Website Evaluation draft

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I used photos which I took, as a slideshow which like the Smokefree website used visual imagery as a way of deterring people from smoking, by emotive imagery and music.
The layout for each page consisted of a blue and white gradient background with a title of the same font and colour and navigation bar on the left and top of each page. As well as this I placed my companies logo at the top left of my website, this created consistency throughout the website providing an organized layout, which is a convention of websites.
I made small manageable chunks of information because I felt it was easier to read and didn’t overwhelm the reader with all the information so they can absorb and remember the information easier.
I choose the tabs on the navigation bar in order of importance because the main purpose of the website is to promote the help provided by the company because of this I had "about us" and "contact us" as two of the tabs, because these are most important in relation to the purpose of my media product.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I represented middle class smokers of the age around 30 to 35 yrs. I represented them because studies have shown that the older a person is the more likely it is that they are going to be able to quit, also women are more likely to be able to quit than men.
By using different techniques, picture and text for example using images of cigarettes and cigarette packets to show what exactly is involved with smoking, zooming in at the end of the slideshow onto smoking kills would hopefully hit the target audience and make them think further and resolve any misguidance they may have had.
Also the video about people’s success in quitting smoking and with constant speech of ‘I quit’ my actors were all young showing that even as a young person it is possible and this will hopefully challenge the audience via two step flow with the actors being the opinion leaders.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

There are many charity and health institutions around but there are certain ones that deal with smoking. The main institution associated with health is the ‘National Health Service’ (NHS). They will mainly distribute the website via hyperlinks from their site to mine due to it being a health website. In recent years the government who are in charge of the NHS have issued public issues concerning smoking. The health service will want to distribute the website due to rising health concerns. A reason for distribution the website will be to help inform the public i.e. the target audience of the how and where to quit smoking, and any help that can be acquired.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience for my media product will be people who smoke, as this is a quit smoking website, and who are 30-35yrs of age, both men and women and with jobs. Having a job is not required however the majority of smokers have jobs in order to pay for their habit.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my audience by clearly outlining what the company hoped to achieve, contact information and facts about the affects of smoking. I also displayed my information in a clear organized layout as to not confuse my audience, and thus repel them from further reading.
Also my house colours of red and blue are both bright and attract the viewer’s attention.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt a lot of techniques while designing and constructing my website, one of the most help tools was the pen tool which allowed me to create a path around an object in a photo and select and cut it out with precision. This was better than other tools as I could curve my line to fit better. Another helpful piece of software was garageband that I had not previously used, it helped me create playlist for the background soundtrack for my slideshow.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back on my preliminary task I feel that the use of Adobe PhotoShop has proved extremely helpful in the producing of the site, as it has allowed me to edit photographs effectively. I didn’t use it much in my preliminary for editing photos and as a result some of my pictures are not as good as they could have been, meaning the quality, brightness and colour balance were not used to bring out the subject of the photo.