Staying Safe Online: For the Older Generation

Week 2: Defining your Audience

Task 1: Audience Profile Table

Age I am to focus my project on older individuals. Through my research I have uncovered that there is a distinct lack of resources available to older people on the topic of online saftey and information literacy. Therefore, I believe I can make a project that seeks to educate the user on have to demonstrate and perform safe practice online.
Gender Gender should not be a factor on who this website is made for.
Language Proficiency The information will be presented in English, however, I aim to make it accessible to those who might have limited experience with English, such as it might be their second or third language.
Education Level I want to cater to those who perhaps do not have a higher education, or have not had much online education, as from my research, those are the ones that might be more suseptible to the dangers of online communities.
Knowledge of the topic I am designing this as an introduction to saftey within online communities, therefore limited knowledge should be needed to understand the information presented.
Audience action Hopefully they will take steps to insure they are more safe online.

Task 2: Audience Personas

Name John Doe
Occupation Retired
Web Habits Emails, limited online presense, uses Facebook for local community news, susceptible to online scams.
Knowledge Level Limited knowledge on online saftey, but uses and interacts with the internet semi-frequently, but not safely / does not harness the full potential of the web.
Narrative Is able to extract key infromation from this project; allowing them perform better practice online

Task 3: Setting out my audience choice

After careful consideration and research into the current available resources for online saftey and education, I have concluded that my project would be best suited towards the older generation of individuals. As there is a gap in resources on online saftey for this audience.

Task 4: Identify and evaluate websites

First website: Pudding.cool

The Pudding - A Collection of Virtual Essays

The Pudding is a collection of virtual essays. The collection is easy to navigate, colorful, and exceptionally eye-catching. I noticed the lack of feedback options available on the site, which might prevent them from gaining consistent user-feedback. There are over 160 essays available, which are accessible either through a search or by scrolling.

Website Design Principles

In terms of website design principles, Pudding.cool excels in achieving the goals of contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. The essays are consistently presented with similar sizes, fonts, and visual flair.

This design approach, however, comes at a cost. The website contains few sources, opting to embed hyperlinks instead. This design choice may cater more to its audience, one that is generally focused on reading the provided information and not delving into the sources. However, academics might find using the website for research challenging due to the lack of traditional citations.

Second website: hrodc.com

This website is not user-friendly. It suffers from several design issues:

  • The color palette used is clashing, making the visual experience unpleasant.
  • The font size is too large, resulting in an overwhelming amount of text that fills up the screen.
  • The site lacks proper navigation options; scrolling is the only way to access the website's content.
  • The website is cluttered with unattractive images and hyperlinks, creating a chaotic visual appearance.
  • The information presented on the site is disorganised and appears to be randomly placed throughout the page.

Moodboard

For my moodboard, I have chosen to use Milanote. This platform offers several advantages:

  • It provides a variety of tools that facilitate the organization of my ideas.
  • It allows me to directly embed my moodboard into my webpage, as shown above
  • It allows me to continuously add and edit my ideas as I gather more resources during my creative process.
  • While my project is geared towards a mature audience, I explored resources related to children's internet safety. This broad exploration gives me a better understanding of the subject area. Using Milanote allowed me to freely explore this and place them in the context of my chosen idea.
  • I hope that my moodboard will serve as a valuable resource, aiding in the reflection and maintenance of my project goals. It will play a crucial role in achieving a consistent design and user-friendly experience for the project.
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