Proposal

Project Proposal – Designing for the Internet

The concept for this idea is surrounded around McLuhan’s dictum that “the medium is the message.” As McLuhan says, society is forming into the “tribal man” this means that everyone is bringing their thoughts together as “one” whereas in earlier society when technology did not exist, it was a man and a book alone with his personal thoughts and perception. This has now transformed into a “whole” as the communities thoughts are the same, because so many mediums, such as television, radio and the internet re-produce the same meanings for the audience. Therefore creating the “tribal man” and demonstrating that “the medium is the message”.

The idea of this website is orientated around Kingston University updates, where students can log into the site using their Kingston user ID and password. Once this is done they can view pages of latest news, advice, events, talents and fashion.

The motivation of this idea is to create an exclusive site for university students, which enable each student to relate and talk to others. This then brings the students of Kingston more entwined. This idea was inspired by the website http://www.perezhilton.com/, where Perez Hilton, a man in America produces articles about celebrities and gossip forums. Another inspiration was Facebook as it represents a “global village”, where people from all around the world can interact with each other and share the same hobbies. However this website idea differs from both these websites as it is more focused on issues and forums rather than gossiping or socialising.

The website idea clearly demonstrates the target audience will be a niche audience, limited to only Kingston students. This website is suitable for the audience as they gain knowledge of other student’s experiences and latest events in their area. The audience will vary from different ages, as do the students of Kingston. Their interests will be orientated around the student lifestyle, of studying, partying, eating out and keeping up with the latest fashion trends.

The pre-production is based on gaining knowledge on university events, fashion trends for students, the latest clubs which hold personal appearances by artists, and advice that students may need on any issues. This knowledge is easily obtainable as I am a university student myself. This will be done by creating a questionnaire which asks students particular questions relating to what will appear on the website and what they think should appear on the site. This may lead to the pages that are decided on being changed to ones which students would prefer more. This questionnaire will be completed by the end of March.

The production itself, involves using software such as Dreamweaver, Flash and Photoshop. To create a website template, Dreamweaver will be used; this is where the process of designing the homepage and four other pages will take place. Once this process begins, the graphics and design of the site will be created; deciding on the look of the website, whether it needs pop up buttons, what images to use, what music should be added and other forms of media. This will be done by the software Flash and Photoshop, for example to manipulate and edit images.

The postproduction stage enables any problems that are demonstrated to be fixed and to gain feedback from university students so they can suggest what needs to be improved. The website will then be analysed and reviewed and any amendments will take place. This stage will take place in April.

The product will involve a main page featuring the latest celebrity gossip. This will then have links to another page which is the blog where students can write embarrassing stories about themselves and share their experiences. This demonstrates that students will be able to interact on each page, and post comments and replies, this will be done by creating a blog which they can enter by a link from the topic page itself, this will be further demonstrated by the flowchart.

The first page features the latest club events that are held in Kingston and Central London. This will also have a link for students to write their reviews and opinions of clubs they have been to. Also other links will be available where students can see photo galleries from clubs such as Oceana and MkCluskys.

The advice page, where students can discuss anything from drinking, drugs, to their subject courses will also feature a separate link to the blog. Articles by the administrations relating to issues within the Kingston Students community will also be posted, for example, alcohol abuse or drug abuse awareness will be featured on the pages that are relevant, such as the advice link. Many other links will be available, taking students to sites surrounded around eating disorders, drugs, peer pressure and many others.

Another website page will entail students demonstrating their talents. Students can post videos of them singing, rapping, acting or even upload modelling pictures. Therefore other students can interact and produce feedback.

Lastly there will be a fashion page for the boys and girls of Kingston University. This fashion page will lead into more links such as shopping sites, for example http://www.asos.com/.

These pages will constantly be updated weekly to keep up with the latest news and fashion trends and so forth.

The websites activity will be monitored by an administrator and any blogs or talents that are posted will have to be approved by the administrator before appearing on the website. This is done so that there is no slander, discrimination or racism on this site. Although the forums and comments will be posted immediately therefore one administration will be monitoring all the time, and if any students have complaints a link will be available where they can contact the administrator.

Flow Chart:

From the flow chart it is shown that the homepage is linked to all the four pages; events, advice, talents and fashion, which are further linked to blogs where students can interact. These pages are then linked back to the homepage and to each other. Each page is also then linked to external websites that relate to the topic. This enables the users to get to their chosen page as quick as possible, making the website user friendly, as there will be a main menu bar at the top of each page, stating: Home, Advice, Events, Talents and Fashion page, alongside contact information.