Evaluation

Evaluation

At the beginning of my website project, I conducted research into the different types of websites, which included corporate websites and crowd-funding websites. Initially, this gave me a few different options for the types of websites I could create. After researching the different types of websites, I researched into how different companies, such as YouTube and Digital Spy, designed their websites with typical components of a website such as buttons and links, for example, on the Digital Spy website, which is a news website, there is buttons which take you to news about TV and movies etc. Conducting this research was advantageous to me because it gave me an idea of the types of elements that I should include on my website. After deciding to do a website for a local company, I researched into the likely audience demographic for my website. In my case, as my website is for a local pub & restaurant, I researched into the average age, gender, income, race and ethnicity for people living in the local area. Conducting this research was advantageous for me because it gave me an idea of the type of audience that I would be creating my website for and therefore what sort of website I should create.  

After conducting my research into websites and audience demographics, I was able to decide on an idea for doing a website on a company. From here, I focused my research onto two websites for pubs. The purpose of conducting this research was so that I could get inspiration for how a website for a pub would look like. In the websites that I looked at, their features included information about the area and what facilities are provided by the company. This research was advantageous because it gave me an idea of what sort of information I should include on my website. If I was to improve on the research stage of my project, I would have researched into more local websites and looked at websites that fitted my target audience. 

After completing my research, I began to design my whole website on paper. Whilst I wanted my website to appeal to an older audience, I also wanted to give my website a 21st Century feel, which would be beneficial to the company. I designed how each page would look and how each page would link to the next page. This was advantageous for me because it allowed me to give each page a primary goal, for example, the primary goal for the homepage was that it would provide buttons that could take the audience off to look at different pages of the website, such as “Contact us” and “Book Now!”, as well as a widget to read all of the company’s latest Facebook posts. The advantage of the Facebook widget and the 21st century feel is that it would attract a younger audience to the website, as well as the older audience. The advantage of designing my website on paper was that it would help me to construct my website when it reached the production stage. If I was to improve on the planning part of my project, I would have designed each of the pages multiple times so that I could have had a choice of multiple different ideas. 

After completing the planning of my website, I began to construct my website using Adobe Muse. First of all, I created a master page, which included a blue background colour, the name of the company I’m making my website for, a slogan and the five different buttons that the audience would be able to press, to go on to different pages. The advantage of creating of a master page is that everything you put on there will feature on each of your pages. On my homepage, I included a slideshow of pictures of the company’s interior, which was effective because it gave my website an immediate modern feel and it would enable the audience to get an instant feel for the company. Secondly, I included a link to an online booking form for the restaurant and the company’s Facebook page. These elements would help to attract a younger audience from outside of the area as younger people use the internet a lot more frequently than older people. On the “Facilities” and “Events” pages, I took inspiration from the original website by including information about facilities and events but also, I kept the modern theme by including a slideshow with pictures of the bar, restaurant and function room. On the “About Us” page, I included information about the organization along with another slideshow, featuring images of the organization’s interior and exterior. On the “Contact” page, I included a contact form, where the audience can write the message with their name, email address and phone number, as well as the organization’s email address, phone number and address. The slideshow is heavily featured in most of the pages on my website because I noticed them in a lot of different websites that I researched so I feel that is a modern feature on a website and it helps to showcase the best of an organization. Overall, I have tried to keep my website quite simple as the audience demographic I am targeting my website are a slightly older audience so I have tried to simplify my website to just lots of text and picture slideshows. However, I have also tried to attract a younger audience by including interactive elements such as links to Facebook pages and a booking form for the restaurant.

Overall, I am very pleased with my final piece but if I was to improve, I would have included a more interesting background.