My Assignment Details

Right so this post is to express the ideas I have for my assignment, I will comment on the following:

• who is your identified “audience”?
• what are the characteristics of these and what are their needs?
• what technologies do you intend using in your assignment and why

Target Audience

I would like to focus my assignment on users that enjoy specific activities and social groups. What I mean by this is that there are users that enjoy talking about computer games, they use various websites, blogs and video publishing sites such as youtube to express their opinions and talk about this subject.

Characteristics and Needs

One of the most common ways in which a specific user group communicates about a subject seems to be via forums and subject oriented websites, www.gamefaqs.com, for example, allows its users to post on a variety of forums, these can be specific to a single game or specific to an entitre games platform.

Youtube as also a way in which ‘gamers’ can communicate, being able to post videos on games they enjoy and even ‘review’ both old and new games.

Technologies I Intend to use

I intend to look at websites and blogs to begin with but also branch out to a number of forums as well as taking a look at Youtube.

I personally have used forums to express my opinions and have looked at Youtube specifically for the target subject.

Where I am Now

I have looked at a number of websites, blogs, forums and Youtube videos already and plan to write reviews of each within the website I am creating.

I have begun to design my website and am currently trying to sort out the CSS. While I do not consider myself to be a good website designer I am going to try my best. I think I will only use one CSS template throughout my website but am considering implementing a second.

That’s all Folks

That’s all I have for now, feel free to comment and give opinions

Ki

What is CSS?

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), invented in 1997,  is a stylesheet language used to improve document presentation and seperates document presentation from document content, including elements such as the colours, font and layout.

CSS can be used to improve consistency throughout a website, it gives more control over the layout and design aspects of a page than when just using HTML.

The following has been taken from http://webdesign.about.com/od/beginningcss/a/aa021607.htm:

“Style sheet refers to the document itself. Style sheets have been used for document design for years. They are the technical specifications for a layout, whether print or online. Print designers use style sheets to insure that their designs are printed exactly to specifications. A style sheet for a Web page serves the same purpose, but with the added functionality of also telling the viewing engine (the Web browser) how to render the document being viewed.

Cascade is the special part. A Web style sheet is intended to cascade through a series of style sheets, like a river over a waterfall. The water in the river hits all the rocks in the waterfall, but only the ones at the bottom affect exactly where the water will flow. The same is true of the cascade in Web style sheets.

Every Web page is affected by at least one style sheet, even if the Web designer doesn’t apply any styles. This style sheet is the user agent style sheet – the default styles that the Web browser will use to display a page if no other instructions are provided. But if the designer provides other instructions, the browser needs to know which instructions have precedence.

For example, in my Web browser, the default font is “Times New Roman” size 16. But nearly no pages I visit display in that font family and size. This is because the cascade defines the second style sheets set by the designers to redefine the font size and family and override my Web browser’s defaults.”

Advantages include:

• Well written CSS can be changed and updated very quickly.
• Can change the mood and feel of a website.
• While it may seem difficult to learn it can be a very useful tool.
• Can do a wide variety of things to a webpage.

that’s all I have for now

Ki

The effectiveness of websites such as Facebook

What is it that makes Facebook so damn popular, with literally thousands of users it has become one of the most popular social networking websites out there.

The question I have is why?

I use Facebook all the time and I really enjoy it. I use it to keep in contact with friends and also to find out what is happening in their lives, it is possible to meet new people and socialise beyond my normal social groups.

Facebook has a number of features that attracts different users:

• The ability to post comments on your friends ‘wall’
• The ability to sent private messages, much like any normal email but through the website
• Applications can enhance your experiance on facebook, examples include: Mousehunt, Poker, Bowling and hundreds more
• Post videos or links to websites
• Upload pictures, create albums and tag friends within them

I could go on and on

The design and functionality of Facebook is another key element as to why it is so popular, it’s simple to setup and easy to use, the sites layout is clear and works well.

I’m not going to go on for ages about Facebook, it does well as a social networking website and makes use of various ‘different’ elements that websites of a similar nature don’t have.

Thanks all

Kieran

Who am I?

About me:

My name is Kieran Crowe, I am 21 and I will be the first to admit that I hate writing things like this!

I live in a little town called Droitwich, not too far from Worcester. I am currently at University (obviously) but also working part time at my local Homebase store.

I have many interests and I don’t fancy trying to list them all.

What I know about web design:

ok so we all know, or at least we should by now, that web design is extremely important, no-one enjoys visiting or using a poorly designed/implemented website.

It would easy to rant on about the simple things such as:

• colour
• navigation
• layout
• text sizes
• text fonts
• use of images
• use of sound

etc, right?

There is more to a website than just those things. Would you visit a website, looking to buy clothes, and be pleased to find that it not only doesn’t sell clothing but also tries to spam your desktop with millions of pop-ups, I doubt it . That is bad website design and just generally naff!

What do I wish to achieve from this course:

Quite simply I would like to get a nice B grade, that would make me a happy man

(sorry for the short response but i’ve got a horrible case of writers block)

Anyway this will do for my first post, i’m looking to get home so I can hit the town tonight!

Thanks to all who read this

Kieran

Hello world!

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to my new blog.