Our theme is “Children’s interactive library” because we believe that kids are our future and the biggest attention should be concentrated on them. If we are not going to take care of our children, they will not be up-to-date. Therefore, our solution for kids is to join Children’s interactive library’s activities and improve their skills and knowledge by doing fun stuff. All in all, we are willing to attract kids to read and use interactive media which could help them become smarter and wiser.
How to attract kids to participate to the Children’s interactive library’s activities though a website?
Within two weeks we had to use our skills in the field of four subjects and show our best effort under the pressure of time. Therefore, considering that we had to be involved in every part of the project, we faced some difficulties combining our ideas in one solid project. Some of aspects of the website are the prototypes as the time limitation is really significant drawback of our skills to make some complex commands with coding as well as design.
Our sender is URBAN MEDIASPACE AARHUS. Basically, the Dokk1 is the new Aarhus’s new Main Library, which is going to be opened in 2014. This building will be a great place of learning for people of any age, who want not just to borrow books, but also attend lectures, participate in events and use various media to gather more knowledge trough unique experiences.
Our team has been given a working period from 25th of February to the 8th of March. We used the Scrum Method during that period to implement all the four disciplines of the project and to also constantly update what is needed. We used a website called Trello to help us implement the scrum method to our project. We have made a product backlog, 3 sprints; each one of them 3.5 days long. We were holding scrum meetings every morning at 9:00 to share what we managed to make during the last day of work and discuss what was supposed to be done for the next day. We were making a scrum burndown chart to see how much time we had planned and how much we were actually spending for each sprint.
SWOT Strengths Weaknesses extremely ambitious long term project (it and modern project; was started long uniqueness; time ago, in 2001 focusing on learning and waiting to be trough an interactive opened in 2014; environment; high-tech used to attract; Opportunities further developing in other cities as well;
Threats all the computer games and existent technology that keeps the children inside their homes; the existence of all kind of places that might attract them more; the continuously changing preferences of freetime spending by children;
TOWS Strengths and Opportunities: Considering the ambitious plans and possibilities within the latest technology and combining Strengths and Opportunities of the Library, it is
possible to reach popularity with this project, reaching a large audience and evolving very quick in the area and at the same time, bringing new possibilities for the children to learn. The place is going to be innovative and there will be a lot of new things that have never been seen in the libraries. Competition wise it will not be a very challenging assignment for the company. Weaknesses and Threats: It is currently a big drawback for the community that children are spending their free time in places other than libraries. However the project has been launched in 2001 and is still in development. This means that there is still plenty of time to plan the actions carefully. It is important to pay decent attention towards children and how they spend their time. Without proper planning, the campaign might have a hard time reaching its goals and attracting enough visitors. Threats and Opportunities: We think that there is a great chance to turn a threat into an opportunity. Since children keep spending their time in other places and not visiting the library, there is a good way to implement the “Children’s interactive Library� concept in other smaller cities. Kids do not have many opportunities to entertain themselves there, so it will be much easier to attract them from those areas. We should consider the popularity of such areas, however. It is important to consider that a foundation of such a library costs. Weakness and Strengths: Since the project has been started long ago it is important to concentrate on its strengths, because given such an amount of time requires a thorough work.
VISION Vision of Dokk1 is to create a flexible space. This place is for people who want to be inspired, get new ideas and gain knowledge. Dokk1 is an interactive house that helps the user to learn and get more experience by using various media. Multimedia house library seeks to be the main library in Aarhus region which uphold culture and knowledge. Dokk1 provide priority for cooperation and networking.
MISSION To create a cozy environment where children can gain knowledge in the fun way without even realizing it, that is our mission. Dokk1 seeks to encourage people to share their knowledge with each other, to give appropriate information and to inspire kids and their parents.
CORE VALUES Dokk1 has 7 main core values which show what is really important for the company. So, citizens are one of the values because they are potential customers of Dokk1. Also, Multimedia house promotes lifelong learning and encourage people to create strong community by sharing knowledge. Diversity of digital marketing is really important because company is up to date and nowadays people use electronic devices (smartphones, computers, tablets, digital billboards) which are renewed every day. Dokk1 is Entertainment Company which assesses culture. Multimedia house seeks to make a bridge between citizens, technology and knowledge. Dokk1 seeks to become sustainable icon for Aarhus. This city already has some really famous objects like Aros museum and Den Gamble By who are like icons of Aarhus. But Dokk1 represents new and modern way of living and this gives fresh and up-todate image of city.
