Edited Rationale

When choosing my reference websites, which was far more difficult than I thought it would be, I first decided on the goals that I would like my website to achieve. I wanted my website to be user-friendly with a fairly self explanatory user interface and to be aesthetically pleasing. So when choosing my reference sites I asked what do people want from a website? The answer is information. Given the nature of Stonefest what kind of design elements appeal to that audience.

The websites that I chose are listed in the Reference Sites list on the right hand side of my blog. You can quickly view these pages should you feel the need however the screen shots I have included will hopefully be enough on their own.

Navigation:
The 5 sites that I have chosen as references all utilize a few different navigation techniques and design conventions; for example they all feature horizontal navigation bars across the top of their page that stay present throughout the site. While perhaps not incredibly inventive this feature is good for many reasons. Firstly as a standard tool of website navigation it is easy to use and needs no trial and error and as a result creates a fast user friendly interface. Secondly this is something that enables you to quickly find your bearings when deeper inside the site and is something that I will implement in my own design as it allows for some aesthetic originality when developing the theme of the design.

Search bar:
All these sites use a search function which allows a Google style search of their entire website. This seems to be situated in the top right by convention within most sites, and is something I will implement in my design as it is both expected of the website and helpful to the user. Links: Some of these websites also offer links to other similar websites or member login fields and while the location ranges it seems to be mostly housed in the top right hand corner of the page by convention. I am not sure I will implement this in my design due to lack of technical knowledge. If I become familiar with how to go about implementing a membership function I will reconsider.

Display:
All of these websites are fixed width and centered, not liquid, and seem to support a main content or information strip running down the center of the page. This allows the website to provide the user with all the relevant information by scrolling down. Whilst this makes the websites look more tidy by keeping everything in a Grid order it also tends to make the center of the page look cluttered and lends it a blog style feel.

Road Runner Record's web page has a blog inspired feel because it seems to scroll on through the content in a consecutive display that you must then chose from to explore deeper. It also seems to be wasting valuable space along with big day out website by not utilizing the space on the left hand margin of the page for a second more specific navigation bar instead using a grid style or window that must be clicked to advertise and link to information.

This is the point that separates the UFC homepage from the big day out and road runner records page; both use the same conventions with the UFC having a more news/blog orientated style layout and is the one I will adopt when designing my own website making the content more re-newable and incorporating a grid style link for information / bands on the left hand side as this information will not change whereas venue and time as well as promotion will.

Aesthetic theme/colour:
All of these websites use similar styles and aesthetic feels. This usually includes two main colours: black and white seem to be the most popular followed by red. This appears to be a design convention in creating a theme for websites and the similarity of choice between the pages may be a result of the content. All of these websites use both image and text to entice the user to further explore the website and is something that I fully intent to include in my website design. I like it because it is easy to understand and works well at both advertising content and allowing graphics to shape the feel of the website. Even the Hoyts and UFC website utilize graphics and selectable "tiles" to allow the viewer to explore the site and are a convention I will aim to employ.

Video or graphic:
These websites often have a video or graphic link that appears under the navigation bar. I like this as it is interactive and allows a lot of space for an appealing image or imformation contact point for the user and is something that while I may struggle to implement and understand technically how to include, I will look into incorporating. Content Placement: All of the websites I have chosen have fairly shallow amounts of information or content evident on the title page; instead they have many links competing for your attention that require you chose and follow them to other pages containing the bulk of the content on that particular topic. Text links and graphic "tile" style links are arranged in a blog style or format that lists them down the page and are updated and replaced as new content becomes available. This is a design aspect I will adopt.

Title Page:
I will also use the Title Page convention which appears before the home page of the website, in some of these websites to advertise the site. This appeals to me because it is a bit out of the ordinary and provides a good opportunity to set the theme of the website.

Banner/logo:
All of these websites follow the same convention when it comes to their title or logo. Present in the center of the webpage (usually above the horizontal navigation bar) sits a graphic of their website or company name which is visually appealing, and attention-grabbing. It is often complemented with a background colour or underlying graphic that helps it stand out from the rest of the content whilst still maintaining the visual feel of the page. This design convention works quite well and is one, that after seeing how simple and effective it is I strive to include in my own design. However I may modify it as I feel that for many of these sites, specifically Hoyts, roadrunner and UFC that it does tend to be easily missed because of the overall volume of content on the page that focuses the eye to the center.

Why I chose these design References:
I chose these design conventions because they are all appealing to me as an audience member of something like Stonefest and will be attractive and inviting, easy to understand and to use effectively.