UNIT 6 - ASSIGNMENT 1
Introduction to the assignment: I have recently joined a Web Development company and my
position within the company is as a junior Web Developer. As a part of my induction the company
have asked me to select two web sites from a list and produce a detailed evaluation about each one
of them. For this project I will be working with the www.openstudycollege.com website alongside
with www.autotrader.co.uk. The reason why I select those websites is mainly because they can both
help me produce a quality evaluation as they are very different from each other, which will help
when it comes to comparison. Both websites also target different target audiences and they have
different aims such as education & sales.
Websites principles – openstudycollege.com
A.P1
Suitability for intended audience and purpose (www.openstudycollege.com). The first insight that I
had when visiting this website as a new user is the most important aspect that can occur within any
website and therefore this will be the first thing I will be talking about. When a new user visits a
website it is very important that the first impression does interest the user and by just having a
quickly look through the page you can easily notice that this is the right web page for your need. The
website must be able to provide a design that will interest the user and make them stay. When it
comes to (www.openstudycollege.com) my first impression was very satisfying as when I loaded the
page I immediately understood that this is the page I am looking for as I was able to see that they
have a learning material and the way the design is designed including simplicity made me want to go
even deeper into the website. This first impression is very important because it does show that
developers have done their job right by targeting the audience and purpose of the website correctly.
For a target audience that is looking for a Virtual learning environment website this would be the
right choice because the website by first impression presents a clear purpose by the way it is
designed.
Target audience & purpose (www.openstudycollege.com)
The way that the design of the website principles has affected the way the website is suitable for the
intended audience and its purpose is that the design is very simply and basic and there is reason for
that as Virtual Learning Environments pages are mostly targeting students. By categorising the main
target audience as students this will simply provide us with the age which will be mostly young
people and teachers. The way that the target audience affect the design is that they website must
have a very easy layout and the design must be simple and consistent to satisfy the target audience
and suiting their needs. Purpose of the website, (www.openstudycollege.com) has made it very clear
when it comes to its purpose and the way this has affected the design is by including a very
noticeable heading “The distance learning Experts”
, This is the heading that the target audience sees when the visit the website, simply describing the
purpose of the website is. “learning experts” quoting this shows what the purpose of the website is
without even knowing it, it simply shows that it provides learning material and content. The way the
design is affected by the target audience is that the website has used very consistent colours across
the platform. Because the website will be used by students or (people trying to learn) this simply
means that people must be able to concentrate and if the website simply has hundreds of different
colours it will make it very hard for people to learn as they will be most likely distracted by the
colour range. The developers of the website have carefully considered this issue and therefore they
have implemented very consistent theme and colours across the platform. Their website simply
consists of the following main colours:
As you can see the developers of the website has considered the choice of colours across the page
carefully in order to make it suitable for the targeted users and making sure they can study in piece
without being distracted from the theme. The way the colours are chosen do not really affect the
purpose of the website, any website such as commerce of learning can use similar colours and they
do not affect the purpose the website has. But again it could be something that can be considered
e.g. if the website was a website promoting a rainforest support, they might have used more green
structure to represent the forest and nature overall.
Features of design due to target audience & purpose (www.openstudycollege.com)
This particular website has a implemented a lot of features to their design that are mostly there
because they are affected by the target audience which in this case is people trying to learn
(learners) or retrieve some sort of information. The first feature that you notice when you visit
(www.openstudycollege.com) is the pink search bar which has a input mask “Search our courses”.
This feature is implement due to the target audience because it simply improves the overall
productivity of the website and mainly its users by making it easier for students or teachers to access
courses and finding resources easily across the platform. The implementation of this feature leads to
increased productivity of the website and its users.
Another feature that has been added to the design due to the target audience is the embedded
video which is a type of media object. The way this feature is affected and implemented because of
, the target audience is simply that it has a background of a student studying which simply creates
that atmosphere of being in a learning environment just by seeing this video. The content of the
video simply explaining how the website works and what it is about, which can be very useful
especially for a new user because, it provides a quick and simple introduction to the website and
what you can expect which is targeting the audience as students or anyone trying to learn something
will want to find out if the website can provide them with the right information.
Another feature added to the design of the website by the target audience and purpose is the online
chat on the right middle corner of the page.
The way this feature is reflected by the target audience and its purpose is that students (people
studying) will have a lot of questions regarding a topic or course and they will have questions. Having
a online chat is a perfect opportunity for people with knowledge, even teachers to help people.
