Final Site , Rationale and Reflection

Marc Wai

DTC 355

Rationale: Final Project

            I thought I would start out the with the constraints and adversities I faced from doing this site because it is still very fresh and apparent.  I thought I chose a very good topic, global hunger but what I did not account for is the amount of information available. It was almost overwhelming and it made my job harder to sift through information that would be most effective in driving my audience  to the involvement page.

             Speaking of audience , I had encountered the same problem when doing this site in the earlier portion of the semester. In my first draft I extended the topic to both people in the U.S. and across the globe, in particular third world countries. This proved to be difficult as I was jumping from audience to audience without fair warning. In this edit of my first website I was torn between the two, U.S. or third world countries, I chose to present the issue of malnutrition in third world countries.  Despite having committed I still had doubts of whether this topic was the right choice or would it have been better targeting a different audience and having a fresh perspective. With the time constraint I went ahead with it.

            Last on the list is the layout of the website and this will be obvious when one looks at the site. As said in a previous comment it is not uniform between the home page and the rest of the html pages. I did attempt to solve this problem but there was no quick fix which I knew of that would have allowed me to make it into what I hoped it would be. To depict what I had intended if everything went as planned, I had hoped to have centered the text/content  on the page to match that of the home page. For some of the photos and videos I wanted to wrap the edges in text to fill blank spaces and create uniformity. This vision would have also taken care of the overall look which is currently looking like a word document.

            Transitioning to content goal I hoped to utilize ethos , pathos and logos throughout my site.

What ethos did you strive for in your website? How does your website effectively convey that ethos?

The ethos I strived for in my website is having a wide target audience and using a concise topic. In my website I address the less fortunate as a whole and am targeting those who may be able to spare time or money to help those suffering. I was not really concerned with directing the attention to one specific country because that would narrow the audience but rather using the world as my topic of discussion. Anybody and everybody could find this of interest. I did this by including global statistics and facts about those suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Some specific examples are in my "Facts" and "Who" I discuss whom across continents are affected. These facts and statistics enhance the credibility of my site because it is information derived from professionals who spend a great deal of time studying this particular topic.

What logical or logos-driven elements exist in your website? How do they enhance your message?

Among the pages I have included many logos-driven elements to further support my cause. Rather than posting what I think is going on in the world I have included links to videos which tell us the suffering others are going through across the globe. I have also posted up a charts and links to other sites which one could explore for themselves and also links which I have taken information from . What I was most excited about is the "possibilities" page. This page stages professional individuals who have extensively researched global hunger and have taken their assessments and that of their colleagues and created a plan that could change the future.

In what ways are you using pathos to manipulate your audience? What makes those uses effective?

The pathos or emotional appeal I was striving for was sympathy and compassion for others. For my homepage I started off with a photo of ecstatic children whom have just received water. This photo along with the quote " No one has ever become poor by giving." sets up for my viewers the ability for them to contribute and change the life of another. It also is preview of what they should expect from my website, which is my duty as the creator to inform then and then persuade my viewers. Throughout my website there are heart breaking facts, news and videos which are all positioned in hopes that by the time they have surfed through each tab they are ready to contribute to the cause and explore the "involvement page".

            Much of the elements I included in my pages are the basics to any website. Some that were important were the presence of linked videos for ease of access, along with pictures that were also linked to a website. Examples are in the "About" page, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, which were all included to expand my audience. To achieve these elements I put on my website I primarily used Youtube tutorials. I also used code academy to get the basics of coding down. I had other ideas in mind for overall presentation that would have elevated the appeal of my site but there were fine points to coding that are just indecipherable at my level. Overall this project was a challenge but I think I got the main elements on my website and am very pleased with the product.

Reflection

            A full semester working with Blogger and Dreamweaver has made me realize how much I dislike coding. Coding I believe are for the special few who love puzzles and do not mind the long hours of work with a small reward. With that I am a big fan of Blogger and Wix. This has to do with the simplicity of both the sites.  Much like you said "those of us who don't work exclusively with the internet might be happy with Blogger because we don't have to worry about maintaining it." That is precisely it.

