OUGD504 - Design Production: Design For Web (Task 1 - For Next Week)

In preparation for next week's session we have been asked to carry out some further research. 

What is already out there on the web? You will:

• Research your chosen area of exploration
• Gather as much information on existing design, design thinking and consumer needs etc

(This will help us to produce the best design for web representation we can)

I wanted to just refresh my memory with the definitions of qualitative research and quantitative research to ensure that I carry it out both within this brief.

Qualitative research is all about exploring issues, understanding phenomena, and answering questions. While there's a whole industry engaged in its pursuit, qualitative research also happens in nearly every workplace and study environment, nearly every day.

Focus groups, in-depth interviews, content analysis, ethnography, evaluation and semiotics are among the many approaches that are used, but qualitative research in its most basic form involves the analysis of any unstructured data, including: open-ended survey responses, literature reviews, audio recordings, pictures and web pages.

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Quantitative research — including surveys and customer questionnaires — can help small firms to improve their products and services by enabling them to make informed decisions

Quantitative research is about asking people for their opinions in a structured way so that you can produce hard facts and statistics to guide you. To get reliable statistical results, it’s important to survey people in fairly large numbers and to make sure they are a representative sample of your target market.

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It is also important that I consider:

• Primary research
• Secondary research
• Segmentation
• Focus groups

These considerations all fall under the categories of quantitative and qualitative research too, I just need to make sure that I carry out as much research as possible before I design my website, as this will enable me to get an idea of what the audience wants and what my website would be used for.  This is making me strongly consider whether to concentrate on my audience being other graphic designers, as it is possible for me to access a lot of primary research this way. Whereas on the other hand, if I was to design my website for businesses and worldwide brands in mind, they would probably already know about sugar cane, and either be ignoring it or in the process of making changes within their workplace. 

Preparatory Work

Taking everything into consideration I have decided that for next week's session I will research the following:

• Existing website designs (Identify the strongest 5)
• Poor website designs

I am also going to portray any primary research on separate posts on my blog as well as any other further research which will help me with my end design. This will include looking at videos, articles and existing infographics. I will then treat this as an ongoing investigation even after this task is due in as it will be my source of information for my website.

The research will also give me a strong insight into the most appropriate pieces of information to include on my website.

I will also decide on the 5 strongest designs that I consider the best designs and have them printed for the next session.

Strong website designs

At the moment I am unsure whether or not to include information concerning what people can do with their plastic packaging to reuse it. However, I am not sure that this is something which would necessarily tie in with an informative and educational website about sugar cane and the process from start to finish, with perhaps another type of plastic alongside it on the website, to illustrate the negative environmental impacts compared to the newer, cleaner way of packaging products.

If I was to include this within my website, I would most certainly take inspiration from this site called 'Rewined' as I think it is extremely relevant and closely related as they have transformed wine bottles into candle holders in this instance (example of glass).

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I found this website which is solely based on sugarcane. Although it isn't the strongest website design, I thought it was extremely relevant to my subject. I like the infographics included on the site as well and would definitely take inspiration from it.

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I found this website and thought it was quite well designed, but I was mainly attracted to it because of the actual subject matter.

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I had already found this website over Summer when I was carrying out my research. This is quite a colourful example, and I wouldn't use this many colours for my own website, however I like the infographics they have created for the site and think it works well to convey information.

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I chose to blog this example because I like how the imagery has been used to illustrate the case studies. I also like how they have images which the user can navigate around as it makes the site more interactive.

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I feel as though this is a more conservative website design. It links extremely closely to sugar cane as it is for Tate and Lyle. It is easy to navigate around the website but it also has a playful feel to it as well with small illustrative features on it.

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I also feel as though I am more likely to come across successful websites by looking at websites which promote eco friendly packaging perhaps, or just environmental issues. This is because having researched sugar cane over the Summer it became very obvious to me that there are very few educational websites which make you want to find out more, as they are all just quite dull and full of text. I therefore feel as though there is essentially a 'gap in the market' as I don't feel as though I have to compete or make sure I don't copy existing websites, as the ones that do exist are poorly designed.

Poor website designs

This website is extremely informative, but at the same time the actual design of it is so poor. I think this information could be communicated in a much more ordered and structured way.

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This is another really poor design. The red against the black background doesn't convey sugar cane very successfully at all. 

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This website hasn't been designed well at all in my opinion. It is text heavy and doesn't capture the audience's attention at all.

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Unsure

I have also decided to incorporate another category into my research. As I came across this one website which isn't perfectly designed in my opinion, however I quite like the general layout and use of infographics.

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