'A guide to what types of websites are actually out there' - Essay

A guide to what types of websites are actually out there A website is a group of pages with interactive components on the world wide web maintained by one person/organisation, they’re designed to serve specific purposes depending on who you are & what you’re looking for. They can educate; provide information on particular topics, locations & contact details; they entertain us through articles, images & video; blogs, portfolios & notepads are personal; & we can purchase goods.

The web is expanding with demand, so it can be hard to categorise a useful website with more than one purpose.

BBC Bitesize is an educational website, teaching ages 5 to 16 about subjects in school. It’s a popular learning resource for revision/learning. It’s free to use; saving to buy study guides. The basic layout keeps the experience stress-free, accessible & especially easy to use for its younger audience. The base colour is offwhite to keep the site minimalistic & brings out the bright text. The main colour is orange, the accent colour is blue, used repeatedly to maintain the consistency of its identity, evoking trust. The design is fun with cartoon images & real life footage videos.

The attractiveness bias theory states that a good-looking design will draw in more attention, and will make its users visit again. At ease, you can select your level of education, exam board & the subject you wish to learn, similar to the ‘zombie browsing effect’ (which is often seen too in informational websites) where users target what they seek and aren’t distracted by other items.

Bitesize’s specific target audience for England is Key Stage 1 (5 years old) to GCSE level (16 years old).

Bitesize meets all school ages & fulfills its purpose for the rest of the UK who have different education systems. Although there are precise categories, any audience could use it, eg, teachers & parents/ carers. Teachers can use Bitesize as a teaching resource. Parents can refer to Bitesize to aid their children’s learning. Bitesize is similar to informational websites.

They offer the same type of content but it’s generally dedicated to a

particular generation. Bitesize goes beyond meeting children’s needs & is effective for the older audience too.

The interactive components add simplicity & enjoyment. Rollovers highlight & emphasize buttons, effective for anyone with a visual impairment. 19 million below age 15 have a visual impairment; this feature is important for a children’s site.

There are videos, theory guides, interactive activities, revision quizzes on each subject. Quizzes become available once the user has registers the learning exercises related to the depth of processing theory, simple mechanisms have to be put in place to ensure users are learning what they need to know. This effectively fulfills the purpose of educating & provides a range of learning methods for the children.

Unfortunately, the header, footer & search bar refers back to the general BBC website not the bitesize section, so this could be improved.

Children are going back to using books because of technology unreliability.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs states the site needs to be accessible, stable and usable etc, before a website can be effective. This applies for every type of website. Books have their advantage. It’s easier to read a page of information without the need of wifi and it will always be there.

Besides this, the site is successful in fulfilling its purpose & meets the needs of its young audience.

Google Maps provides clear information to its user using a full screen, interactive map with simple navigation features. The user can choose a minimalistic map design or a satellite map. The general map layout is clear, using different colours that show greenland’s, rivers, housing areas & the roads with clear, small typeface.

On the other hand the satellite map provides the user with a real-life captured bird’s eye view which may be more accurate for the user but the appearance is busier & darker. Many people like using the general map because of its simplicity, according to the attractive bias theory.

Google Maps rarely serves a further purpose other than providing directions, contact & map details & addresses for its target audience, who is anyone looking to find directions or location details. Users may see Google Maps as an educational website, while used for a personal reason. It teaches us Geography; where countries, cities & towns are, how & where roads are, & what there is to see or do. Educational websites have more content to learn, but we can benefit from studying maps for learning directions & places.

are able to view building’s faces to a certain extent; in no way does Google breach the law of privacy.

Number plates, door numbers, signs & people’s faces are often blurred out.

There’s no worry about people looking inside or close up to our homes.

The user can zoom in & out using the buttons on the screen or scroll using the mouse, making the map easier to use as there’s no scroll bar. Users are free to navigate by dragging the map in whichever direction they wish. If the user scrolls out far enough, they can view countries, seas & even planets & the space station.

The map has icons & titles of places that are interactive too. The icons are related to the attraction, eg, a ride for a theme park. Titles are clickable, giving the user location information. This small window is on the side so you can still view the map.

The feature offers a range of directions using different transport modes with the slowest & fastest route & arrival time while acknowledging traffic.

Using a Google account shows you your search history so you can refer back to previous places you’ve searched. You can set your workplace & home so you The map is full screen with a stationary don’t have to input the addresses search bar & options to zoom in, out every time. It acts like a compass or use Street View. The user drags too & shows your current location. a small cartoon figure onto the map & highlights the roads available with this option. On Street View, the user can click on arrows, taking The site is usually updated every the user like virtual transport. You few years with new images to keep

the user experience accurate; this is not always the case. Older images can date back to around 5 years ago, so your search result could be inaccurate. It’s available as an app & easy to access wherever you are, but you need internet for some features. It fulfills its purpose & offers more for your experience.

Spotify Web Player is an entertaining website, full with a range of musical content from pop to rock. It’s updated everyday with new music & updates for charts/playlists to keep the audience engaged & coming back.

It’s targeted to anyone as there’s a huge variety of music to listen to - any genre or mood. However, you need an account to listen so you must be at least 13 years old to register with an email address & you need wifi for a free account.

The site is organised well, displaying various playlists, radios, podcasts & albums for the user to explore. The header is set at the side and always remains at the side with the options to search, see your profile, music library & recently played. There’s a second menu at the top of the page with more options: featured, genres & moods, new released & discover.