Another way this feature is reflected by the purpose of the website is that this website is a website
that provides learning content and information. Having an online chat can simply be used as a source
of information by the target audience to ask questions and receive answer quickly. A drawback of
this feature would be that you are not necessarily able to save the output, the only way would be by
screenshot or if the chat agent sends you the conversation by email. The website has another
feature which falls into the animations media object for the reason being that it is a visual icon which
again is reflected by the target audience and the purpose of the feature that the icon represents.
Those icons are very useful feature that is added to the design and they can find on most of the
pages across the website. The reason why those icons are a good feature is because the website’s
target audience must have a easy access to its feature and by describing the features with icons
makes it much easier for people to understand what this hyperlink or function does, saving both
time and improving the overall usability of the design.
Another great implementation in the design reflected by the target audience is having a course
category, which makes it very easy for users to find the right course for them quickly and efficiently.
Another design feature that is added to the website that reflects the target audience and purpose of
the website is that the website has a news form which falls into the media object category and it has
, a purpose to send regular news and discounts via email. The way this is implemented within the
target audience and purpose of the website is that the website has a purpose to provide information
and by signing up to newsletter you are technically receiving extra information, which will be exactly
what users are looking for. Another way would be that people that visit this website mostly students
would like to save money on learning materials and by signing to this form they will receive potential
discount.
Another design implementation that is reflected the target audience and purpose would be the
footer of the website. As any other website the page has a footer with information and links
provided and it is no different than the rest of the website. You can see the colour scheme has
followed along as it has the same colour as the main background which is linked to consistency in
colours. A difference in the design of this page’s footer would be that they have popular courses
section which reflects the target audience by improving the usability of the website by making it
easier for users to find the right link/page they need. Another great feature that the website has on
its having popular blog posts section which can make it very useful for students to extract
information from the website for a specific topic.
The way the content of the page has been categorised reflecting the target audience is that
(www.openstudycollege.com ) provides a range of different topics and courses that the user
audience can pick from. The reason why this is a good point is that because it provides a wide range
of choice when it comes to studying and options. The more content a website has can be a good or
bad thing, but in this case is a good thing because this is a learning website and the more knowledge
the users can extract from it the more they will use the website. Another way the content the
website has, is reflected by the purpose of the website is that a website that is designed to be a VLE,
it straightaway means that it must have a variety of topics and information that can be found on it.
Overall suitability for the intended audience and intended purpose
Introduction to the assignment: I have recently joined a Web Development company and my
position within the company is as a junior Web Developer. As a part of my induction the company
have asked me to select two web sites from a list and produce a detailed evaluation about each one
of them. For this project I will be working with the www.openstudycollege.com website alongside
with www.autotrader.co.uk. The reason why I select those websites is mainly because they can both
help me produce a quality evaluation as they are very different from each other, which will help
when it comes to comparison. Both websites also target different target audiences and they have
different aims such as education & sales.
Websites principles – openstudycollege.com
A.P1
Suitability for intended audience and purpose (www.openstudycollege.com). The first insight that I
had when visiting this website as a new user is the most important aspect that can occur within any
website and therefore this will be the first thing I will be talking about. When a new user visits a
website it is very important that the first impression does interest the user and by just having a
quickly look through the page you can easily notice that this is the right web page for your need. The
website must be able to provide a design that will interest the user and make them stay. When it
comes to (www.openstudycollege.com) my first impression was very satisfying as when I loaded the
page I immediately understood that this is the page I am looking for as I was able to see that they
have a learning material and the way the design is designed including simplicity made me want to go
even deeper into the website. This first impression is very important because it does show that
developers have done their job right by targeting the audience and purpose of the website correctly.
For a target audience that is looking for a Virtual learning environment website this would be the
right choice because the website by first impression presents a clear purpose by the way it is
designed.
Target audience & purpose (www.openstudycollege.com)
The way that the design of the website principles has affected the way the website is suitable for the
intended audience and its purpose is that the design is very simply and basic and there is reason for
that as Virtual Learning Environments pages are mostly targeting students. By categorising the main
target audience as students this will simply provide us with the age which will be mostly young
people and teachers. The way that the target audience affect the design is that they website must
have a very easy layout and the design must be simple and consistent to satisfy the target audience
and suiting their needs. Purpose of the website, (www.openstudycollege.com) has made it very clear
when it comes to its purpose and the way this has affected the design is by including a very
noticeable heading “The distance learning Experts”
, This is the heading that the target audience sees when the visit the website, simply describing the
purpose of the website is. “learning experts” quoting this shows what the purpose of the website is
without even knowing it, it simply shows that it provides learning material and content. The way the
design is affected by the target audience is that the website has used very consistent colours across
the platform. Because the website will be used by students or (people trying to learn) this simply
means that people must be able to concentrate and if the website simply has hundreds of different
colours it will make it very hard for people to learn as they will be most likely distracted by the
colour range. The developers of the website have carefully considered this issue and therefore they
have implemented very consistent theme and colours across the platform. Their website simply
consists of the following main colours:
As you can see the developers of the website has considered the choice of colours across the page
carefully in order to make it suitable for the targeted users and making sure they can study in piece
without being distracted from the theme. The way the colours are chosen do not really affect the
purpose of the website, any website such as commerce of learning can use similar colours and they
do not affect the purpose the website has. But again it could be something that can be considered
e.g. if the website was a website promoting a rainforest support, they might have used more green
structure to represent the forest and nature overall.
