After receiving feedback that my website achieved a merit grade and for it to be a distinction it would need to look more professional and be more attractive I decided to have a redesign.
I have placed a blue clouds background image I made myself to give a softer and more welcoming feel to the website. The logo has changed to only be in the script typeface and I have put it in red to stand out against the blue and be a focal point. I have changed the appearance of the welcome message to be more relaxed and stylish by having a bright welcome 'label' style box with the heading in the same typeface as the logo.
I have changed the speech bubbles at the top of the screen to a testimonial about the company. It is in a handmade style typeface to appear more personal. My plan was to have these dissolve to reveal a different quote but I was unsuccessful with this.
I then started a new navigation bar to make it more attractive as well as interactive. I made these buttons in Adobe Illustrator and made them into png images to place them into my code. Each one is a different colour to differentiate them. I had some problems linking them to their pages and also arranging them on the page...
...but I got it to work in the end! I am really pleased with this as it adds a fun and engaging feature to the website that will hopefully attract the user to stay on the site.
Finished Website (EVALUATION)
Home page:
Here is my revised website in its finished state.
I have remade the social network icons to have a more uniform appearance and have the same rollover functions as the navigation bar. I think that this page is really inviting because of the bright colours and simple to understand layout. If I had more time I would like to have the image slideshow to be more visible as it is kind of hidden at the moment but overall, considering my lack of experience with website coding I am very happy with my result and actually enjoyed building it. I think the target audience of leaders of school and community groups will find this website to be helpful, easy to use and inviting.
They required that the website have more links to social networking sits so I have created this bold buttons that have rollover functions that change the colour to black. I have included a testimonial quote which I did want to have rotate/dissolve to reveal a different quote but I wasn't able to. The rotating image banner gives the user an insight into the services that the group offers.
They required that the website have more links to social networking sits so I have created this bold buttons that have rollover functions that change the colour to black. I have included a testimonial quote which I did want to have rotate/dissolve to reveal a different quote but I wasn't able to. The rotating image banner gives the user an insight into the services that the group offers.
As you can see - when the user's mouse is over one of the navigation bar buttons it reverses its colour combination. This will tell the user where they are on the page and that they are about to click on a linked object. I made these by using the (insert>image>rollover image) function and inserting my images and links to the menu.
"What is Slam Poetry?" page:
I kept the same layout for the top website and just changed the content of the website - keeping to the same design style. I am happy with this page because it has the cohesive look and has a clear title - however the text is part of the image and is so not changeable at the moment which would be an issue for the client.
"About Us" page:
Again - I just had to change the content of this page. This page continues the cohesive look - however it could be more interesting for the user if it had some images as it is a little text heavy at the moment.
"Events" page:
For this page I tried out a new design of having the images in a polaroid template and having the quotes in speech bubbles next to it. I think this is a fun way of displaying what happened at their events and could be persuasive to users to want a similar experience. This page still needs more work to display the past and future events in a more constructive and concise format - but I think it has a fun look and look to it. The background image has changed slightly but it is not a huge issue.
"Bookings" page:
This page has the same content as the old website but I have my new designed titles to continue the design of the website. This page is still rather dull and could be more attractive and have more information.
"The Board" page:
Again - this page has the same content as the old website but with the new title. The images on this page are quite blurry so I would like to have revisited this.
"Contact Us" page:
I have placed my new title for this page of the website. Again this page's content is very basic and could do with some more images.
