DESIGN FOR WEB

Purposes behind websites - why have a website?

1. Promotion

2. Informing

3. Persuading

4. Contact

5. Entertainment

Who is your audience likely to be?

NEVER everyone

Three things websites must have

1. Usability - does it work well?

2. Aesthetics - how visually appealing is it?

3. Functionality - does it work?

What the group would have on their homepage

1) Landing page
- introduction, image, slideshow, mini portfolio etc
- kind of an unnecessary page, who wants to be stuck on a page like this when they first go on a website
- loose attention, may decide to exit the page
- just want to go to where you want to be, not interested in anything else
2) Contact page
- email
- telephone, mobile number, other means of getting in contact
- an address, making sure people know that you exist, where are you situated in the word?
- social networking could go on this page - your twitter or facebook if these are relevant to your practice and not just there for socialising
- shop - etsy, big cartel
3) Bio/about me
- where you studied, what you're interested in, what you want to be doing, who you want to be working with and so on
- don't include irrelevant info, no one wants to know how many kids you have and who you're married to
- relevant if you want to add something a bit "quirky" to your site - you need to be this type of person for it to work
4) CV
- clients, who you have worked with, adds professionalism and makes people aware that your work is out there
- timescale
- not necessary, as people should see you for your work and not your experience etc
5) Portfolio
- your best work
- should it be separated into areas of practice? e.g. illustration, painting, graphics
6) Shop
- could be separate from contact information if this is something you're really big on
7) Homepage
- links
- logo
- name
- news or updates to show what is going on
8) Fees

Task 1 - what pages you would have on your website

Pages for web

- Why? Why is it there? What is the point?

- Every page needs to be justified

- Landing pages? "So 2011" - no need for this, people just want to go straight to your portfolio or contact details

- If the page is redundant/pointless then that's bad design

- If freelance, don't bother with a CV

- Can do CV's in non standard format to represent design work

- Categorisation - extremely important

Task 2 - creating a quick mock-up web page

Web page feedback

1) Like the first one. Quite interesting. Might want to make it so you could click on the illustration and go to links. (Incorporate portfolio and other sites to illust.)

2) Top homepage is cool, good layout, simple, easy to navigate. On the bottom page I'd make the margins bigger to make it look less busy.

3) Cool layout - looks really smart and simple to navigate. Not sure what these boxes will contain.

4) Top site - great idea, grabs attention the about would work well under your logo. Love the minimal layout. Bottom site - I like the idea of homepage portfolios position of navi bar does not distract from work. Both good!

5) Great design. Simple yet effective layout. Easy on the eye. Would work well as a real website.

General crit feedback for the whole group

- Clean layout but unoriginal

- Easy to navigate

- Redundant features

- KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid

- Grids

- Logo to send you to homepage