Posted on by Chelsea Hepfl

Reading Response_Chelsea Hepfl

  1. What are the goals of Apple’s website? How does Apple’s website address the needs of a user who has just purchased their first MacBook?
    1. Apple’s goal is to attract those who are interested in the latest trends in technology and reflect the characteristics of their products on their website while making it simple to purchase and obtain them. The website addresses the needs of new users by setting up multiple ways to interact with employees and help services as well as allowing them to easily access manuals, forums, and information on their products. Their purchasing system is also simplified for easy maneuvering and a speedy, straightforward checkout.
  2. What are the functional specifications of Facebook’s wall? If you are not on Facebook, what are the specs for the signup page?
    1. Facebook includes a multitude of functional specifications on the typical user’s wall, including a feed of “organic” material made up of text, video, and picture posts with a full menu that leads you to your groups, favorites, applications, and a number of other categories specified by the user, a chat box with a list of online friends, links that allow you to travel to your page and profile and multiple ways to connect to your friends’ pages.
  3. What are four architectural approaches to information structure? Find one example of each.
    1. Hierarchical:
      1. Each node has a parent node that trace back to a single point in which they all connect.
      2. Most websites are structured as it is the most common form of structure in the list. Apple would be an example of this as it guides the user through its sight and tends to have a pre-determined path defined.
    2. Organic:
      1. All elements of the website are connected on a case-by-case basis, meaning that the site does not directly control where the user is likely to go as there are too many given paths to be able to foresee a set path.
      2. An example of this is Wikipedia. This site allows users to search for specific items and within teach item are numerous in-text links that take you to an entirely different article, free from the one before it.
    3. Matrix:
      1. A mean that allows you to narrow your search among a number of nodes.
      2. Many shopping sites, typically for clothing, have menus that allow you to narrow your search results by specifications like color, size and style, resulting in a matrix structure.
    4. Sequential
      1. This structure allows only one straight path for the user to navigate. This would include media like TV and video, as you can only proceed forward or background rather than hop from node to node.
      2. Many checkout scenarios offer this structure, so that the user can only travel the step-by-step process of purchasing a product, rather than giving them the option to be distracted or lose interest in buying.
  4. What percentage of The Huffington Post index page is navigation, and what percentage in content? What about Google, Wikipedia, and Etsy?
    1. Most of The Huffington Post is navigation. The entirety of the home page is made up of two navigation/search bars and the rest is a wall of links and photos to the daily articles posted by the post, but this also leads me to believe that the number of links leads to a large amount of content made available by said links. Google, itself, is purely navigational as it is a search engine. While it provides us with an unlimited amount of content, it is not the source of the content, but simply a means of acquiring it. Wikipedia is almost the opposite of Google, though, in the sense that you can search practically anything, but it also provides information and content on what you search without redirecting you to an entirely different site. Then, there is Etsy, an online shopping site, that I would say has the least amount of navigation. It has its items sorted in to categories that you can browse and narrow, but that is typical of most sites.
  5. How does http://www.landor.com guide the readers’ eyes and focus their attention on what is important?
    1. Landor has quite a unique layout that really moves the reader’s eyes over the entirety of the page. Unlike most sites that just lay out all of their information and navigation options, Landor forces the user to physically move through the site with the use of a fade in technique that doesn’t allow the user to clearly see what is next on the page unless the user moves over it. It gives a sense of motion to the page that immerses the user in to the site.