Short Update

A short update. I've started looking at resources and tutorials for creating custom wordpress themes and modifying existing ones. While I'm unsure whether I'm going to be modifying a theme or making one from scratch for the actual project, the the purposes of my prototype I will be working making a theme from scratch.

I've not made a massive amount of progress with this yet; for now I'm focusing my attention on my other projects which are more pressing at the moment.

Intiial Designs

These are some of my initial designs. These were done in early November, mostly while sat with the client and talking over the design so they're rough, but I only just got around to putting them on my computer.

http://imgur.com/a/nAsK4

Update

I've progressed a fair bit since my last post. I've been speaking with the client and learning things such as the specific plugins that I will be needed to learn, and incorporating these into my plans for my Prototype Assignment. So far my plans for the prototype are to practise and demonstrate the following skills:

• Creating a custom wordpress template
• Making said template responsive and easy to update
• Using a wordpress plugin to process payments

I'm also working in some minor features such as:

• Making my own repeating graphical border for a div
• Floating bar to the right of the screen

While those last two have some link to design, it is worth noting that this prototype is NOT a prototype of the design elements, just the technical ones.

Conceptual Research

For the most part, I have spread my initial conceptual research across three areas relevant to my project; charity spending, e-commerce platforms and architecture, and visual web design. Responsive web design is something that was comparatively familiar to me, so the place I started my initial research was with an article titled “Impulsive donation decisions during online browsing of charity websites.” by Roger Bennett. This was a particularly useful piece of initial research as it looked at the “profiles of various types of impulsive giver”(Bennett, 2009,p.116)  and framed many of the findings in the differing contexts of emotive and informative web pages. Initial client interaction at this point had already confirmed to me that my project was going to make use of several strong emotive elements, such as sharing stories of abused horses taken in.

One thing that initially stood out to me was that Hope Pastures was currently missing a market that Bennett stated it was supposed to be hitting. Initial browsing data from the group’s Facebook page revealed that their primary age group was those around middle age, while Bennett indicated that “The internet is a crucial device for attracting donations from under-35s … and from first time givers.” (Bennett, 2009, p.117). This indicated to me that age should be one of the focuses of my later user research and, if it corroborates this, appealing to a younger age group without alienating the existing customers would be something I should aim for. Bennett also brings up another point which related to the gender of the user. Hope Pastures’ current user base is very primarily female but in this article, Bennett quotes prior research by multiple sources that “men tend to behave more impulsively than women” and “males are more likely to donate impulsively… males represent a more attractive target audience than woman for online fundraisers.” (Bennett, 2009, p.121) This again indicates that, if user research matches the data initially provided to me, that I should try and focus on branching out the Hope Pastures website to these different demographics.

In his 2009 article, as the title suggests, Bennett focused on impulsive donations to charities.  While discussing how the presentation of the website is important he touches upon the aspect I mentioned above of emotive elements. One of my plans is to have these emotive elements, pictures and stories of the resident horses, be prominent and attention catching when entering the site. This decision was reinforced by Bennett’s reading where he states that “A browser might be deeply shocked by disturbing words and pictures seen on-screen and may want to help at that very moment” (Bennett, 2009, p.121)  However I also find myself warned not to rely on just emotive images as he also states that a written discussion with convincing reasons is also a good way to provoke impulse donations, so a balance between the two concepts is the path I aim to take. This attitude is also something I took away from another source I read:

Web sites combine the use of visual and verbal elements to communicate… But to communicate effectively, both the visual and verbal aspects must be compelling in order to draw users in and keep them engaged (Bunz and Cortese, 2010, p.141)

This topic also comes up in an earlier article by Bennett in 2005. Bennett references the earlier theory of Pleasure, Arousal and Dominance (PAD)  factors determining the desire of someone to remain of leave a setting and the willingness to spend money while there. (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974, cited in Bennett, R, 2005, pp134-135.) Bennett links the Arousal factor to the use of emotive imagery being used on a charity website, “In the charity context, arousal might be achieved through a website that confronts the visitor with attention grabbing headlines and vivid and shocking portrayals of distressing issues or situations.” (Bennet, R, 2005, p.135)

Beyond the distribution of meaningful content and attention grabbing emotive content, the general visual style of the web-page is also something I need to strongly consider. It has been proposed that there are six Salient Visual Elements (SVEs) which are most influential in grabbing the user’s initial attention; motion, size, image, colour, text style and position (Faraday, 2000, cited in Barnes, S. et al, 2010, p.11). While I am not planning to add any motion so as to not make the page too busy, I will be using the SVEs of size, image, colour and position to draw initial attention where I want it.

