Get the basics right

Part one

The LA for this week kicks off with a couple of terms that I’m going to describe in my own words:

The Internet

The internet is an enormous global network of computers and other various devices that are connected to each other, with the main purpose of sharing information. For the computer or device to be able to connect to the information highway of the internet, it need to have a client installed which communicates with servers holding information. A client often is what we in daily language call an intenet browser, like Google Chrome. The device also need to have access to an internet service provider (ISP). When connectiong to the ISP, the device has it’s own Internet Protocol adress(IP), which basically serves almost as the adress for your home. The IP-adress can be kind of difficult to remeber, so we luckily have names we can remember instead. These names are mapped through Doman Name System servers (DNS) and make our navigation on the information highway much easier.

HTML

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the computer language used for internet documents that are designed to be viewed in a web browser. In a non computer language, it could be described as the main recipe for a website. This recipe can tell us how the content we want on our webpage will appear. The HTML define how the content on our site will be sent, presented and retrieved. In our HTML documents, we can create structures, add paragraphs, images, and set up how these different things will appear, by writing in different styles for our different sections. To help out with this, we can embed Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript (JS) to make beautiful, simple( yet advanced), and user friendly websites.

Browser

Most of us know Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari, these are popular browsers which are used to access the internet. A browser is an application on your preferred device, and is often known as a client. The browser (client) is communicating with web servers to find information we are looking for. The browser works as a translator to turn the HTML into the webpage we were in search of.

Search engine

A search engine is a service to help us gather wanted information easier. The search engine sends out whats commonly called spiders to crawl and search the internet for words and information from webpages. These spiders bring the information back to their host, which store it in a index (database). The information and search words are then ranked in a range from what the search engine believes (ore are paid) to be more to less relevant. One of the most known search engines today is Google.

The briefing process

For the next part of this weeks LA we were presented with 10 questions we would want to ask our clients in order to get a good brief. We were then told to please research and add another 10 questions to the briefing process. From this list of 20 questions please create the ultimate list of 10 questions that you would use for clients.

Here are the 10 questions we got presented with:

What kind of visitors are you expecting on your website? (Consider their income, interests, gender and age.)
Who are your competitors and how do you differ from them?
What actions do you want visitors to take on the site?
What is your deadline for completing the site? How big is the budget?
What features should be used on your website? (This includes things like contact forms, pictures, videos, etc.)
Please list the names of three sites that you like and explain what you like about them.
Do you have any colour preferences? What should the look and feel for the website be?
Who will be the contact person for this project?
What do you NOT want on your site in terms of text, content, colour and graphic elements?
Who will be responsible for maintaining the website? Will the person have the time and skills to do so?

Here are the additional 10 questions that I want to add:

Do you have an existing website?
Do you have a domain name? (If they do not have an existing site)
Can you tell me about your company’s core values?
How would you measure success for your website?
Do you have a brand style guide for your company?
Do you have any written text and images ready, or would you like me to provide it?
Are your company active on social media? And if so, what is your preferred social media?
What feeling would you like to visitors to get from your website?
Do you need an online chat solution for your page?
Do you want the website to be mobile friendly?

Part two

For our last assignment this week we were told to surf the web and find 10 sites you would consider to be great websites. Simultaneously, make a list of 10 sites you consider bad web sites. Remember to describe why you would define them as such. Here we go:

Great websites

Finn – Nice and clean site . Good amount of white space. I like the wide range of search options that makes it very easy to get to the information I want.
Netflix – Clean and easy to navigate, the colours of the site works well togheter with chosen photo background on the front page.
Ikea – Good site with clean layout, and easy navigation.
Youtube – Easy navigation and a clean look, even when displaying a lot of different videos on the front page. After adding the night mode, it has actually become more calm for me, as the black background balances all the colors of the videos.
Jollyroom – Clean site, good use of white space and easy to get around on the site and find what you are looking for.
H&M – The site is clean, is easy to get around and find what you are looking for, and has a modern feel to it.
Apple – This site is a good representation of Apple, it is clean, crisp and stylish.
Nav – A couple of years ago, I would not have Nav in this category. But a good cleanup, has made the site quite clean, with a good layout and easy navigation.
Power – Even if it do have a lot going on, the colours used on this site together with the layout, gives a clean look.
Meny – Clean site, easy to navigate, good use of colours associated with the company, and crisp, clean photos.

Bad websites

VG.no – There is just so much happening here. Even if I can see the layout very clear, all the different colours, themes and sections, spiced with a bunch of commercials, just clutters it up and makes it messy.
Ebay – Although they have a good navigation menu, there is a lot going on, and I find the front page actually quite difficult to look at.
Pennyjuice – A lot of colours displayed, not in a modern coloursplash way. Seems very outdated and feels cluttered and messy without a lot displayed.
Arngren – This page looks like an old catalog for mail order just threw up on the site. No clear layout, very cluttered and compressed site.
Adlibris – It is not all bad, it just has a lot going on, and when you look at the site combined, it is cluttered up by all the different sections, that probably were meant to keep it clean.
Naboen – We came across this site during an mandatory assignment. This site is just really outdated, and not in sync with the image of being a cozy place that the restaurant want to get out to potential customers. (The first time I visited the site, I did not first understand that the photo was a button to continue into the site.)
James Bond 007 Museum – This site has no apparent layout, has photos and text in all kinds of sizes. It was just bad.
Wikipedia – The site has a lot going on, and feels cluttered and outdated colourwise.
Gatesnfences – This must be one of the very worst I have ever seen. The range of colours, different buttons, text and layout, all mashed together makes it a soup of messiness.
Amazon – Has a lot going on, there is just a whole lot to take in when you visit the site, and it feels very cluttered and almost stressful.