OUGD504 - Brief 4 - Homepage

OUGD504: Brief 4: SONY music / ONLY studio Brief

Homepage

Taking the grid templates only provided during the briefing gave me the basis for refining my wireframes and applying the content to the website. I took the aesthetic of the album and applied a wider margin to the right column of each image to create consistency with the album cover. Taking from the wireframes I applied the logo and created a simple navigation button that would re-direct the user to the navigation page. I created a small information box to explain my concept and the purpose of the images, this used a white gradient to ensure the text is fully legible and a closable 'x' to remove the information box when the user has read it which would slide the images up creating a full screen of thumbnails. The homepage looks minimal and uncluttered which will result in a very clear and usable experience for the user. 

Scrolling through the homepage of thumbnails will trigger a back to the top button to appeal to enhance the users experience and navigation of the site. There will be an endless scroll of the live feed which would make it impractical to then scroll back to the top of the page, the jump to the top arrow which appears in the right margin of the page will allow the user to effortlessly jump back to the top of the screen.

Hovering the mouse on top of a thumbnail will trigger a rollover fading the image out and revealing a range of social media icons that will encourage the user to like images and share them to other social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and their own instagram feeds, this will raise the awareness of the campaign and create a larger buzz surround the album release if the concept is consistently spread across a number of social media platforms. This will reinforce the content and encourage other users to engage with the campaign if it seen as a popular social craze. 

 I created a footer at the bottom of the page that includes a site map, contact info, developer information as well as credit card secure logos and social media icons to share the site on other platforms increasing the awareness of the site. I created a new letter sign up that sits within the footer, users are automatically signed up to this with any purchase however the option is always there. The newsletter will keep users aware of updates and encourage them to return to the site when new activation points are uncovered e.g. blog updates. They will receive emails such as 'new blog post available now click here to see' which will then redirect them to the site. 

Finally I created a scrolling mock up to simulate how the content would look in context. The thumbnails looked a good size on screen and I wouldn't want to make them any smaller as this would effect the users experience having to look more closely at every image. I am happy with the development of the homepage, it shows clear progression from the wireframes and has a distinct aesthetic that represents the band well with clear links to the physical album and style of the band. This design articulates the concept well with multiple opportunities to share content to other social media platforms and acts as a centralised 'home' for the campaign. From this I will develop the rest of the website pages aiming for continuity across all the sub-pages to ensure a good flow between these pages which will create a more successful user experience.