Reflections on Website Redesign

It is obvious that the new web page my group designed is far better than the original. All it took was a few simple design changes. Grouping like items together and lack of any organization was one of Matunuck Surf Shop's problems. By putting necessary information in the same area creates proximity. Contrast was another huge issue for the original site. The site was too immature and did not work with the site. So by adding some contrasting colors like orange and blue made a world of difference.

Knowing Your Audience While Blogging

It's important to know your audience and who you might be talking to while writing a blog. All  bloggers must know what they are talking about. This goes to their credibility. To introduce yourself to people reading your blog, it is good to have a detailed about me page. This about me page is like a snapshot. It lets the people reading the blog know who you are and why your blogging to begin with.

Next, bloggers should provide a type of mission statement. A sentence or two describing what this blog is about. This description let's potential readers know what the blog is going to be about, before even reading a single post.

The saga of Spruz.com continues

Oh spruz.com how you infuriate me. Why is it, that something goes wrong right before an assignment is due. For example, a student computer crashes in the middle of working on a 10 page research paper, not having access to online journals or not having access to spruz 48 hours before your final project is due. For the heck of it and because I was so desperate because I saved no work I did on spruz. I signed up for a $5 plan and voila spruz.com started to work. I don't see spruz.com becoming a successful site anytime soon, with all these problems they've been having. Soon enough this project will be over and will never have to interact with spruz.com ever again. Now I promise I'm done ranting. Goodbye.

Looking at sites I frequent for Web design

Sites I visit:

Vans.com http://www.vans.com/

                Has a lot going on, very busy. May not need all that information. Provides a lot of interaction for potential visitors. Good color scheme of red, black and white.

Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/

                Amanzon.com is pretty user friendly, very bright and easy to navigate. I like their color scheme of orange and blue. These colors are contrasting colors and work nicely against the black font titles and white background.

Todayshow.com http://www.today.com/

                Todayshow.com  provides viewers with plenty of information. If you can’t watch on a tv. Today has all their segments online available to watch or in case you missed something or would like to re-watch something like a recipe. Having a website can be better because you can print information out.

IMDB.com http://www.imdb.com/

                Has just the right amount of tabs, not to busy. Has multiple functions. Imdb provides updated top news, TV news , movie news, and celebrity news.

3 Tips From the Wikitravel Manual of style

The Manual of Style is a set of guidelines that provide continuity on Wikitravel.

Tip 1. Choose the correct template for writing on Wikitravel. I am talking about a small city of Old Orchard Beach, Maine. So I chose a small city article template. Even though Old Orchard Beach is relatively small, OOB still offers a lot to do.

Tip 2. External Links are links that are outisd Wikitravel and can be very helpful for anyone viewing a particular page. Use bare minimum links

links such as the city of commerce, a hotel, restaurant or park are all considered primary sources.

Tip 3. Another tip that I beieve can be helpful is Don't tout – describe, don't push. I think I have trouble with providing information in a way that's descriptive and not advertising.

Wikitravel Writing

I'm starting to really get into writing on Wikitravel. I never realised how much I knew about Old Orchard Beach. After I started writing all my subheadings under Wikitravel, I realised how much has changed since I've been going 15 years ago. I have a better undersdtand of the type of writing Wikitavel is looking for. There is so much to do in OOB. I have so many categories like Sleep, Get In, Get Around, Eat, See and where to Shop. I remember when I first started going, you had to ask the locals where to go. This is essentialy the purpose of Wikitravel. The author is giving the potential traveler insider information on the best places to visist.

What good is a social networking site if you can't get on it?

I'm sure I'm not the only one in my class asking why we can't get on spruz.com. It's infuriating when you have a task to complete and you can't even get on the site to do it. If I were spruz.com, I would seriously rethink the site and it's functionality. I wouldn't say I know everything there is to blogging, but I know when a site is user friendly and not. To me, spruz.com goes beyond user friendly, they are a pain in the ass.

After this mini episode with spruz.com, I don't expect to get any members to join our stop animal cruelty page. It's hard to take the project seriously or spruz.com seriously if the entire class can't even get on the site.