Benefits, Limitations, and/or Problems of Website Building

A guide to the website explains to the client why the builder has chosen to add and leave out certain things to a website. Also, it helps a client update a website on their own. Starting the guide has made me realize the benefits, limitations, and/or problems for future website builds.

Building websites for people comes with many agendas other than the final production, which most people only think about. Those who pay for a website don't necessary see all the work that goes into building one because they only think about the final website. They don't think about who is going to visit the website or what questions they will have that need to be answered when they visit it. Adding this information to the guide helps the client understand the reason for elements used throughout the website such as logo, fonts, color schemes, etc.

In that case, this can be a benefit because website designers can share all of this information with the client. Sharing more information such as narrowing down the target audience, choosing the right color schemes, explaining the four basic principles that will work best with the website will lead the client to hire the person with the most knowledge for the job and no one else. The more website designers know what their talking about and are able to show and share their knowledge with the client, the better the outcome will be for them to be hired.

Although there are many benefits, there are limitations and/or problems that can follow. For example, it can be difficult to explain through a guide, in the easiest way, how to update the website. The explanation provided may seem easy for the builder to understand but difficult for the website owner to understand. Therefore, the guide needs to be written with the client in mind because they are the ones who are going to use it.

Also, updating a website can be difficult. For instance, trying to add and/or remove a table can alter a page to look different from the others causing a lack of repetition. Not only that, the client may want to add too much information to the website, which can most likely be unnecessary for the websites purpose. The client may not realize this problem. Therefore, it is up to the website builder to explain to them why certain information is unnecessary without upsetting them.

All of these things provided in a guide make it easier for future site building. The builder already knows how to explain what is good or bad for a specific website and convince the client why it is so.

ENGL3368 Outcome

Since I am studying to get a BA in general studies, technical communication was one of the areas I chose to focus on. The outcome I have been focusing on for the general degree is how to communicate to different audiences. Last semester I took ENGL3366 and learned a lot about focusing on my audience. Before I had taken that class, I never gave any thought on who was actually going to be reading what I was writing. I was writing to please myself. Now, I write to please the audience I am writing to because I'm not the only one who is going to read what I write. 


ENGL3368 has helped me focus on using communication technologies and media appropriate to users and situations. Instead of just focusing on who I am writing for, I'm focusing on where and when the who chooses to view the website I have created. Being deeply aware of how one website has many audiences who use many technologies helps me build questions to better the website. One user may be viewing the website on a mac while another may be viewing the website on a pc. One user may be a single woman who has excessive free time to view the site while a married with two children woman has minimal time to view the site. Therefore, I need to communicate in a way that can either be viewed in a hurry or in a relaxed mode.


Not only have I learned what is best for a specific audience, but I've learned about certain fonts that view best online. Also, the placement of information has a lot to do with how long someone stays on a website.


Overall, I've learned a lot about what kind of questions a user may have when it comes to using technology to view websites and information online. There are many tricks to keeping the user interested when it comes to communication technologies and media. 

Project Wrap-up

The second website is coming along nicely. As of now, our group needs to add the information into the pages such as contact information, pictures, pricing of different projects, etc. Since we have the overall layout of the web pages, we will need to setup each page according to the information we add to it.

I will be the one who inputs all of the information. If there needs to be more tables for certain pages, I will add the html to do so. I'm pretty much in charge of entering the html for each page. If the font needs to be edited, our group will decide which font looks best, and I will add the html to do so.

I'm excited pleased on how the website is coming along. We were able to find a drop down menu to incorporate into the site, which was a major point we were trying to add. Everything else shouldn't be too difficult to add--we just need to gather the information from the owners of the company and add it into the site.

Noe's Construction Audience

The main purpose of our website is to help people see/choose who they are looking to hire as their contractor for their home. It can either be to remodel, build anew, or add/alter different sections of a home. In that sense, the age group would most likely range from late 20s to late 50s. Therefore, our website should keep in mind the wide age range. It should be simple enough for all kinds of people to understand.

For example, there may be a family of four with two children, 3 and 8. What would they want to know and see while visiting the website? They would probably want to see different layouts of homes maybe with the bedrooms not too far apart because their children are still young. Not only that, the website would have to display different materials--maybe the main materials that Noe's Construction works with. 

Overall, the users vaguely know what they want. They may know how may bedrooms they would like, but they don't know what layout of floor plan is best, pricing, or materials. Therefore, the website should have examples and information to state how a job is priced.

Some users may be looking for a number to call, location of the company, or consultation. Therefore, there should be a contact page with this information. If Noe's Construction has different employees to consult with then we will put multiple numbers, but if they have one main number then we will put the main one.

There are many questions our users need answered. We need to be able to answer most of these in the simplest form. The faster and easier a users question is answered the likelier it is that they will hire Noe's Construction for the job.

Logo

The logo for our website simply states what the company is about: homes. It has the company's initials incorporated in it (NC) along with HOMES underneath the initials to clarify what the company is about. Also, I noticed how logofaves.com and logopond.com logos played around with the pictures and words. For example, One plus One, incorporates two number ones to form a plus sign between them. In that way, I incorporated a home within our logo.

The colors and fonts will be the same as the website, but I plan on adding a little more detail to it. This will make the website cohesive and logo interesting. As of now, I haven't made a digital logo, but it will be done for class tomorrow. This will make our website that more complete.

Edit: After discussing the logo with the company, we decided to exclude 'Homes'. This is the final logo.

Website 2 Goals

Our groups proposal received good comments. Therefore, our plans just need to be met. As a group, we need to come up with an overall template for the website. This template will involve a menu bar that will include drop down menus. As of now, we have been unable to figure out how to get this done, but we have been doing some research and will continue to do so. Also, I will create a digital logo. Now that we have our fonts, I will edit the design to go along with the font we have chosen: thin lines and curves.

Right now things have been going a bit slow, but we plan on meeting our goals by meeting each class period and outside of class.

Colors

Primary colors: yellow, red, and blue. These colors aren't mixed.

Secondary colors: green, purple, and orange. These colors are a mixture of one primary color mixed with the primary color next to it. For example, yellow mixed with red equals orange, which can be found between the two primary colors on the color wheel.

Tertiary colors: yellow-green, blue-green, red-orange, etc. These colors are a mixture of  primary and secondary colors that are placed between the two mixed colors.

Warm colors use red and yellow and pop to the front.
Cool colors use blue and fall to the back.

CMYK: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. This color model is used for physical printing, such as a book or photo, and can use as many colors as one chooses.

RGB: red, green, and blue. This color model is used on screen, such as a computer monitor or phone, and uses these three colors mixed throughout the screen to make other colors like purple.

After discussing colors in class, our group decided to use burgundy as an accent color and an off-white (leaning towards yellow) for our background. The burgundy color is a warm color that will pop to the front, which will draw the viewers eye towards it. By using these two colors, we will be using an analogous color scheme with black for most of the text. Also, Dr. Rice mentioned pulling colors from images used throughout the website, so we will be doing that as well. Since we are going to use an analogous color scheme, we can incorporate shades and tints of orange along with red and yellow. As long as we remember what we've learned about colors, we should be able to make good color choices.