Check out:
to see work that students submitted last year.
Sunday, 17 October 2010
Thursday, 14 October 2010
What should you consider when planning your website?
Website development
Top tips for creating world-beating websites
1. Think about your target audience.
Choose colours and imagery that will both represent your radio station and appeal to
your core audience.
2. Be interactive.
Communicate with your audience, and provide them with opportunities to communicate with you, and with your website..
3. Use graphics and multimedia, but don’t go mad.
Most people still surf the web on a telephone line, and don’t want to wait hours for
your clever but OTT graphics-heavy page to download.
4. Make your site easy to navigate
If your audience can’t find the content they’re looking for, they’ll go somewhere else.
Make sure your navigation – the links and menus that take users to other parts of your site – are clear and visible.
5. Use the conventions
What features do you always see on websites? Do they always provide a contact email
address on the homepage? Do they always have a company logo? What else?
6. Make each page count.
Your audience doesn’t want to look at a page with nothing interesting or useful on it.
7. Limit your body type to Times New Roman, Arial or Verdana Basically, only these fonts work acceptably on all computers.
8. Use a layout grid
Give your webpage structure and an information hierarchy. Some examples of popular
layout grids are shown below – do you recognise any from websites you’ve visited?
Top tips for creating world-beating websites
1. Think about your target audience.
Choose colours and imagery that will both represent your radio station and appeal to
your core audience.
2. Be interactive.
Communicate with your audience, and provide them with opportunities to communicate with you, and with your website..
3. Use graphics and multimedia, but don’t go mad.
Most people still surf the web on a telephone line, and don’t want to wait hours for
your clever but OTT graphics-heavy page to download.
4. Make your site easy to navigate
If your audience can’t find the content they’re looking for, they’ll go somewhere else.
Make sure your navigation – the links and menus that take users to other parts of your site – are clear and visible.
5. Use the conventions
What features do you always see on websites? Do they always provide a contact email
address on the homepage? Do they always have a company logo? What else?
6. Make each page count.
Your audience doesn’t want to look at a page with nothing interesting or useful on it.
7. Limit your body type to Times New Roman, Arial or Verdana Basically, only these fonts work acceptably on all computers.
8. Use a layout grid
Give your webpage structure and an information hierarchy. Some examples of popular
layout grids are shown below – do you recognise any from websites you’ve visited?
Joel Sklar
Joel Sklar
Designing Web Sites - an illustrated introduction'
Users have to be able to quickly grasp the purpose of a website and what it has to offer - otherwise they will just click away to another site.
Research has shown that people tend to be systematic in the way they scan documents. For example, the diagram below shows ways in which people might scan three different websites.
The way people scan web pages
· On the left is an eye-scan of a person scanning from top to bottom and left to right. Since most Western people are taught to read this way, it is not surprising that this is the way we scan. This is one of the reasons that titles and banner are put at the top of pages - that's where most of us look first.
· The centre shows a person scanning the top, and then scanning towards the centre. A person might do this on a page with a title and its major content at the centre of the screen.
· On the right is an eye-scan for three-column web page such as a news service. The readers will try to scan the whole page to get an overview, but their eyes may catch something interesting, in which case they may scan the whole article, before moving on to explore the rest of the page. The FT.com website is an example of this.
Thus, for very practical reasons, the elements of web pages must be laid out in a way that maximises the chances that the user will see them when scanning, and take in enough information to decide whether or not to give them more attention.
Joel Sklar in his book 'Designing Web Sites - an illustrated introduction’ gives the following 'map' showing the areas of importance of the screen. It is a very good guide for those designing web pages.
Not every page can be laid out with the configuration above, but it is a model for the three and four column page websites such as many news sites. The Sklar model reflects the importance of the areas, Sklar's model suggests that the areas he labels as area 1 and area 3 are the most important for content, i.e. the centre and right of the screen.
Designing Web Sites - an illustrated introduction'
Users have to be able to quickly grasp the purpose of a website and what it has to offer - otherwise they will just click away to another site.
Research has shown that people tend to be systematic in the way they scan documents. For example, the diagram below shows ways in which people might scan three different websites.
The way people scan web pages
· On the left is an eye-scan of a person scanning from top to bottom and left to right. Since most Western people are taught to read this way, it is not surprising that this is the way we scan. This is one of the reasons that titles and banner are put at the top of pages - that's where most of us look first.
· The centre shows a person scanning the top, and then scanning towards the centre. A person might do this on a page with a title and its major content at the centre of the screen.
· On the right is an eye-scan for three-column web page such as a news service. The readers will try to scan the whole page to get an overview, but their eyes may catch something interesting, in which case they may scan the whole article, before moving on to explore the rest of the page. The FT.com website is an example of this.
Thus, for very practical reasons, the elements of web pages must be laid out in a way that maximises the chances that the user will see them when scanning, and take in enough information to decide whether or not to give them more attention.
Joel Sklar in his book 'Designing Web Sites - an illustrated introduction’ gives the following 'map' showing the areas of importance of the screen. It is a very good guide for those designing web pages.
Not every page can be laid out with the configuration above, but it is a model for the three and four column page websites such as many news sites. The Sklar model reflects the importance of the areas, Sklar's model suggests that the areas he labels as area 1 and area 3 are the most important for content, i.e. the centre and right of the screen.
Preliminary task - what do I have to do?
For your Preliminary task you need to design a Home page and a Media page for the Parliament Hill school website. You will need to:
To identify the elements of websites that are effective.
To steal the good ideas used by other sites in order to apply them to your own.
