Website Homepage Project

The screenshot below shows the homepage of my news website. More is explained underneath.

Genre Codes and Conventions

My intended product (as shown above) is a news website focused mainly on Politics, Business and Finance. It also provides it's users with localized weather, bus timetables, train timetables and travel information (such as congestion on the roads). It also provides market information. Similar websites to this one are the Financial Times, The New York Times and (slightly similar) Bloomberg. Although these are all news websites, they don't offer exactly the same features as mine, such as the weather, bus and train times, etc. I shall explain why I have provided these later.

Some key codes and conventions used by all of these sites are:

- Showcased articles.
All of the top articles on the site are showcased on the homepage, with most recent articles towards the top of the page. These articles are normally accompanied by a relevant photo, however, not always.
Other, less important listed articles with no thumbnail.
- Column design.
The website homepage is separated into columns.
- Simple colour scheme.
The colours used on the homepage are not bright, keeping text easy to read.
- Advertising.
Advertising is used on the sites in the form of banners.


Target Audience
My target audience are business people, aged 20 - 40. The website is designed to cater for people who have busy everyday lives, people who are rushing from one place to another regularly and need relevant information quick to find.

Visual Codes

The website homepage is designed with very simple, light colours that help the contrasting black text stand out. It makes the site simple to look at and clean. The main navigation bar at the top of the page, however, has been coloured using different colours for each link. This helps it stand out amongst the vast array of text surrounding it. Relevant images have been used to accompany major articles, all quite bright and informative. The most recent article has a large image to make it stand out at first glance. I have also used a relevant advert at the top of the page, to target people such as professional people.

Layout and Design

I have tried to keep the layout as simple to use as possible. The body of the page is mainly seperated into columns, with a large section for the latest article. Travel information is easy to access quickly in the sidebar, all you have to do is enter your postcode. I have used a large logo with information about the site underneath it, away from the news articles. If the site were real, the text underneath the advert banner would change every few seconds (without the user having to refresh the page), listing all of the top articles. I have placed the advert at the top of the page so that the user sees it straight away, and so that I have enough space in the main body to present the websites features.

I have included a weather report on the site, but not as a huge feature, so it's presented as text near the header. Colour indicators (icons) have been used in the travel news section to indicate how bad the situation is.

Language

Some of the language on the headlines of articles is slightly over the top, such as 'mass flight chaos', to pull the reader in. The travel news section is missing minor words such as 'the' in it's sentences, to make it fast and informative to read. I've named the website UKN, standing for UK News. I feel this name is informative and simple, giving a clear view of what the website is about.

The overall website is designed to inform the user the best it can, however articles may leave the reader with a slight biased viewpoint, so that they come back and read more articles in the future.

A list of Codes and Conventions

Sci Fi

• Space Ships,
• Time Travel,
• Dark Mise-en-Scene
• Space
• Everything's Futuristic
• Monsters
• Tension
• Aliens
• Metal
• Laser Guns
• Abnormal Situations
• Dystopian World
  And many more...

Thriller and Crime

• Timed Situations
• Murders
• Clues
• Car Chases
• Good v Bad
• Good Overcomes Bad
• Expolsions
• Police
• Sinister Characters
• Multiple Suspects
  And more...

Radio: Mode of Address

Radio is presented to the listener in a variety of different ways, depending on the type of radio station it is.

In class we listened to Heart FM, which is a local, commercial radio station which has a large block of adverts, all presented one after another. We came to the conclusion that Heart has to depend on an informal mode of address, because if the mode of address was directed straight at the audience (formal), they would get sick of the constant adverts.

Formal Mode of Address - When the radio is directly talking to the audience and involving them in the broadcast. Maybe asking them to get in touch and send in their thoughts.*

Informal Mode of Address - When the radio broadcast is not directly talking to the audience. This allows the audience to casually listen and not become directly involved.*

*Most radio stations will use both of these modes of address, depending on what the show is. However, most also use one much more than the other. As I pointed out before, radio stations with advertising will use indirect modes so that te advertising doesn't seem to last half as long.

Radio stations also use formal and informal modes of address. If colloqualism is used in the show (the use of accents, etc) then the mode of address is informal.