Evalutation

First of all, my charity website conforms to other childrens charity websites because it includes all other features an existing website has. The main purpose of a childrens charity website is to inform of what the charity does, and to offer a way to donate money. My website has a page designated to both of these things, offering an insight into the background of the chairty and the work it does, and a page to inform the audience how to donate. In terms of real childrens charity websites that I had researched, many of them do not have a page about real cases that aim to shock the audience like my website. This therefore challenges the conventions, but with the intention to interest the audience by making them feel bad, instead of making the charity look appealing itself.

My website is primarily aimed at children and young people that suffer from abuse and neglect, but also people wanting to donate, and people interested in that subject area, such as charity volunteers, social workers etc. It represents young people by giving out the message that not all children and young people are the deviant way they are because that is the popular culture of today, but because of their families and the neglect some can suffer from. It also represents them as being a vunerable social group within society, with the website highlighting the fact some are in need of help.

The kind of instituton that would distribute my media product would be the internet, as it is easy and free to create and is accessable to everyone globally. Also the television industry, similar charities such as Comic Relief see huge distributions by the BBC, with an anual television programme to show the work the charity has done, and to help raise futher money.

I attracted my audience by having complementing colours, as used in the colour theory to make the website look attractive first off to the audiences eye. Complementary colours contrast eachother and therfore stand out against eachother, I used this throughout with the deep blue background and light pink text. I also included a video in my website to give the audience a better insight into the work the charity does, but to also entertain them with the use of music and moving slides.

From creating this website I have learnt a lot about the technologies involved. Firstly all the conventions involved in creating a website such as the colour theory and the photography, composition and non verbal communication. I have researched them and made a guide on my blog to help me further understand the terms. From the photograhpy terms, eventhough I didn't end up using the picture, I used the rule of the thirds to make the image more effective. As you can see below the image has been cropped to make the subject of the image(child) at the edge of the photo's frame. Also I have learnt that it is definately important to research existing products (childrens charity websites) beforehand. Not only is this good for seeing what is effective, but also to get idea's for my own website. From this, I think if I had to do the project again I wouldn't use a scanned in drawing for my charity logo. Eventhough the effect on it looks quite quirky, it looks less professional. By creating my website on WebPlus 10, I learnt how to create a navigation bar, by creating simple boxes and putting them together to create one rollover. Also by using the master page I was able to make sure the key features were going to appear on every page, i.e the logo, navigation bar, and donation number.

Going back to the preliminary task, this task I think has developed my knowledge more because it involved creating my own media product. The preliminary task was useful for researching and getting a better understanding of the basic concept of website design. For example the Primary Research Task allowed me to analyze different primary school website and pick out the key features, which meant I was able to apply these to my own chairty website. The preliminary task also taught me about target audience, as looking at primary school websites meant there was a specific target audience to children and parents. Therefore this taught me that appealing to both children and adults is possible, with the mix of entertainment and useful information.