THE CHILDREN'S INTERACTIVE LIBRARY CHALLENGES The library has 7 installations that might excite user as well as provide a lot of useful information through visual media, sound systems and physical installation usage. But, the whole project might have some challenges, as children might get bored using these methods for gaining knowledge, as generations are changing, the library activities should be updated and improved constantly so that it fits futuristic way of thinking.
1. Create urgency. More and more children do not read books anymore, because of games and new inventions that attract more with visual systems, rather than ordinary books. Therefore, why not make the best use of this media and gather people to create new experiences by means of taking advantage of their interest in modern technologies. Our team has decided to make a promotional campaign for Dokk1.
2. Create a powerful coalition. To develop a change, a team is needed, which could reach “out of the box” and implement traditional values to modern way of living. The team has been formed of 4 persons, where each of the persons is good at its particular field, but all of them are also competent and aware of the situation within the project. The coalition has been formed of BAA students, which include Dovile Stangvilaite, Jolita Endrijaitytė, Alice Mihai and Andrei Mironovits.
3. Create vision for change. With the help of a website to The Interactive Children’s Library more people would be attracted to go to the library, as they could already know what activities do Dokk1 offer , what are the feedbacks of other people and if it is worth of trying something new. We see our webpage as a place where people (our target group, the kids) can communicate, share the knowledge about the event. We have founded our team with an aim to let the children get to know an interesting way to spend their time.
4. Communicate the vision. It is important to communicate the vision so people could know which direction the change is headed in, so that the goals can be clear and the coalition could be inspired. We expect to see mainly kids amongst our visitors in the Library and when the percentage of them will increase, it will be a signal to us that we are heading in the right direction.
5. Remove the obstacles. Empower action. Computer games and plagiarism could be an obstacle for making more children to get out of their homes because a lot of interesting movies, activities, can be reached through internet, so it is important to create an even better visual value than the one reached at home. Also, we will encourage people to be more innovative as things are changing all the time. Whenever we will see our child visitors of the webpage making their small blogs, we will be sure that it is a success and actions have been made by the user as well. Then, the snowballing effect will be launched as nothing and no one can make a better commercial for the product as the user himself.
6. Short-term wins.
Reward the most innovative coalition members. Get 1200 visitors in The Children’s Library website per day. Attract 800 visitors at least in a day. Build on change.
After the first week the short-term wins should be analyzed, and the average number should be taken to see how the project is running. If analysis shows favorable numbers, the new goals (greater goals) should be created.
7. Don’t let up. After more and more people will be visiting the webpage, we believe that we will be able to create a solid community thanks to which our vision will be fulfilled.
8. Make changes stick. We will adapt our campaign upon making analysis of the measurable values, such as the age of visitors, their needs. We will build up based upon their feedbacks and comments. It is very important to keep changing according to the trends happening outside of the Library, which might affect our customer.
BRAND MEANING
Functional – they provide all the latest technical means the children can use to learn in a more interesting and interactive way, breaking the patterns of “normal” and making the learning a unique experience. Psychological – people will go there because it is a unique place that might give them the impression that they will gather the knowledge; they seek through special learning experiences, considering the fact that usual environments nowadays are outdated and do not offer that special “something” they need.
TARGET GROUP Our target group is wide, starting from the age of 4, up until 40 years old (parents), but we decided to choose this primary target audience. Children with ages between 7-13; They live in Aarhus city (house/bloc) or the surrounding areas; They are passionate in playing games (computer games and games involving interaction), reading books or magazines, getting to know more about the world they live in, its history and famous personalities. Their families have average income or above average
MARKETING OBJECTIVES
Specific – We want to attract 1000 visitors per day. Measurable – We will measure the amount of the visitors at every end of the month. Achievable – We will create awareness among our target group and our goal is not unrealistic because there are a lot of Danish families which would like to try new ways to spend their time together. Realistic – It is realistic because parents care about their children’s education and in this situation their kids can gain knowledge in a fun way. Time scaled – By 8th of March 2015.
MARKETING MIX: Promotion – local TV ads, posters and banners near the playgrounds and schools, advertisements in local newspapers and ads on most visited websites by children in Denmark. Price – not specified. Place – Aarhus. Product – the library itself, fully equipped and ready to use.
BUDGET 5% of the whole amount allocated for the entire project will be used for the marketing campaign which will be started two months before the building’s opening.
MESSAGE DESIGN We will use the Ethos approach to make awareness of Dokk1 Echos will be the model of our campaign. For getting attention we will use our message: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world!”
We will make analyses of the amount of visitors from the opening of the Library (remember, the marketing campaign is launched 2 months before the opening), the number of monthly visitors, and the total visitors we will have after the first 6 months, the next 6 months and so on.
