Interactive and Internet Marketing: Website Design Plan - Assignment Example

Interactive and Internet Marketing Website Design Plan Executive Summary: This is a report on website planning for an online game. The website which will have the url www.marineheroine.com will host the game Marine Heroine which is developed by the Strong Women Organization. The website which is primarily meant for young women will have information for training this group of people on self-defense which they will receive by playing the game. The will website will not charge any subscription fee but the players will be required to sign up by creating a personalized account. This will help the organization to monitor and measure the rate and the expanse of the techniques. Quick links to social networking sites will encourage subscribers to invite their friends into this website and hence boost the objective of the website. The report outlines the desired structure and composition of the website to be created giving details on page layout, content and features. Table of contents Cover page………………………………………………………………………………… 1 Executive summary……………………………………………………………………….. 2 Table of contents……………………………………………………………………………3 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………4 Website objectives…………………………………………………………………………..6 Target audience……………………………………………………………………………..7 Home page layout………………………………………………………………………….8 Web page schematic………………………………………………………………………..11 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….13 References…………………………………………………………………………………... 14 Introduction: Online gaming is a fast growing technology which allows players to participate in a game on a computer or a console connected to some kind of network, and in particular the Internet. The technology allows people from different geographical locations to connect and compete remotely. The online games may be configured to accommodate multiple players or may just involve a single player. Web site marketing is the art of advertising or making known a product or service by putting the information regarding the product on website page where potential buyers or audience can view it once they log on to the site. There are several aspects that are considered when planning a website. The first and the major thing is the objective of the website. This is the rationale behind the creation of the website and it acts as the determinant of the other aspects. The other factor considered in website planning is the targetted audience. Depending with the target, a web page design varies in terms of content, colors, graphics, and language. An online game is one of the applications hosted on a website and designing such a website requires that the above factors be put into consideration. An online game meant for young kids may demand the website be designed using large and attractive fonts and graphics while a game meant for a specific gender may require use of certain range of colors and themes. Examples of online gaming websites are www.onlinegames.net and www.eurogames.com .This report is about a plan for the website, www.sw.org, for an online game known as Marine Heroines. Most of the online games are designed with an aim of making profits and it is a fast growing and promising business sector. The players may be required to subscribe to the gaming website at a monthly fee or may be charged an entry fee for every time they log on to play the game. In the modern times, companies are using the online games as a bait to lure people, and especially their prospective customers to their websites. This is done by creating visually attractive animations and finding them a place in the most visited websites such as the ezines, online newspapers and journals. An online game may be also developed with a purpose of conveying some message or as a form of training to a given group such as the military, teenagers, a religious group. The Marine Heroine is a new online game developed by the Strong Women Organization, and organization that fights for the common rights of women in the society. The game will be a tool to train young women and girls on some key measures of self-defense through participation in the game. Website Objectives: The main objective behind development of the website which will bear the web address www.sw.org is to bring the game Marine Heroine to the public. The game will work to give self-defensive skills to young women on some handy techniques of self-defense. The game which will be accessible online at no cost will be easy to use. Considering the rising cases of sexual harassment, it is imperative that the vulnerable group be equipped with proper knowledge on basic defense against sexual assault. The website will have links to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tagged, and Hi5. This will serve to expand the network of the players and thus increase the number of the young women who will benefit from the game, (Brown, D. 2006). The characters of the Marine Heroine game to be posted in the website with comprise a group of ladies and a gang of males who will be coming to attack the ladies. The player will have control over the lady characters and will respond in the defensive whenever an attacker appears. The website will serve to convince young ladies that they can be their own guards as concerns instances of sexual assault and can therefore mingle with the rest of the society without the fear of being harassed. Target Audience: Identification of target audience is crucial in the planning of a website in order to ensure that the right website is developed. Identification of target audience is also essential because it helps to ensure that the needs of the different audience are put into consideration during the website development. In order to identify target audience for a G games marketing website, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) will help to determine the targeted audience for the website (Chau, P et al, 2002, pp 138)The main target of this website is young women. In particular, the targeted group is ladies who are aged between 16 years and 28 years. This is makes the most vulnerable group in the society when it comes to sexual harassment. The sexual harassment being referred to here includes but not limited to rape, indecent physical touching, sexually offensive language, and exposure to explicit sexual media. The target group is made up of people who in their day to day life requiring them to interact with a diversified community are faced with several challenges simply because of their gender. Cases of sexual harassment has been reported in public areas and facilities including schools, colleges, hospitals, bus stages, market places, streets, and recreation fields. In almost all the cases, the victims are the young women falling under this age bracket of 16 to 28 years who are molested by men mostly of 20 years and above. About 10% of the target will be men aged between 20 years and 45 years. This group comprises of brothers, husbands, and fathers to the group of ladies who suffer the harassment. They will be expected to acquire the crucial self-defense skills and in turn impart them to their sisters or wives or daughters. Another reason for targeting these men is to use them as a channel to draw the women to the gaming site considering the fact that a higher number of males participate in online games as compared to their female counterparts. A girl is more likely to participate in an online game when accompanied by a male friend or relative than when alone, (Hsu, CL, & Lu, HP, 2007). Home page layout: The home