            Working with Dreamweaver put me in a position which caused my content to suffer. I was so concerned with the overall appearance of the website (which still didn't turn out as planned) that I forgot content was equally as important. Blogger did what I needed it to do and more. I have explored other peoples Blogger site and to me it looks immaculate yet simple. I was more concerned with what the content was and what it had to offer rather than an elaborate layout. Now I am not saying a beautiful layout from Dreamweaver is not important, it just does not suit me as one who doesn't work with coding and websites as often.

            So with the little experience I have had with designing this semester, I think layout is the most important part of the process. In journalism we are taught the inverted pyramid and I have applied this to many of my designs. The inverted pyramid for those who do not know, is putting the most important information first and place the less interesting or least important content last. So much like a newspaper , the headline story is first and it is blown up bigger than anything else on the page, then comes the rest of the stories which are given less room on the page or even shoved to the edges. Overall everything is spaced properly , the website should draw the reader down the page and hopefully to the next and above all it looks pleasing to the eye. If the layout is good then the viewer can focus on the content. 

4/11

Looking at my site , I don't think there is much that needs to change because it already is pretty bare. I do want to include more of a visual appeal, through icons. I find that my site can have more ease of access. By just having the tabs in the home button and allowing the audience to choose where they want to go.

4/9

I chose to redo Yahoo's interface. Yahoo primarily caters to people but it does not exactly benefit those of the older generation. Its interface is somewhat cluttered and in that sense complex. I think the skeletal structure appeals to its audience because there are so many options and when used properly it opens up as a quality search engine. I would like to distill this interface to only what is necessary and at the same time make it usable to people of all ages. The way I propose to do this is dividing the page right down the middle. Each side will contain five boxes, on the left are for your apps and email. On the right is the top five news and it will cycle fairly quickly amongst other news. The thing that is going to take it into the next age is the fact that it is really easy to access everything. All your necessities are right on the front page and nothing is buried.

4/7

Q1. Based on the reading I think you are asking us to do a respectful remediation of the research paper.

Q2. I think it is extremely helpful to know what we are aiming for and the guidelines we would follow. It would actually be quite different, so far what you have shown us is that we are tweaking existing templates online rather than creating our own and drastically manipulating website content.

4/2

Middle aged adults who either are in a relationship or are looking for "the one".

3/24

The exercise we did today resembled a lot of what I learned in Dreamweaver. When learning Dreamweaver I used code rather than the many shortcuts that were provided on the Adobe suite. So to me everything looked familiar.To answer the question of why the text appears on one line rather than staggered much like the layout of the code , it is due to the nature of the program. Each opening and closing text represents one line. An example would be <h1> DTC 355 </h1>.

Final Project - Self Evaluation

What ethos did you strive for in your website? How does your website effectively convey that ethos?

The ethos I strived for in my website is catering a variety of people in multiple ways. In my website I address both people in the United States and people globally. It was hard to be specific for other countries but seeing that my citizenship resides in the United States, my audience will be people from here rather than overseas. I did think it was important to give those who view my website the statistics and facts about those suffering from hunger and malnutrition in other countries. Some specific examples are in my "Facts" and "Who" pages I direct the reader towards whichever is most relevant to them such as "Hunger in the United States" or "Hunger globally". These facts and statistics enhance the credibility of my site because it is information derived from professionals who spend a great deal of time studying this particular topic.

What logical or logos-driven elements exist in your website? How do they enhance your message?

Among the pages I have included many logos-driven elements to further support my cause. Rather than posting what I think is going on in the world I have included links to videos which tell us the suffering others are going through across the globe. I have also posted up a chart and links to other sites which one could explore for themselves and also links which I have taken information from .