However, overuse of information is also something that I need to be wary about. In a study (Rau, Qin, & Jie, 2007, cited in Barnes,S. et al, 2010, p.14) performed in 2007, it was found that “participants using simple web portals searched faster, made fewer errors and were more satisfied than users using [crowded portals].” (Rau, Qin, & Jie, 2007, cited in Barnes,S. et al, 2010, p.14) I need to be careful to have enough content and information to grab the attention of a casual user just browsing, but not so much that it deters or inconveniences users who are visiting the site for a specific purpose.

Moving now more towards the topic of E-Commerce and web architecture rather than pure visual design, a section of the book Customer-Centered Design touched upon the fact that I need to be mindful of differing levels of experience with the web, even with something as technically simple as a charity website. “ In the virtual world, most shopping must be achieved independently… not all customers have the same expertise with the web… [use] large arrows and explicit directions”. (Chandler, K and Hyatt, K. 2003. P.67)

Bibliography

Barnes, S. et al. 2010. Visualizing the Web: Evaluating online design from a visual communications method. New York: P, Lang.  

Bennett, R. 2005. Antecedents and Consequences of Website Atmosphere in online Charity Fundraising Situations. Journal of Website Promotion. 1(1) pp.131-152.

Bennett, R. 2009. Impulsive donation decisions during online browsing of charity websites. Journal of Consumer Behaviour. 8(2/3), pp.116-134.

Bunz, U and Cortese, J. 2010. How Do Users Evaluate Web Sites?  In:  Barnes, S. et al. eds. 2010. Visualizing the Web: Evaluating online design from a visual communications method. New York: P, Lang.

Chandler, K and Hyatt, K. 2003. Customer-centered design: a new approach to web usability. New Jersey: Prentice Hall PTR.

I have produced my preliminary Gantt chart, starting from when the actual production phase will begin in January next semester. This Chart has also been submitted to the clients, so it may change based on feedback.

Post 2

After my earlier ideas proved either impractical, or just not really what I wanted to do, I started looking at alternatives. One of these alternatives was a charity, Hope Pastures, that Tom had forwarded me the email to. After speaking briefly with one of the charity staff, Kim, by email I visited the sanctuary itself and spoke to her in person.

That first meeting went well, and I am now going to be taking this on as my project. Specifically, the project is split into two general tasks:

1. Optimise the charity website for tablet and mobile devices.
2. Work on the website E-Commerce platform to help increase revenue.

Now that I have a solid project, I am beginning work on the initial planning stages.

Entry 1: Ideas

Still brainstorming ideas and trying to nail one down. At the moment I have two vague ideas:

• A site designed to act as a customisable home-page for the user.
• A site which both instructs users on how to utilise social media to spread a message and acts as a platform for them to do so.

I had a quick meeting with Chris on Tuesday about these. He pointed out that the second idea would fail to fulfill it's purpose - making it easier for those with little social media experience to spread messages - unless I could figure out a way to  prevent large groups from gaming it through sheer numbers, but remarked that it would be a good one if I managed that. I haven't been able to think of a way to do that yet, shelving this as a backup idea.

First idea seems to have more promise. Chris mentioned that I should look into algorithmic web (Such as facebook and google) and how this could work with/affect my site. I'm leaning towards having the site work against it; letting the user have choice and knowledge over the information they are shown rather than having an algorithm do it automatically in the background.

Tasks for next week:

• Continue to think of improvements to Homepage idea, and Algorithmic Web concepts.
• Brainstorm other potential ideas.

Will organise another meeting with Chris next Tuesday to look at ideas/advancements that I've come up with over the weekend.