The main body of content consists of albums & playlists, all displayed on a dark coloured background. I have found that this colour changes day to day, giving the user a new calming colour to look at. The main base colour however is black, with white & green font maintaining the brand identity of Spotify. The playback bar acts as the footer. Here you can play, skip, shuffle & repeat a song and you are able to choose an available device to playback on.

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informational site because Spotify lists album information, artist information, related artists & upcoming concerts. The information you read can be trusted because Spotify works close with music sources & artists. It can act as a personal site too because users have their own accounts & can personalise the content they hear, follow artists and receive news/updates by email.

The site’s interactivity is controversial. If you are using the web player, you can click any song to listen to & you can share it, copy its link or add it to a playlist.

Adverts aren’t much of a problem because they’re at the bottom of the screen, rarely overtaking the screen and audio. Spotify uses dynamic content, showcasing adverts that sometimes relate to your browsing history, so the ads also entertain.

On the other hand, the app is less interactive because if you have a free account you can’t choose a song directly, you can only shuffle. You have a limited number of skips, & you have to listen to adverts.

Alternatively, there are adverts which give you 30 minutes free.

Buying a premium account for £10 a month gives you more interactivity; you can choose any song, skip as much as you like & you have no adverts.

But with any account, you can listen from one device only at a time.

User’s are often persuaded to buy the premium account because of the limited features, making the site

similar to an e-commerce website.

Overall, Spotify can fulfil its users needs depending on the account they have. The site offers a huge amount of variety in genres & moods too, meeting everyone’s needs. Spotify offers a student discount, drawing in more of a younger audience.

A personal website is the blog thisisnthappiness.com.

This “art scrapbook” of images belongs to one person, but it’s open to the public. It’s minimalistic, dominant pale blue background is complimented with white text. The logo ‘isn’t’ is black to add emphasis on the meaning & mood of the blog. The content is displayed in a single column, with the navigation set on the right side. The menu displays links to the page’s social media accounts so the user is exposed to a new interactive medium. The main header is tumblr default, displaying ‘home’, ‘message’, ‘profile’ & ‘notifications’.

A disadvantage would be that the user has to flick through the pages instead of endless scrolling, which is much easier.

The blog’s target audience is 13+ (stated in the description) as the art, photography & design can be offensive or graphic. The blog is similar to an informational site as the links refer the user to the information of the art, & it’s entertaining to look at the variety of content, however the mood of the blog is slightly dull; it’s not recommended for a younger audience.

There aren’t many components to make the site interesting to use, although if you have a tumblr account you can follow the blog & get notifications. You can like, reblog & embed posts to your profile. The title of each image is interactive; it’s a link to the page where the art

The last type is an ecommerce website with the purpose of selling products.

An example is Hollister, which sells a range of clothing to both men & women.

The site has a busy appearance; red sale banners advertised over most of their blue & white themed home page.

Hollister also advertises their campaign raising awareness of bullying too, hoping customers will buy one of their charity products.

They have used Shawn Mendes, a young singer, as the face of the campaign hoping the younger target audience will buy a charity t-shirt. was sourced, unless the art belongs to the owner. More interaction includes rolling over the title of the blog & it turns into it’s logo.

The site is regularly updated with new, entertaining art that the owner likes, so the site gives a personal insight into the person’s life and taste, fulfilling the purpose of the blog & the need of the user.

When you aren’t using your tumblr account there’s less interactivity; you can’t like or reblog a post.

The header displays the logo and various links including ‘what’s new’ & ‘sale’, two popular links that the user can easily navigate to. You can also view your personal profile (where you can track your order) & shopping bag. The appearance is simple & easy to navigate around due to links & icon components.

The footer is large & minimalistic, with a gradient design leading to a picture of the beach, which is a nice ‘surprise’ feature for users to view.

rollovers, underlined, focused text and a pop up menu appears with the range of products available to view, including trending products, ‘must haves’, ‘new arrivals’ & ‘online exclusives’ drawing the user in to look at the products, leading them to buy a product. The serial positioning effect theory tells us the placement of information affects how information is remembered/registered and this relates to the grid method.

Hollister uses dynamic content to customise & personalise customer’s experience while shopping & using the site, similar to a personal & entertaining website. Customers can join ‘club cali’ to earn points & rewards, for example ‘complete your profile for 600 points’ & buying products for points too. However, The main body of products are set customers have to earn 12,500 points in a grid, making it easier for the to receive a reward which takes a customer to view the products. You lot of time. The site’s main purpose can also sort your results by store it to sell, and this is fulfilled. availability, colour, size & sleeve/ leg lengths & you can save products to view at a later convenience.

There are several other components making the site interactive, including

Although there are 5 main types of websites and they’re distinguishable for their content, their purposes and characteristics overlap, eg. informational and educational sites both have content that’s educational, making a site useful for more than one reason. Theories and interactive components I have found to be the most important for the user, as a site needs to follow the basic steps of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs before a site can use dynamic content effectively to personalise a user’s experience, which I have personally found evokes trust and reliability between the purpose, user and brand/site. There’s multiple theories and more than one can be used on a site, which might not be so good if the ‘zombie browsing effect’ means no recognition for the rest of the site. It’s also just as important that the site looks attractive and the user doesn’t experience anything difficult or annoying. If they quit the page because of this, no purpose is fulfilled.