College Assignment - CTW Website and Newsletter Review

[DJ Elemental]

Document 1 – Club The World Website

 

Presentation

 

The over all layout of ‘Club The World’ is very graphical, which makes it very pleasant to look at. All the graphics are bright making the site eye catching and interesting, making someone want to read on, the graphics also blend very nicely together to make an easy to use navigation system although computer systems with lower specifications or slow internet connection speeds may find loading time a bit slow.

 

With the navigation system there is one slight fault. The text on some of the buttons over laps and on the ‘FAQ’ button is too small and a lot of people may not notice it or wouldn’t be able to read the text on the button.

 

The text on the main page is nicely laid out over the watermark image that is the ‘Club The World’ Logo. All of the text one the home page is all centre aligned with certain parts in bold and others in italic which makes certain parts of text the centre of attention.

 

The divider bars that are used on the site to separate certain paragraphs from others are a nice touch to the site over all. The colours blend nicely with the rest of the graphics and it also doesn’t flash violently, but smoothly so it not annoying unlike others I have come across in the past.

 

Content

 

The content of the site is aimed at young people; aged between 18 to 30 and mainly from the UK with the occasional member from outside of the UK region. The site is a clubbers community where they can hold a general convocation using the forums or live chat room. One of the good assets of the forums is the wide rage of sections available. The most important section on the forum system would be ‘The Serious Issues and Debates’ section. This is where it allows member to post topics such as drug related issues or relationship problems, this then allows other members to post their comments on the topic. I found this affective and it certainly is one of the popular sections of the website.

 

Other content on the website includes photo albums from certain events the Club The World members have been too. The pictures give other people to chance to see what these places are like, and what you wear etc also a lot of the pictures can me humorous or just strange.

 

Readability

 

I found the site very easy to read, the site is wrote in none formal terms, the webmaster writes off the top of his head using words like ‘Cool’ which is a bit more inviting that a lot of formal text.

 

Accuracy

 

I found the accuracy of the main page to be spot on, no typing errors and I found the text inviting and making me want to read on.

 

On the forums section, which is the most popular part of the website, the accuracy of user posts isn’t to the standard of the main page. As it is a normal user writing messages, they’re not worried about typing errors or using Internet shorthand. This I didn’t find a problem, although I did expected the main site to be accurate and after checking, the results where perfect.

 

Usability

 

The navigation of the site is nice and simple to you. There is a big navigation bar going down the left side of the page. Not all the buttons of the navigation bar work, this isn’t because they are broken, but because those parts of the site are still in development, I think it might be best that the buttons where removed until the relevant section of the website it complete.

 

The forum system I found to be very user friendly. The forum has its own navigation bar across to the top of it:

 

 

All the members’ information, contact details etc can be simply edited from the ‘My Profile’ section of the forum.

 

 

Good Points \ Bad Points

 

Good Points

 

· Always up to date, if there is a problem with a section on the website there’s a newsflash which scrolls across the top of the forums.

· Friendly staff and members

· Easy site navigation

· Nice and clear colour scheme

· Clear and easy to use forum system

 

Bad Points

 

· Delay in loading on some computers, connection and system specs depending.

· Bad language on forums which some may find offensive

 

 

Improvements

There are no big improvements that could be made to the site as such, the over all site is very well built and is constantly maintained and updated.

 

The forum system could be improved slightly, although there are Administrators and Moderators which look after the forums, there still the trouble with bad language, although most of the members are considered adults, some visitors could find some of the topics and topic replies offensive due to the over all language used. Also on their forums there is a section called ‘The Smut’ section where adult topics are posted. Although the adult posts contain no visible adult material, the topics and discussions may not always be suitable for some of the younger viewers.

 

If an AVS (Adult Verification System) or a separate password were installed onto this section of the forums, this would mean that only that adults could view it.

 

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Document 2 – Club The World Newsletter (email)

Presentation

 

The layout of the newsletter is of a very basic standard. After opening the newsletter, at the top of the page is their logo:

 

 

This logo is the same which is featured all over their website so you recognise it straight away when opening the email.

 

The logo is set onto of a black background, so it blends in nicely although the colour scheme is completely different to that used on the Club The World website. The text on the newsletter is typed in Tahoma and is grey in colour that is clear to read on the black background. Headings have been made more visible by using Bold and Underline. Important text such as event dates and hyperlinks are made more visible by using a bright colour that is very eye catching compared to the other text on the newsletter.

 

The overall newsletter is very plain, as standard black background and no other graphical details apart from the logo. Although as this isn’t a graphical document, the size of it is to a minimum and it takes very little inbox space.

 

Content

 

The aim of the content is to inform the Club The World members of the latest Club The World news as well as any other information which maybe relevant. The content includes a list of up coming local events we also member meet ups and also a list bigger events such as trips to Ibiza.

 

Readability

 

I found most of the newsletter easy to read, although the future planned \ meet ups listings was rather blurred due to colour conflict and the font which was used, its readable but not as clear as the rest of the news letter. The founder of Club The World writes the newsletter as he is talking to you “Been a long time since I last emailed you - long story really, suffice to say our email list was revoked and I've had to start again from scratch!”

 

The newsletter is written in none formal way, words such as ‘Peeps’ and ‘Cool’ are often used. Although this is a commercial newsletter, when reading it, its like your actually talking to the founder that makes it feel more personal also the text used makes it a lot more relaxed.

 

At the bottom on the news letter there is a link, ‘http://www.ClubTheWorld.uk’ which is not very visible on the black background, this was the only readability fault I could see.

 

Accuracy

 

I found the accuracy of the newsletter to be spot on. When reading it I could no immediate spellings mistakes, I then copy and pasted the text into word and this showed no spelling mistakes. All the text was fluent and easy to read which made reading it quick, but the information was presented in a way in which the important points would be made clear and easier to remember.

 

Usability

 

On the newsletter, there is nothing to use as such, although there are a few links that can be clicked on, I tested these and they all appeared to work fine. As this newsletter is sent to the members via email, this makes it a lot more efficient when sending it to a large number of people. The news letter would be sent by post, although all the members have internet access other wise they wouldn’t know about Club The World, so the obviously solution to mailing news letters is to email them to the members who chose to receive them.

 

 

Good Points \ Bad Points

 

Good points

 

· Clear text, making it easy and quick to read

· Nice colours making it easy on the eyes again improving the readability of the newsletter.

· Gives only the information that is required and doesn’t stray off the subject that is raised.

· Small file size at 33kb uses minimum inbox space.

 

Bad Points

 

· Future planned events \ meet ups text was a bit more difficult to read that the rest of the newsletter

 

 

 

Improvements

 

I don’t think there are any drastic improvements that can be made to the newsletter. The colour of the link at the bottom of the newsletter needs to be changed as its not very visible, change it to a lighter colour such as white. Maybe the club the world watermark which was used on the website could also be used on the newsletter to make it a bit more interesting to look at.