushed it down. (_____)

I also like the colored font. The color is great with the white background. It’s a nice tone of green, it’s not too green, more “grass-green” (the one in the top is darker, and wouldn’t fit as good).

It’s good that they have more than one font, and that they have a good balance. They have three different colors on the fonts, which i think is enough. The main text is verdana(?), which is a great font for basic text.

I can’t really say what makes me like this page so much, but i think it’s the simplicity and choice of colors.

My Midterm Project – Wood & Wood

http://www.everythingaboutweb.com/grdes66/eriksson_ludwig/final_midterm/

Communication Brief

Project Summary:  Wood & Wood is web site that is a little bit outdated. It has a good layout, but need some work on every level. The graphics are old, and the site needs new fonts. Basically, this site is easy to understand, bit it just doesn’t feel good to be on it. The easy navigation is there, but it doesn’t feel easy. The single purpose is to re-do the layout and graphics in order to make the homepage more attractive to new customers. My secondary goal for Wood & Wood is to make people feel more at ease with the homepage and the information on it. My long-term goal is to get more visitors to Wood & Wood, which will give them more costumers.

Audience Profile: The audience for Wood & Wood can be everyone that is in need of a lawyer, or need legal advises; it can be either a company or a private person. There is no specific gender for this type of web site; it can be a male, single or married. Most likely, the audience is younger that older than 18, and younger than 60 years old.

A straight, white male, who has lived in America his whole life. He is 23 years old, lives with his parents and is studying at a local community college. He goes to school every day, play football in a team, has a girlfriend and is enjoying his life. Basically, he is just an ordinary boy who has some kind of legal question that he wants to ask wood & wood.

The typical task a visitor will do is to find information about the company and their services. This home page is made just for this law firm, and you are not able to do much else except finding out that information.

Perception/Tone/Guidelines: My wish is that the people who visit this site will find it easy o find all the information they are looking for. I think they will find all the information needed to make an appointment with wood & wood. Also, I want the visitor to see that the homepage is being updated, and taken care of. As for now, it looks like the site hasn’t been updated in years.

I will archive these goals by changing the graphics and layout. Right now, everything is a little bit diffusing; I will try to make the whole site clear and easy.

Communication Strategy: My message is pretty simple; I want to do an update of the whole page, layout, and graphics. The visitor should find everything easy and think that It’s a fresh, updated homepage. I will convey it through a new and fresh layout, with easy to find information. The success of this project would be measured by the number of visitors, calls, and messages wood & wood will get after the update.

 

Competitive Positioning: It will look easy, clean, and understandable. All the information on the site is good, it’s just that I want to re-do the page to make it more compelling for the public.

Targeted Message: Clear, clean and easy to navigate.

Questions

1. According to Thursday Theory, the 3 main rules for a perfect website navigation is:

• Include active/hover state
• Don’t include too many links
• Keep your menu prominent and clear

2. When should you use breadcrumbs?

Breadcrumbs are useful for big web sites with many directions and links.

They are not as effective for smaller web sites where it’s not necessary, and where it’s easy to navigate.

Example

3. Clearly distinguish primary and secondary sections.

Find out the  primary and secondary parts of your web site and make it clear which is which. This will make it much easier for the visitors to navigate. Change the color or texture, you want the visitor to notice it.

4. things to consider in the Information Gathering.

• The Purpose. What kind of web site do you want to create, what’s the purpose?
• Goals. What do you want to accomplish with your web site? Whats your goal?
• Target Audience. What kind of visitors are you targeting? Old? Young? Students? Businessmen?
• Content. Why are visitors visiting your site? What are you offering

5. 34 Places to Get Design Inspiration.

One of my all time favorite sites is Deviantart. I’ve been visiting that site for years, even before it got so big. There are TONS of inspiration. You can find everything there, and they also have a great browse/search function. You can browse this site for weeks, it never ends. Great web site!

6. The advantages of Web Standards.

The advantages of CSS is that everybody can use it, no matter what computer, or client you are using. Everything became a lot more easy to use and handle after CSS was introduced.

7. Accessibility for user.

• 3.2 Does the site use relative units rather than absolute units for text size?
• 3.3 Do any aspects of the layout break if font size is increased?
• 3.5 Does the site use accessible forms?
• 3.7 Is there sufficient colour brightness/contrasts?
• 3.10 Are all links descriptive?

