Youth Website Appeal

Aside from researching how to bring traffic to a website, I have been really excited to start playing with design elements but the planning process of a website takes a while. I could not resist the curiosity and started researching potential colors for the website. I first started by searching what colors appeal to middle school kids and I saw a lot of brighter colors but not too bright, they were not super bright neon colors. The super bright neon colors appear a little more to younger kids. The audience for the website is middle schoolers and above, and I saw that most gaming websites have black incorporated along with color. I was already thinking of doing this, so this quick research makes me happy that I was correct. This week I have learned that search engine optimization, a phrase that is thrown a lot in website development is crucial to driving traffic. I researched many articles to get an idea of what it is and how I can practice it to master it and bring numerous organic traffic to the website. I really want to get started with the design already but I know planning is essential before designing. As you can see in the picture below this website capcom.com has an image of Disney's castle of illusion game which is rated for ages 9+, along with the age range of middle schoolers, my target audience. The website image of this game has color but it also has a lot of dark elements like the castle and the forest, further supporting my findings that middle schoolers and above color appeal are colors that are not so bright with black or darker colors.  

Image from: https://www.gamingdebugged.com/2013/10/20/five-coolest-mainstream-video-game-studio-websites/ 

Research Proposal

Why did no one remind me how stressful and time-consuming moving is? It has been quite a challenge trying to get work done while helping my family move and clean. My research proposal is based on what web design elements can make a website more appealing. The importance behind website appeal is the impression on the target audience and getting and keeping their attention. This is essential because one visit to a website can determine if the user will want to know more and become a regular visitor/user or leave and never want to come back again. Surprisingly, the focus on website design for mobile devices has been more popular than desktop computer websites. I wonder if mobile devices will eventually be everyone's only device. The most important piece of research that stuck with me was that a website can do so much for a brand or company. It is equally important for businesses selling a product or service for an information-oriented website. 

 

Image from https://unsplash.com/photos/fyaTq-fIlro 

Visual attention and Eye Tracking Web Design Technique

 Since most users today use mobile devices, web designers have to switch their focus a little bit more to designing a site that will be appropriate and equally appealing on a mobile device. I found an article that intrigued me, a study was done on the visual attention of 48 volunteers, and they were placed 50cm in front of the eye tracker. The eye tracker was an analysis software that collected the eye movement and gazes information of the participants. It was able to detect whether there was a significant difference in attention distribution among regions of interest (Hung & Wang, 2020). The camera was able to focus and adjust on the participant's pupil. The study overall found that no matter where images and text were placed on a website, the users were more drawn to the text to understand the graphical representation (Hung & Wang, 2020). This article helped me figure out how to place text and images; I will be able to keep in mind that users will always end up with more interest in the text. My family is also in the process of trying to sell and move houses, so this week has been hectic. 

Information from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-020-03283-1 

 

The impact of color on website appeal

I have finally found the right websites for my research in my planning stage. I went through the Phoenix College library resources, but all the good articles are locked like always. I found them available on other sites, and now I am glad I have the articles. The most interesting article based on website appeal is about the impact of website appeal and users' cognitive processes. Choosing the right color palette is important to make the website aesthetically pleasing based on the audience. People are more likely to visit more aesthetically pleasing websites. This is crucial because, in the first few seconds of the user visiting the website, the visitors will quickly leave if it is not aesthetically pleasing (Bonnardel et al., 2010). The research article mentions that visitors consist of cognition and emotion and that both of these factors impact each other and tasks completed by the visitors (Bonnardel et al., 2010). I conclude that visitors will either leave or keep reading from the color choices. This is interesting because I do not think of color as a major factor but more so the layout, and it turns out they are both equally important. The research presented users with different colored websites, given tasks to complete on the same computer in the same place, and found that color determines the length of the visit and if the user retained the information (Bonnardel et al., 2010). In our case, we need Batmon users to retain the information behind the importance of bats.

Information retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.displa.2010.12.002. 

Image from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.displa.2010.12.002