1.
From my initial website research, I found out the website conventions that were often used and worked well. After doing this research and doing my survey, I found the kind of layouts and designs that people liked and that I could use on my website. I found from my research that most websites for charities or organisations have a logo, which is on every page of the website in the top left corner. This seemed to work well in all of the websites, so I imitated the feature of design and used it in my website. Another convention that I developed from my website research was having a row of links to other pages underneath the title, which I also used in my website.
A lot of the websites that I looked at used bright colours as a background and for fonts. I challenged this convention by using a photo as my background instead, which I used on all pages of my website. I think that this is a good and interesting difference to a lot of the other websites that are for similar organisations, such as WWF and Friends Of The Earth.
I also imitated the kind of layouts that are used in some websites, in the way the text is presented and where the photos are placed. On my donation page, I had a prominent link to be able to make a donation and some writing to encourage people to get involved with the charity and making donations.
2.
After doing my survey, I decided that I was going to aim my website at young people. This is because there are not many websites for young people highlighting the environmental issues in our society. Most of the people that I interviewed were from the age of my target audience, and so some of the decisions that I made for my website were based on the survey results and audience opinion. Some of my questions asked if they think people should be more involved in environmental charities and they answered “Yes”, so I think that they would then be willing to visit my site if they have this opinion.
I made my website aimed at young people, so I used interesting colours, such as red font, and photos on it to make it appealing. Using a photo for my background was a good idea because it made it different to other websites and makes the audience interested in the website.
The colours that I used for my website were dark red and brown, which go with the theme of environmental issues and compliment the green colour of the website background. These are not particularly bright colours but I think that the theme appeals to young people as well as an older age group who may also be reading the website.
The way that I placed the photos on my website were to put them in a prominent place where they will be seen and will look good. This place on my website is usually on the sides of the page at the top, but it varied on different pages of the website. On some of the pages of my website, I had two photos, laid out in two columns, with writing also in the columns and the photos in a diagonal position to each other. I think that this was a good positioning of the photos as they could clearly be seen and had information breaking them up. This follows some of he website conventions that I found in my research.
Underneath the title on each page was a row of links, which includes a link to the donation page, which makes it easy for the user to find how to donate to my charity.
3.
My media product is being distributed through the Internet, which I published it on. This is very easy to do and anyone can publish a site on the Internet. The fact that I have made this website and posted it on the Internet shows how easy it is for any ordinary people to put information on the Internet. Just as it is easy to publish information on the Internet, it is just as easy for people to find and read my site. This means that it is now out on the Internet and is available for everyone in the world to see. People can find this site just from searching on the Internet, which is provided through Internet Service Providers and phone companies. This is available to most people in the world.
Even though the website is available to the whole world through the Internet, it can be difficult to find compared to if it were being distributed through radio or TV. This is because when it is on the Internet, people actually have to search for the site, whereas if information is being provided through radio or TV, it can be found or stumbled upon much easier.
Websites are more of an ideal media distribution for ordinary people because it is free to publish on the Internet, whereas TV and radio costs money. However, if a website gets more popular over time, it will require editorial, graphical and management skills to keep its audience. This means that it will need income and the website will become more commercial.
4.
After doing my survey for the preparation of the website, I identified that the target audience for my website are teenagers and young adults. I think that this is a suitable target audience to make a website for because they are easy to relate to and to meet their needs.
The aim of my website is to let people know about environmental issues and make them aware of these within their society. I have done this by making my website a good combination of information and photos to make it appealing, interesting and informative.
The aim of my website is to let people know about environmental issues and make them aware of these within their society. I have done this by making my website a good combination of information and photos to make it appealing, interesting and informative.
The other aim of my website is to attract donations to the charity. I think that this will be achieved because I have given good information to the audience, which will make them donate to the charity.
My website reflects the needs of the audience by using attractive colours, fonts, layouts and photos which are appealing to young people. I used a red font and fun border around all the text and photos. I think that these aspects of the website are suitable for my target audience which will make it more popular and get more donations.
5.
When I was making my website, I had to use suitable language for the target audience, which is young people. This means that I had to make the information that I was writing easy for them to understand and use interesting fonts, colours and positioning to make the website attractive.
On the home page of my website, I used a red colour font in Photoshop for the main title, to make it stand out from the rest of the page, because the title is the initial attraction to the website.
Below the title I put a row of links to the other pages of my website, which were in a quite plain but formal font. I used grey writing, which is in a small brown box, all on a lighter brown strip. All the boxes have a hyperlink to other pages on my website.
Also on the main page, I wrote a paragraph as an introduction to my website, which I placed on the top left of the main part of the page. I think that this placement of the writing is a prominent place because it is the first thing that you read when you see the page. Most of the paragraph of the introduction is in the same grey font, but the first part of the sentence is in bold font, and the “Earth UK” is written in red. The font is a size 15, which is a standard small font size but big enough to be easily read by my audience.
I think that I have used a good language for my target audience and they will respond to it well by it being a popular website.
6.
During the process of making my website, I have learned and used a variety of technologies. The program I have used the most is iWeb, where I have made my preliminary and main websites. I learned to use it when making the preliminary site, and so I have developed my skills and become better at using the technology as I have made my website. I think that I have used the program the best that I can and that I have got a lot out of it to use it to the best for my website.
I have also used Photoshop to contribute to the making of my website. I edited photos that I used on my website and I also created the title and logo for my site. I created the logo by drawing out the outline of a tree shape and then filling in the colour and modifying the image.
When making the video for my preliminary site, I used the program Final Cut Express to edit and add sound to the video. All of these are new technologies that I have learnt to use while making my website.
I have also used the Internet and Microsoft Word on the computer to contribute to the making of my website. I mainly used these programs for the research part of my website, such as researching other websites and planning the design of my website.
Overall, I think that I have learnt a lot about new technologies over the process of making my website.
7.
From when I first started my preliminary site, I think that I have learnt a lot and progressed to produce a good finished product. Doing the preliminary site was a good warm-up for making the main site, as it let me learn how to use iWeb and other programs, and gave me an idea of how my site should be laid out.
Because of what I have learnt while doing the preliminary site, my main site was different in many ways because I had learnt what worked well and what didn’t.
As well as learning how to use the software and technologies, I have also progressed in learning the norms and conventions for websites like this, which has given me a good understanding of media and the Internet.