Design Critique

http://www.debimaker.com/

• Look & feel / Attitude of site
  I like the first look of the homepage, it looks like a hair and makeup studio web site. I like the design in general, at least the layout of it. It’s easy to find all the information. I really like the header, i think that’s what makes the web site look professional. But i also like the logo. Basically it’s a good web site, but it could use some changes.

• Use of color
  I like the use of the colors, different grey tones with a touch of dark pink works for this web site. I like the fact that it feels like it uses more than just grey and pink tones, even though it doesn’t. What I don’t like when it comes to the colors is the bottom part, it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the web site. The dark toned colors looks good on this site, even though I haven’t seen it in light colors yet.

• Composition / layout
  Here, I have nothing to complain on, I think the layout is great. Everything is easy and simple, just like this kind of information homepage should be. Since there isn’t that much information to publish on this website, it’s great that it doesn’t have too many pages. The navigation is easy to find, and use. Thumbs up.

• Typography
  When it comes to fonts and style on this web sites, I would change most of it. Not that it looks bad in that sense, but it can look much better with a new font. I find it all readable, but i can imagine some people that could find it hard to read. I would change all the fonts, except for the logo font. Also, i would try to have the same sizes on the fonts.

• Content
  The content is good. Plain and simple facts, and then links to the flash site. It’s done in html at the start page and shows that she knows what she is doing.

• User experience
  I find it easy to get all the information I wanted. Although I don’t really get the flash part. It’s good that she gives us the option to choose flash, instead of using it on the start page, but i’m not really a big fan of flash, especially for this kind of site. It takes to much time, and is too “flashy”. Someone who is visiting this site wants to see her information and work, and i think it’s better to show it without flash.

• Navigation
  At the start page, everything is good and easy to find. But myself, i’m not a big fan of flash, and when it comes to this kind of page, i would not use it.

Wood Wood Young, Midterm Web Site

This is the site i choose, Wood Wood Young. It’s a laws firm located in Maysville, Kentucky. Although the navigation is simple and good, I really think this site needs an update.

Nothing really looks good, the web site wouldn’t attract anyone. Since it’s a law firm, it should look professional. The navigation is good and simple. I want to keep it simple, but still good looking. I think i’m going to make it look a bit vintage, but still modern. More sophisticated, imagine a law office that says “Harvard Uni”.

Here is what i want to do.

• Change place of the navigation
• Change all the colors
• Get rid of the old graphics
• Change fonts
• Change logo

Well, basically change the whole page.

I’ll keep you updated.

Three Bad Web Sites

1. Swedenhomerentals (Colors & Graphic)

“The 90’s called, they want their graphics back.”

This is a Swedish home rental site, which seems to be a little bit out of date. On the page it says that they have around 50-90.000 visitors each month, wonder what keeps those visitors coming back.

2. E-igr (Content Presentation)

Looks outdated, and is very unclear. Hard to even know where to click when you first see it. They really need an update

3. Bidforsurgery (Navigation)

Total mess. The navigation is really bad. There are tons of links, and some of them repeat themselves.

100 Must Read Design Blogs

While looking through all the sites on 100 Must Read Design Blogs, the first homepage that really caught my attention was A Way Back. It’s simple, clean and tasteful; i didn’t get a epileptic seizure from all the groovie colours, flashy patterns and distracting design; it looks professional. Although, the articles wasn’t good at all, so i had to go back.

The next site i found was A list apart, which ironically have almost the same name, but also, good articles. I found this article, about sketching, the visual thinking power tool. Even though you don’t know how to draw, it’s good to come up with ideas and thoughts on a piece of paper. The article is great, and i suggest everybody who’s really interested in web design to read it.

Basically what the article is about is how to come up with ideas for a homepage/graphic design without sitting in front of your computer. The author shows you what you can do, why it’s important, and what you need to get started. Myself, I’ve never thought about this before. Maybe it’s because I’m just starting out with web design, but i suggest you all to try it out. If you’re bored in school, be creative and sketch up an idea for a homepage. It doesn’t have to be good, as long as you understand what it is supposed to look like.