Web creation and presentation/justification
ISY00244 Assignment 1 Part A – Web Creation /Jennifer Maronese and Lynn Smith /http://jen-maro.wix.com/secretfoodiefestival/Web Creation Business Summary – Secret Foodie Festival

The Organisation
The Secret Foodie festival is an events business organising pop-up Food and Wine Festivals throughout Australia

Mission Statement
The Secret Foodie Festival is committed to providing high quality and unique Food and Wine Festivals for everyone to enjoy. We believe that the enjoyment of food and wine should be savoured among good company and be an experience long remembered. It is our duty to educate and share our knowledge and our world with all that enjoy the pleasure of good food and wine.

The Events
The Secret Foodie Festival is a word of mouth Food and Wine Festival for foodies in Australia. It is a culmination of independent Australian owned businesses showcasing great food and wine from Australia. The aim of the event is for foodies to ‘get up close and personal’ with food and wine producers and gain a greater knowledge of their foodie passions.

Foodies buy entry tickets online, and then purchase event tokens to use at various stalls throughout the day. A ‘goodies bag’ is included in the entry price, available upon arrival. Celebrity Chef cooking demonstrations are also included with ticket purchases.
Target Market
DINKS and Wanderers
DINKS (Double Income No Kids) are generally considered to be young educated professional couples with high disposable incomes living in metropolitan areas within fifteen minutes of major city CBDs. DINKS like the finer things life has to offer such as eating out, luxury items and weekend getaways, often with friends, preferring high end accommodation. DINKS consider themselves to be knowledgeable and influential.

Wanderers are considered to belong to the older generation of 50 plus and are often retirees with disposable incomes from superannuation and investments. Living in major suburban areas, wanderers travel exclusively within Australia, exploring new regions and discovering their new surroundings. Wanderers are experience seekers often enjoying organised tours and activities. They may have a city pad or holiday house and spend their money on food and wine, holidays and recreation.

Website Design Intent
The website has been designed to look ‘hip’ with an air of sophistication as both sectors of the target market consider themselves to be ‘foodies’ that are in the know about what is hot and what is not in the world of gastronomy. The mystery of the Secret Foodie Festival will appeal to their sense of VIPness.

Website
Secret Foodie Festival
http://jen-maro.wix.com/secretfoodiefestival
ISY00244 Assignment 1 Part B – Use of Internet Technologies: Presentation and Evaluation of Website
Jennifer Maronese and Lynn Smith
http://jen-maro.wix.com/secretfoodiefestival
Notes for Presentation

Introduction

Our website design considered many aspects to make the site user friendly and appealing, concentrating on the needs of the target audience: Food and wine lovers – foodies – from two distinct types of tourists markets, DINKS – Double Income No Kids (Barcelona Field Studies Centre 2014) and Wanderers – generally over 50s with high disposable incomes, also known as empty nesters (Tourism NSW 2011). Although very active, the Wanderers may be having some age related difficulties viewing the website and the possibility that this age group may not be as educated on computer usage in general was also taken into consideration.

Research suggests many ways in which to design a website. Cao et al (2006) developed a framework for producing quality web designs containing factors including system, information, and service quality, which will be discussed in more detail throughout this presentation. Nielsen’s (1998) suggested key points to consider when writing for the web that coincide with users reading patterns and habits suggested in his study on web readability (Nielsen 1997). Wen, et al. (2001) have defined models for differing e-commerce needs and suggest that businesses and web designers consider the purpose of the business and employ aspects of one or several models to suit these needs.

Considering the target markets, the e-commerce business models, web readability and writing, and the desired outcomes for our webpage, these and other strategies were considered for the Secret Foodie Festival website, and the strategies deemed appropriate to the needs of the company and the market audience were used.