What to do:
Look at as many websites as possible,
Make detailed notes about some of them,
Make brief notes about others.
For some you may not make any notes at all.
You may wish to make notes on some elements of a website but not on others.
BE INDEPENDENT, MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS ABOUT YOUR RESEARCH.
Remember the purpose of the research is to prepare for your own website.
Website Research
Purpose:
To identify the elements of websites that are effective.
To steal the good ideas used by other sites in order to apply them to your own.
What to do:
Look at as many websites as possible,
Make detailed notes about some of them,
Make brief notes about others.
For some you may not make any notes at all.
You may wish to make notes on some elements of a website but not on others.
BE INDEPENDENT, MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS ABOUT YOUR RESEARCH.
Remember the purpose of the research is to prepare for your own website.
Task:
Look at the images of websites that are being passed round, make notes on them and study as many as possible. If you wish to study them in more detail, use Period 2 to do so.:
Look at the images of websites that are being passed round, make notes on them and study as many as possible. If you wish to study them in more detail, use Period 2 to do so.
To identify the elements of websites that are effective.
To steal the good ideas used by other sites in order to apply them to your own.
What to do:
Look at as many websites as possible,
Make detailed notes about some of them,
Make brief notes about others.
For some you may not make any notes at all.
You may wish to make notes on some elements of a website but not on others.
BE INDEPENDENT, MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS ABOUT YOUR RESEARCH.
Remember the purpose of the research is to prepare for your own website.
Website Research
Purpose:
To identify the elements of websites that are effective.
To steal the good ideas used by other sites in order to apply them to your own.
What to do:
Look at as many websites as possible,
Make detailed notes about some of them,
Make brief notes about others.
For some you may not make any notes at all.
You may wish to make notes on some elements of a website but not on others.
BE INDEPENDENT, MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS ABOUT YOUR RESEARCH.
Remember the purpose of the research is to prepare for your own website.
Task:
Look at the images of websites that are being passed round, make notes on them and study as many as possible. If you wish to study them in more detail, use Period 2 to do so.:
Look at the images of websites that are being passed round, make notes on them and study as many as possible. If you wish to study them in more detail, use Period 2 to do so.
How can this blog help you?
As you work on your blogs we will keep this updated so you can find handouts, hints and links that may be able to help you in the design of both your preliminary task and your main charity website.
Welcome to your Foundation Portfolio
G321: Foundation Portfolio in Media
This is a coursework unit where candidates produce two paired media artefacts from a series of briefs. This process involves progression from a pre-production, preliminary exercise to a more fully realised piece. The briefs offered are: print, video, audio and website. This unit is internally assessed and externally moderated.
The purpose of this unit is firstly to assess candidates’ ability to plan and construct media products using appropriate technical and creative skills (AO3); secondly to assess candidates’ application of knowledge and understanding in evaluating their own work, showing how meanings and responses are created (AO2); and finally to assess candidates’ ability to undertake, apply and present appropriate research (AO4). The unit requires candidates to engage with contemporary media
technologies, giving them the opportunity for development of skills in these technologies.
This is a coursework unit, internally assessed and externally moderated. Candidates produce two paired media artefacts in response to briefs set by OCR plus some appropriate evidence of research and planning. Set briefs are paired in order to provide progression from a pre-production, preliminary exercise to a more fully realised piece and will be in the same medium. This offers the opportunity for skills development to be assessed, as well as a final finished piece.
Website
Preliminary exercise: a new homepage for a school/college. This should include a photo of the institution, buttons to provide easy navigation to other areas of the site and appropriate welcoming text. There should also be a working hyperlink to a media department page, also with a photo. The task aims to demonstrate understanding of the software and of webpage conventions.
Main task: produce a campaign website including sound and video for a campaign (eg political, health, charity, environmental). The site should include a logo, original photographs, (minimum four per candidate), written text, audio, video and easy navigation. If done as a group task, each member of the group to produce at least four pages for the site, following the same house style. All material for both tasks to be produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of musical audio
effects from a copyright-free source.
This is a coursework unit where candidates produce two paired media artefacts from a series of briefs. This process involves progression from a pre-production, preliminary exercise to a more fully realised piece. The briefs offered are: print, video, audio and website. This unit is internally assessed and externally moderated.
The purpose of this unit is firstly to assess candidates’ ability to plan and construct media products using appropriate technical and creative skills (AO3); secondly to assess candidates’ application of knowledge and understanding in evaluating their own work, showing how meanings and responses are created (AO2); and finally to assess candidates’ ability to undertake, apply and present appropriate research (AO4). The unit requires candidates to engage with contemporary media
technologies, giving them the opportunity for development of skills in these technologies.
This is a coursework unit, internally assessed and externally moderated. Candidates produce two paired media artefacts in response to briefs set by OCR plus some appropriate evidence of research and planning. Set briefs are paired in order to provide progression from a pre-production, preliminary exercise to a more fully realised piece and will be in the same medium. This offers the opportunity for skills development to be assessed, as well as a final finished piece.
Website
Preliminary exercise: a new homepage for a school/college. This should include a photo of the institution, buttons to provide easy navigation to other areas of the site and appropriate welcoming text. There should also be a working hyperlink to a media department page, also with a photo. The task aims to demonstrate understanding of the software and of webpage conventions.
Main task: produce a campaign website including sound and video for a campaign (eg political, health, charity, environmental). The site should include a logo, original photographs, (minimum four per candidate), written text, audio, video and easy navigation. If done as a group task, each member of the group to produce at least four pages for the site, following the same house style. All material for both tasks to be produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of musical audio
effects from a copyright-free source.
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