The main concept of the webpage is to make it attractive to the children of our target group. It is a good idea to make a lot of homegrown elements, since children really are attracted to making homegrown stuff themselves at that age. All the produced images are animated, which will attract children, because they like cartoons. We have also decided to try to implement the real surroundings, for example, the sea. The Library itself looks just like the real one, which should make it recognizable. The main content of the page is going to be included in the rooms of the library, which will be scrollable with slideshow arrows. You can switch between the subpages using the menus on top as well as the slideshow handles. It should be easier for the kids to operate the website using different menus in different places. We will make sure they will grasp every piece of content that is there by using this technique. The webpage is adjustable for 4 kinds of devices; for desktop, laptop, a tablet and a phone. We have a responsive design for each particular device a user is going to use. Our design will adjust to each of them. The webpage is meant to give children the most important information considering the Library in a brief and fun way. It is supposed to give them an idea how they can spend their time there and to also entertain them.
THE CORE STORY The obituary test: Kids might fall behind what is happening in modern world and might not get a chance to try new media. Kids might lose the opportunity to learn something by communicating with other children. Children will lose the chance to have their personal space in public where they can learn something and spend their time properly.
Internal data: Dokk1 is trying to create image of strong company brand by posting posters, showing TV ads about interactive activities. By being the main library in Aarhus region, Multimedia house reaches to gain popularity in Denmark and attract a lot of visitors. Also, library states that citizens are one of the main values of the library so it wants to create a good image of the company with a strong community.
External data: Multimedia house look like modern space where you can gain knowledge about up to date devices. It is a place where you can get a lot of information and become up-to-date. Mediaspace is the only place where people can spend time alone or with their families, relax as well as focus on getting up-to-date about technologies, projects, news.
Identity: Dokk1 is a place where community, culture, mix of tradition and modernity are inherent from each other.
Image: Dokk1 is a modern house where people can get more information, borrow books, discus with others, watch films or just enjoy the view of harbor meanwhile drinking coffee.
Message: Create the change you want to see in the world.
Conflict: How to move to another place and not lose any of the target audience, while making sure that the attendance of the library is still the same and is increasing constantly.
Characters: The main character is Christof, who is beneficiary and hero at the same time, benefactor and supporter- library.
Plot: Christof had a plan to meet with his pal and play some video games together. They were to meet in the center of the city Aarhus. When it was time to meet his friend, Christof has received a call from his friend that he had some unarranged plans and will be 1 hour late. Christof was already in the city and it was no point of going home. He was already in the mood to play some X-Box games with his friend. He then remembered that he saw information on the web about Children’s Interactive Library, where he could play the games. So he checked for the location on his smartphone and found out the place was really close, from the city center. Christof and his friend have then decided to meet there in an hour.
Acid test: It is a unique place because of its reachable location and beautiful view of the sea
After deep analyze of Dokk1, we created a website with a certain design which fits really well to our main theme of Children’s Interactive Library. First of all, all elements of our design are homegrown and just because of it this site is unique. All details are related to Aarhus harbor and future building Dokk1 which will be built till 2014. Ship, bottle with a message inside, plane with flags and the main detail – Urban Mediaspace, represents Aarhus. Usually , all commercials about Aarhus is related to famous places like Aros museum or Den Gamble By and this site is a good way how to represent Aarhus in different way : showing other advantages of the city which is not that popular. Also, the design is animated because we wanted to create design not for all people but for kids and their parents because this is our target audience. Besides, the background of the website represents the sunrise and it is like just a beginning of new day. Second, we used a wide range of colors. A lot of blue, orange, red, gray and crème color. Orange color gives a feeling of warmth and this color attracts attention because of high visibility. Also, blue color makes the feeling of coldness and it symbolizes trust, loyalty, knowledge and intelligence.1 In order to create the right identity of the Dokk1 and to show the location where it is we had to use this color. But there is a contract between blue and orange. It is an opposite contrast between land and sea, or night and day and sunrise is the end of night and the beginning of the new day. Also, ship and plane are colorful because we wanted to make these two details visible. Thirdly, shapes are the basic elements of design. Our website design has some lines which mostly are curly and these lines mean relaxation and safety. Small waves in the sea and flags in the shy create an image of calmness, intelligence and give feeling of movement. One straight line divides whole background in two parts: ground and sea. Also, the building consists of lines. Moreover, we used one type of font in the website. We decided that this font should be Trajan Pro. Since this page is created for the kids we decided to stick with simple type of typography.