First Steps
The first steps in designing a website is to decide what kind of e-commerce website you want for your business. Wen et al. (2001) propose several e-commerce website strategy models divided into two groups: Informational/Communicational Design Strategy and On-line/Transactional Design Strategy. The informational/communicational model provides information and promotes businesses. Included in this group are:
• Cost Saving Model
• Promotional Model
• Info-mediary Model
• Brand Awareness/Image Building Model
The on-line/ transactional model becomes the business and includes:
• Brokerage Model
• Retail Model
• Mall Model
• Advertising Model
• Subscription Model
• Community Model
• Manufacturer Model
• Customization Model
A combination of these models may be beneficial for most e-commerce ventures. The scope of this paper/presentation does not allow the discussion of details of the various models but most models are self-explanatory.

Our website is a combination of the promotional model, brand awareness, and the retail models. The events company, Secret Foodie Festival, is not an e-business. The company relies upon word of mouth for promotion and as such leads interested parties to the website as it is the only place tickets can be purchase. Once the website has been discovered, it becomes a place for return visitation as it provides information regarding the current next event.

Design Strategies
Design should convey a quality chosen by the perceived usefulness of the market audience and users. Cao et al. (2006) developed a framework for which designers and businesses can evaluate the quality of their e-commerce systems – system, information, and service quality, and attractiveness.

System Quality should:
• Be easy to read and navigate
• Be responsive
• Measure functionality, usability, availability, and response time.
These qualities can be measured by search facility responsiveness and multimedia capabilities.

Information Quality should:
• Have site content driven by the desired audience
• Contain updated information
• Be accurate and relevant
• Be adaptive

Service Quality should:
• Include trust and empathy
• Be secure and personalised
• Measure overall support of the website

Attractiveness should:
• Be subjectively pleasing
• Be fun to read
• Be appealing to attract return visitation
• Ensure design concepts are followed

The Secret Foodie Festival website has utilized these quality design strategies through considering the appeal to the target market; using easy to read layouts with simple straight-forward navigation and labels; conveying accurate up-to-date information; being subjectively pleasing and fun to read – the design frame is arrow shaped which, following the secret nature of the event business and website, beckons users to continue along a path where ‘all shall be revealed’. Success could be measured through the number of ticket sales

Readability and first impressions
First impressions are one of the most important elements to consider in web design. Hoekman (2008) believes the first thirty seconds of arriving on a page are the most crucial for making a first impression and can be achieved by making the page appealing, creating clear information pathways, and providing user friendly tools to navigate the site. Tractinsky, et al. (2006) claim that the aesthetics of a page can impact the first impressions of a website in as little as fifty microseconds. Tuch et al. (2010) found that gender can influence the aesthetic perceptions of websites. Females prefer uncluttered simple designs with few graphics while males prefer a little more action with extensive use of graphics and animation. Females were not concerned by the symmetry of web pages whereas males reacted unfavourably to asymmetrical pages.

Readability is another important point to consider when designing for first impressions. The purpose and design of the website will dictate which approach to take. In 1997 Jakob Nielsen began a series of studies on website readability or how users read the web. His studies found that 79% of users scanned web pages resulting in the need to consider this important finding when designing and writing for web pages. He recommended that pages have scannable designs including:
• Highlighted keywords
• Bulleted lists
• One idea per paragraph
• Reduced word count
• High quality images
• Avoid long text blocks

When writing for the web Nielsen (1998) advises that writing should be concise (reduce detailed information), easy to scan (bullets, summaries, headings, short paragraphs), and objective (remove useless adjectives, support claims, balance promotional material).

Nielsen (2006) also found that users will read the first two lines of text and then scan vertically down the left side of the page usually reading the first two words on a line. Nielsen’s 2010 study found that users have limited attention spans, and do not like to scroll, spending 80.3% of their viewing time above the page fold, so it is important for web designers to use keywords at the beginning of paragraphs and sentences and to convey the most important information at the beginning of the page.

Hoekman (2008) discusses the need to draw the eye to where you want the user to be and suggest using a Guttenberg Diagram when designing websites, especially for western readers who’s natural reading eye movement begins at the upper left corner, reading left to right, top to bottom, ending in the bottom right of the page. This style can be effective when selling products by having a purchase button in the bottom right corner.

