Design Report
Introduction
This is an analysis of the personal web page for Jenna Rae Gunnink. I will discuss the site´s purpose, audience, structure, and how effective it is at what its intentions are.
Audience and Purpose
The web site for Jenna Gunnink is intended to be a site to communicate information about her, what she does, her work experience, and display some of her artistic work. The audience for this site is potential employers, clients, or others interested in Jenna and her work.
Design Strategies
The homepage is simple and clear. It is immediately apparent that the site is about Jenna. Only three boxes take up the page, the header, the body, and a sidebar with the menu, making it easy for a visitor to know where to go.
The intention, to show who Jenna is and what she does, is obvious right away in the introductory paragraph on the home page. It is also apparent by the menu, which has links to pages that are titled: "Resume", "Music", "Writing", and "Photography". It is easy to assume that these are all referring to portfolios for Jenna´s work in these art forms. On each of these pages there is a link in the last paragraph to the contact page where there is information to contact Jenna. Also, on each page, the same menu is always on the right side of the screen. This menu leads the visitor to all the other pages and also back to the home page. It would be hard to get lost on this web site.
The color choice is interesting. It is a very bright site, but it works. Based on the color choice and the photos Jenna uses as part of the design, the audience already gets a feel of what Jenna is like. It gives the impression she is bright, cheery, and fun. The font choice also works very well. She combines serif with sans-serif and the fonts are not fancy, making the content easy to read.
Site Structure
As mentioned before, the site is set out very simply. The three blocks on the front page make it easy to navigate and understand. There is only one menu with links to the five pages that the site contains.
According to the Web Style Guide, "efficient web site design is largely a matter of balancing the relation of major menu or home pages with individual content pages". Jenna´s site accomplishes this very well. Her home page is structured the same as the other pages, but all the pages are linked to immediately from the home page. A visitor will immediately understand that the first page is the homepage and the other links lead to the only other pages in the site. The homepage is well related to the other sites, and also the other sites are well related to one another.
The Web Style Guide also talks about things being above the fold and says that things "above the fold are much more visible than those below." The fact that the homepage shows everything above the fold is a strength for this site. Until a visitor goes to another page, there is no need to scroll down. It is okay, though, that the other pages use the scroll, because the visitor has already seen the homepage and the simplicity of it.
Production Costs
This is the beginning of Jenna´s experience in web design and therefore, she has no estimate of costs, were this site to be taken off of Grand Valley´s web space.
Conclusion
The personal web page for Jenna Gunnink is designed successfully and effectively for the purpose of showing who Jenna is, her experience, and some work she has done. The purpose is well described and visitors can easily find what they have come to the site to find, information on Jenna Gunnink and her work.
Bibliography
Gunnink, Jenna. Jenna Rae Gunnink. 2009. 21 April, 2009. www2.gvsu.edu/~gunninje.
Horton, Sarah and Lynch, Patrick. Web Style Guide, 2nd edition. "Basic Information Structures." 2002. 20 April, 2009. http://webstyleguide.com/site/basic_structures.html.
Horton, Sarah and Lynch, Patrick. Web Style Guide, 2nd edition. "Home Pages." 2002. 20 April, 2009. http://webstyleguide.com/site/home.html.