Therefore, we created design for our report as well. We used colors from webpage in order to attract the eye and to show importance of the text by using bold fonts of the headings. The main text is in black because it should look serious and solid and it is called Book Antiqua. Also, for the front page we used details form the website in order to show how our design looks on simple paper.
Here is the pallet of our main colors. We also used different shades.
LOGO
CIL
Dok k1 We created two logos: for Dokk1 and Children’s interactive library. This library is not ordinary – it is unique and provides different experiences by means of modern technologies, but we thought that the logo still has to represent the power of gaining knowledge, that is why we decided to symbolize the book as our logo. For it we used two colors – black, for contrast with other website colors and deep brownish red to represent class and strength. We chose Georgia font with the size of 92pt. The book is opened because it invites you to come and feel the power of knowledge. The other logo is for the Dokk1. We decided to stick with one logo because it is really meaningful. We used the same font and the same size of the letters, just changed the text. The main symbol book associates with new things which you can learn by reading and seeing examples. And every time when you go to the next page you do not know what to expect and how exciting it can be to learn something new.
CONCLUSION We managed to create a website which is responsive and could be easily used for desktop, laptop, tablet and smart phone. We gave our best effort in trying to learn from the project and teach the other members if the group to create the final product, which suits our group with a content and design, it is fun and youthful.
Name: Christof; Age: 12; Location: Aarhus; Occupation: Pupil; Hobbies: Surfing on the internet, playing strategy games, and reading; Personality: A bit rebel, but very smart; Family: Loving and caring friends, no siblings. Christof is a 12 years old pupil that started to be better at surfing on the internet and recently discovered that he also likes to read. He started with a mandatory book for school and that’s when his thirst for knowledge became high (before this, he was never reading or preparing for classes). He found a link to our website on an attractive and interesting poster nearby his school. The reason he visits our website is because he wishes to be up-to-date with all the events that the “Children’s Interactive Library” is preparing, attend to the ones he finds interesting and expand his knowledge. He is also very thrilled with the experience he can get in this Library, all the latest equipment and high technology. He visits the website every day from his smartphone.
Name: Annja; Age: 7; Location:Højbjerg; Occupation:Pupil; Hobbies: Likes reading fairytales, playing flash games on the Internet; Personality: Easy going, curious, smart, always willing to learn new things; Family: loving parents, an only child, has two parents who
succeeded in life and dedicate themselves to the child. Annja is 7 years old. She comes to our website because she learned how to read by herself and wants to read some more interesting things on the Internet, also to learn step-by-step how to use the internet. Her parents told her about a new interactive library opening in 2014 and they want to go there with the whole family and she became very interested in finding some more inspiring information about this event. It doesn't take her too long, because she is also good with computers, to find the webpage of the interactive library. Her parents introduced her to the internet a couple of months ago and they also try to protect the hyperspace of their offspring. She visits the website almost every day from her home computer because she loves to read the small stories they post and she is looking forward for the opening.
Name: Jens; Age: 10; Location: Risskov; Occupation Pupil; Hobbies: Playing games (outdoor and indoor - computer), also interested in computers; Personality: He is a very active boy, energetic, smart, and competitive; Family: Older brother (student), middle aged parents. Jens is a 10 years old boy, passionate with activities involving movement, experiencing new things, new places. He found an ad to our website on an online games site. He explored it and was very impressed with the Library’s rooms and features, involving many high-tech elements that he wants to use. He wishes to go there and play with other kids because he is very social and competitive. He visits the website every week from the tablet his parents gave him to find new events he can attend and see the latest improvements and features.
Children’s Interactive Library site map is really simple. Our website is about communicating with other people, and that is why we made our webpage the place where people can get basic information, know other people experiences and share heir own.
Smartphone:
Tablet:
Laptop, desktop:
For main Dokk1 website
We thought that the user should clearly see where he is and where he could go, so we would make clickable image with a link in it to the Interactive Children’s Library website.
Mockup-up for main Dokk1 website Desktop, laptop:
Tablet: For design for tablet we used same elements, also applied the rules to make it more readable in that type of resolution, as well as placed comment and subscribe sections on bottom to make website look better and responsive.
Smartphone:
This version of the website has fewer elements. When people will enter the home page they will just see logo whole menu. After it they can scroll down for the whole content, which would appear in a slideshow.
Our website is very easy to navigate, content is seen easily as well as people will find all the information that is needed. The whole page is youthful and attractive. By making a slideshow in the middle part of the page we made it more innovative than other websites. We used just a few colors and their shades not to make design confusing, also played with shapes to make all more contrast.