Our website is a symmetrical design that we felt would be beneficial to our target market and is pleasing on the eye rather than consider gender issues. We have limited text on the left side and an image proportional to the text space. The need to scroll was eliminated as minimal text was used. On the ‘buy’ page the Guttenberg Diagram was considered by placing the purchase button on the bottom right of the text frame. The writing is concise, scannable and objective.

Web accessibility for people with disabilities
As previously stated, part of our target market included the 50 plus wanderers, and consideration was given to any difficulties this group might have as Internet users. Although age related impairments might be mild, simple solutions can help older users and other users with mild impairments. Lunn and Harper (2011) suggest increasing font size to no less that 10pts, however larger font size will aid the user. New skills can be difficult for some older generations to learn and advanced technologies can be too complicated for many users (Alby and Zucchermaglio 2008). Simplicity in design and information, and easy navigation can allow older users to gain similar experiences when using websites as the younger generations (Lunn and Harper 2011). Care must be taken not to appear to be condescending by exaggerate changes made for older generations as a study by Djamasbi, et al. (2010) found evidence to suggest that internet usage patterns in age groups older than Generation Y (ages 17-31) up to the age of 57 years, were the same.

As websites are visual tools, consideration should also be given to those with some form of colour blindness, which affects 8% of men and 0.4% of women in the general population (Obernovic et al. 2007). Colour blindness reduces the ability to process contrasting colours and colour sensation. The most common forms of colour blindness are protanopia producing red deficiencies and deuteranopia with green deficiencies both resulting in the confusion of reds and greens. Tritanopia causes blue deficiencies, also affecting the ability to see greens and yellows resulting in a world of red and grey shades. Monochromacy is an inability to see any colour but can distinguish between shades of grey (WebAim 2014). Bulat (2012) suggests darkening dark colours and lightening light colours to help distinguish shades. Similarly, using dark text on a light background can benefit users, however, light text on a dark background can be confusing. Likewise, brighten and enhance images to make the colours stand out. Using headings, symbols and patterns to convey information rather than relying on colour, and underlining hyperlinks are also recommended.

To ensure ease of use for users with disabilities on our website, 12pt font was used to convey important information. In the design, a white background with black text was used to eliminate any colour contrasting problems. The navigation labels used a grey background with white writing and although light coloured text is not recommended, the use of grey eliminates any colour contrasting issues. A natural light green/yellow shade was used to soften the background of the frame and to allow the colours in the images to stand out. This colour also conveys nature and the natural (Dmitry’s Design Lab 1997), which are essential in promoting the event.

Copyright
In Australia, copyright protection is automatic. Once something is created, exists – not published, or published – it is protected under the Federal legislation of The Copyright Act 1968. The Act contains the Australian Copyright Law that protects the work of authors and artists, and other intellectual property from being copied or transmitted without authorisation while allowing the public reasonable access to the work (Southern Cross University 2012).

As students, there are provisions in The Copyright Act 1968 known as fair dealing, that allow students, staff and researchers to use and copy others work, provided it is not used for purposes outside of the institution. If copying for assignments such as creating websites, then images, text, and other material can be used provided it is recognised and cited. The material contained within the website cannot be used outside the institution without permission from the copyright owner under the Australian Copyright Law (Southern Cross University 2012).

It was decided that as we were using an external site to construct our web site that would also be a live site, personal images would be used to ensure no copyright infringements were made, and as such copyright permission would not be required.