In what ways are you using pathos to manipulate your audience? What makes those uses effective?

The pathos or emotional appeal I was striving for was sympathy and compassion for others. For my homepage I started off with a quote by the U.N. Food Agency ""Some 18,000 children die every day because of hunger and malnutrition and 850 million people go to bed every night with empty stomachs."  This quote sets up for my viewers what they should expect from my website, I also back this up with a photo of a girl holding the sign "please help" as she's sporting a somber face. Throughout my website there are heart breaking facts, news and videos which are all positioned in hopes that by the time they have surfed through each tab they are ready to contribute to the cause and explore the "involvement page".

How many different media do you use in your website? Why? How do they enhance your message? (Maybe check on McLuhan again)

I used two  different types of media in my website, articles and videos. I added these because our generation has a short attention span. If I were to just put text in all of my different pages I would be lucky if my viewers get past the first paragraph. I also thought these different forms of media will have a better impact. Much like what we talked about in class, visuals of hungry children are much more appealing than me seeing that they are hungry. Also articles and testimonials of the hunger issues people are facing have a much bigger affect because it comes directly from someone who is facing the hardship rather than myself who has the luxury of eating 3 large meals a day.

Identify your primary use of the spatial mode in your layout. How does this affect your audience? How does that enhance the message you are trying to send?

           In terms of page layout, I spent the most time on spacing.  The spacing of the paragraphs and alignment of text in my website is made to draw the readers down the page and then once finished to press the other tabs to view my next pages. You will notice this in the home page. Each title is bolded to differentiate one content from another, therefore directing the eye of the reader on to the next important topic. You will also notice that nothing is spaced more than a line or two apart and that was part of my design so that more content comes in view and the reader knows that he or she is not finished.

Tell me about your use of the linguistic mode. What kind of language are you using? How does that affect your message or your audience?

                In my site I aimed for a serious tone.  I was very direct with the content I displayed on my website as to not diverge from my overall message.

How is your website affected by/how does your website create kairos? In what way does your work prompt metanoia or reflection about your topic? (Maybe check on Consigny again)

Kairos is the propitious moment for decision or action. I have taken this concept and applied it to my site. With the overwhelming amount of information on what is happening across the globe today I have hopefully spurred a sense of need for action in my  audience. The information is current and relevant and I think this plays a huge part in how people respond. If the facts and statistics were outdated then there would be no need to make a site such as mine.

Identify your primary uses of the visual mode (what audiences will notice most, visually). How are you using these visual elements rhetorically in your website? Are there subtle uses of visual elements that are intended to affect audiences on a subconscious level? Think about the elements in the prezi we looked at (now linked under the Unit 2 tab): color, lines, shapes, tone, spacing, movement, rhythm, etc.

My audience will notice the uniformity throughout each page and the clean look I gave it with white text and a blue background. A neat website is a professional one in my opinion. This directly ties in to ethos, unlike the website shown in class "lizards in space" or something along those lines, the site did not look professional whatsoever. The colors were an eyesore and the layout was cluttered. My site I hope is pleasing to the eye, and displays credibility through professionalism in thought and execution.  

Can you categorize your website in a genre more specifically than “propaganda” or “public service announcement?”

I would classify my website's genre as persuasive through the use of sympathy. I am trying to touch the hearts of my viewers and convince them that the battle with hunger and malnutrition is not just fought in third world countries but also in the home of those who are able to afford food. I also tried use sympathy to motivate those who are coming to my site to assist those who are less fortunate.

What other sites and sources have you linked to? What purpose does your linking serve? How does tying your site to those other sources enhance your message?

On my involvement page I have four linked pages. Some of which I took facts and statistical information from. I chose these sites because they were constantly updating their information on what is happening across the world. They also provided more resources and links to other sources for those who either wanted to help in the fight against global hunger or who are trying to find answers. What all these sites had in common is their cause for action. They took my persuasive site to the next level and gave reasons of why one should act and help.