Features of design due to target audience & purpose (www.openstudycollege.com)
This particular website has a implemented a lot of features to their design that are mostly there
because they are affected by the target audience which in this case is people trying to learn
(learners) or retrieve some sort of information. The first feature that you notice when you visit
(www.openstudycollege.com) is the pink search bar which has a input mask “Search our courses”.
This feature is implement due to the target audience because it simply improves the overall
productivity of the website and mainly its users by making it easier for students or teachers to access
courses and finding resources easily across the platform. The implementation of this feature leads to
increased productivity of the website and its users.
Another feature that has been added to the design due to the target audience is the embedded
video which is a type of media object. The way this feature is affected and implemented because of
, the target audience is simply that it has a background of a student studying which simply creates
that atmosphere of being in a learning environment just by seeing this video. The content of the
video simply explaining how the website works and what it is about, which can be very useful
especially for a new user because, it provides a quick and simple introduction to the website and
what you can expect which is targeting the audience as students or anyone trying to learn something
will want to find out if the website can provide them with the right information.
Another feature added to the design of the website by the target audience and purpose is the online
chat on the right middle corner of the page.
The way this feature is reflected by the target audience and its purpose is that students (people
studying) will have a lot of questions regarding a topic or course and they will have questions. Having
a online chat is a perfect opportunity for people with knowledge, even teachers to help people.
Another way this feature is reflected by the purpose of the website is that this website is a website
that provides learning content and information. Having an online chat can simply be used as a source
of information by the target audience to ask questions and receive answer quickly. A drawback of
this feature would be that you are not necessarily able to save the output, the only way would be by
screenshot or if the chat agent sends you the conversation by email. The website has another
feature which falls into the animations media object for the reason being that it is a visual icon which
again is reflected by the target audience and the purpose of the feature that the icon represents.
Those icons are very useful feature that is added to the design and they can find on most of the
pages across the website. The reason why those icons are a good feature is because the website’s
target audience must have a easy access to its feature and by describing the features with icons
makes it much easier for people to understand what this hyperlink or function does, saving both
time and improving the overall usability of the design.
Another great implementation in the design reflected by the target audience is having a course
category, which makes it very easy for users to find the right course for them quickly and efficiently.
Another design feature that is added to the website that reflects the target audience and purpose of
the website is that the website has a news form which falls into the media object category and it has
, a purpose to send regular news and discounts via email. The way this is implemented within the
target audience and purpose of the website is that the website has a purpose to provide information
and by signing up to newsletter you are technically receiving extra information, which will be exactly
what users are looking for. Another way would be that people that visit this website mostly students
would like to save money on learning materials and by signing to this form they will receive potential
discount.
Another design implementation that is reflected the target audience and purpose would be the
footer of the website. As any other website the page has a footer with information and links
provided and it is no different than the rest of the website. You can see the colour scheme has
followed along as it has the same colour as the main background which is linked to consistency in
colours. A difference in the design of this page’s footer would be that they have popular courses
section which reflects the target audience by improving the usability of the website by making it
easier for users to find the right link/page they need. Another great feature that the website has on
its having popular blog posts section which can make it very useful for students to extract
information from the website for a specific topic.
The way the content of the page has been categorised reflecting the target audience is that
(www.openstudycollege.com ) provides a range of different topics and courses that the user
audience can pick from. The reason why this is a good point is that because it provides a wide range
of choice when it comes to studying and options. The more content a website has can be a good or
bad thing, but in this case is a good thing because this is a learning website and the more knowledge
the users can extract from it the more they will use the website. Another way the content the
website has, is reflected by the purpose of the website is that a website that is designed to be a VLE,
it straightaway means that it must have a variety of topics and information that can be found on it.
Overall suitability for the intended audience and intended purpose