Website Dos and Don’ts
Robin Wlliams (n.d.) has complied a list of good web design features and another list of bad web design features, where she considers some bad designs to be ‘dorky’. The following is a selection from the lists:

Good Web Design Features:
• Text not too big or too small
• Text not interrupted by the background
• Navigation buttons easy to use and understand
• Navigation is consistent
• Links are underlined for easy identification
• Buttons are not too big
• Graphics and background compliment each other
• Pages download quickly
• Design is consistent

Bad Web Design Features:
• Text too small to read
• Text that stretches across the page
• Underlined text that is not a link
• Links not underlined
• Dead links
• Meaningless graphics
• Graphics that don’t fit the page
• Blinking animations
• Multiple animations
• Scrolling sideways
• Counters on pages
• Useless page titles
• Cluttered
• Lack of contrast
Conclusion
It is clear from the research and studies presented in this paper, that website design must follow sensible design features regardless of the purpose of the website. The list is by no means exhaustive and as technology changes and the business world turns to e-commerce the points should be revised regularly. Design considerations and features discussed may not have been fully employed in our simple website, however, methods were used to ensure the target audience were catered for with a simple, concise, easy to navigate, visually appealing design.
References
Alby, F & Zucchermaglio, C 2008, ‘Collaboration in web design: sharing knowledge, pursuing usability’. Journal of Pragmatics, vol. 14, pp. 494-506.

Barcelona Field Studies Centre 2014, Classifying tourists, viewed 15 March 2014, <geographicfieldwork.com/TourismClassification>.

Bulat, A 2012, Why color blindness is no longer a problem for web design, Monsterpost, viewed 15 March 2014, <blog.templatemonster.com/2012/03/21/designing-colorblind-friendly-website/>.

Cao, M, Zhang, Q & Sydel, J 2006, ‘B2C e-commerce web site quality: an empirical examination’, Industrial Management and Data Systems, vol. 105, no. 5, pp. 645-661.

Djamasbi, S, Siegel, M & Tullis, T 2010, ‘Generation Y, web design, and eyetracking’, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies,vol. 68, pp. 307-323.

Dmitry’s Design Lab, 1997, The world of color: Around the color wheel, Webreference, viewed 18 March 2014, <www.webreference.com/dlb/9704/wheel.html>.

Hoekman, R. Jr. 2008, Designing the moment: web interface design concepts in action, New Riders, Berkeley.

Lunn, D & Harper, S 2011, ‘Providing assistance to older users of dynamic web content’, Computers in Human Behaviour, vol. 27, pp. 2098-2107.

Nielsen, J 1997, How users read on the web, Nielsen Norman Group, viewed 1 March 2014, <www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/>.

Nielsen, J 1998, Writing for the web, Nielsen Norman Group, viewed 1 March 2014, <www.nngroup.com/articles/applying-writing-guidelines-web-pages/>.

Nielsen, J 2006, F-shaped pattern for reading web content, Nielsen Norman Group, viewed 1 March 2014, <www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/>.

Nielsen, J 2010, Scrolling and attention, Nielsen Norman Group, viewed 1 March 2014, <www.nngroup.com/articles/scrolling-and-attention/>.

Obernovic, Z, Abascal, J & Starcavic, D 2007, ‘Universal accessibility as a multimodal design issue: creating adaptable solutions to address users and situations’, Communications of the ACM, vol. 50, no. 5, pp. 83-88.

Southern Cross University 2012, Southern Cross University copyright guide, viewed 15 March 2014, <scu.edu.au/copyright/index.php/10>.

Tourism NSW 2011, Traveller types, viewed 18 March 2014, <http://corporate.tourism.nsw.gov.au/Traveller_Types_p1528.aspx>.

Tractinsky, N, Cokhavi, A, Kirschenbaum, M &Sharfi, T 2006, ‘Evaluating the consistency of immediate aesthetic perceptions of web pages’, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, vol. 64, pp.1071-1083.

Tuch, AN, Bargas-ASvila, JA & Opwis, K 2010, ‘Symmetry and aesthetics in website design: it’s a man’s business’, Computers in Human Behaviour, vol. 26, pp.1831-1837.

WebAim (n.d.) Visual disabilities: color-blindness, viewed 15 March 2014, <webaim.org/articles/visual/colorblind>.

Wen, HJ, Chen, H-G & Hwang, H-G 2001, ‘E-commerce web site design: strategies and models’, Information Management & Computer Security, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 5-12.

Williams, R (n.d.), Web design features, viewed 13 March 2014, <www.ratz.com/features.html>.