page layout should have various elements in order to help meet the objectives of the website. This means that web developers need to incorporate all the design elements that will enable them to come up with a quality web page. In most cases, websites make use of some basic layout with a heading at the top, navigation at the bottom or in the sides, footer at the bottom and the content of the web page taking most part of the page (Hsu, CL, & Lu, HP, 2007, pp 1643). This basic web page layout is common and it creates a difference between the content presenting it in a consistent order hence making it simple to code. Although the web developer may know the elements that are essential in the web page layout, it may hard for him/her to decide where each of the elements needs to be positioned and the colors and fonts to be used. The main objective of ensuring a god webpage layout is to market the website. This is because, a poor website layout will not attract the potential clients and thus the website will not achieve its goals. The following is the home page: URL: http:\\www.marineheroine.com Sign In Sign Up Free About Us Contact Us Links FAQ Introduction Email Address Facebook How to register Invite Friends History Phone Number Twitter How to Play Directors Query Form Tagged How to Customize Feedback Form Hi5 Technical Requirements Start Game Resume Game Help About the Game Gaming Options Gaming Level Highest Score The home page of the website shall have several distinctive features. The theme of the page shall be of light colors mainly pink so that it can look more appealing to the targeted audience who are young women, (Hemp, P, 2006). Though the game shall be free of charge, the players shall have to create a login account with their preferred credentials and a password and user name will be generated which will allow the player to log on during each visit. A link with a sign up form will be located at the right upper corner of the home page while the login portal will be at the left upper corner of the page. It will be incorporated with a flashing message requesting the visitor to sign up if not yet registered or login if already a registered member in order to start the game. The site map shall also have “About Us” link which will contain all the information about the company, its mission statement which is “To liberate young women from sexual harassment”, and the company’s vision statement which is “To restore and maintain women’s confidence in society”. The history and milestones of the company shall be listed here as follows; 1998 Started the Strong Women Organization 2001 Strong Women Organization merged with Ladies with a Purpose Organization. 2007 Launched the Strong Women e-zine 2011 Launched the Marine Heroine online game. The list of the directors in this order shall also be put under the “About Us” category; Dr. Elizabeth More Ms. Ann Croy Dr. H. Chan Mr. Jonhnson Murry Under the “Contact Us” link, the primary email address info@sw.org will be displayed as well as the phones numbers 0116102533575 and 01161467433. There shall also be an online inquiry form and a feedback form under this category which will allow the visitor to enter their name, contacts, and the query or feedback. The other part of the homepage will be the gaming instructions and customization options. The player once logged on will be allowed to select some options such as whether to play as a single player or multi-player, the game level- simple, medium, hard, or complex, and whether or not to mute the game’s sounds. Clicking the playing instructions will redirect to new window which will have the following information; Press N to start game Press P to pause game Press S to stop game Press R to resume from a previous session Use the arrow keys to navigate left, right, forward, and backwards Use shift + up arrow key to jump Use shift + down arrow key to lie down Use enter key to strike. Web page schematic: Web page schematic refers to the wireframes that give an outline of the content, navigation and the essential functionality of the website (MacDonald, M. 2009.pp 78). Web page schematic has to be a sketch of web page with a clear picture of the navigation, copy layout, crucial headers and other elements that will appear in the web page. In addition, the web page schematic has to show the layout of the content and navigation of the position of the key pages of the website. The web page schematic can also be complex thus show links, function, copy, graphic content and navigation in a detailed manner. In this connection, the web page schematic needs to show the main areas and content of a website. The creation of a web page schematic requires the web developer to choose the proper program to be used such as fireworks and Dreamweaver or Microsoft work. Such programs will help to show the content, navigation and function of the different elements of the webpage. The web schematic must convey the general information but should not make people think about proofreading or editing the website. This requires the web developer to connect the website users with the content through a proper navigation. In addition, web developers can also make use of links in order show sense of place in the web page schematic. In this connection, the web developers must have a good web page schematic that will help to show the contents of the website (MacDonald, M. 2009, pp 79). Web page schematic About Us Contact Us Gaming Instructions Links History & Milestones -1998 Started the Strong Women Organization. -2001 Strong Women Organization merged with Ladies with a Purpose Organization. -2007 Launched the Strong Women e-zine. -2011 Launched the Marine Heroine online game. Email: info@sw.org Phone Number: 0116102533575 0116102467433 Press N to start game Press P to pause game Press S to stop game Press R to resume from a previous session Use the arrow keys to navigate left, right, forward, and backwards Use shift + up arrow key to jump Use shift + down arrow key to lie down Facebook Twitter Hi5 Tagged Terms and Conditions Privacy Policy Directors: Dr. Elizabeth More Ms. Ann Croy Dr. H. Chan Mr. Jonhnson Murry Conclusion: The website plan which is a sketch of the www.marineheroine.com website which is to host the Marine Heroine online game consists of basic website features such as the contact information, the company’s history and description, list of the frequently asked questions (FAQ). Being an online gaming website, the homepage has other features including information about the game, playing rules and instructions, game customization options, and navigation tools. The links to the most common social networking sites will assist in spreading the popularity the game and subsequently enhance the main objective of the website of training the young women on self-defensive concepts. The web schematic, color selection, and the detailed information included in the report will ensure a complete and attractive website is designed. References: Bevan, N. 2007. Quality and usability: a new framework, Netherlands. Tutein Nolthenius publishers Azuma M, 2007, Incorporating human factors into the software engineering lifecycle. New York. McGraw Hill Brown, D. 2006. Communicating design: developing web site documentation for design and Planning. New York. New Riders Press Chau, P et al, 2002. ‘Cultural differences in the online behaviour of consumers’,Communications of the ACM, Vol. 45(10), pp. 138-143. EPA, 2011. Evaluating the structure of websites, web, accessed on 15th September, from Hemp, P, 2006, ‘Avatar-based marketing’, Harvard Business Review, June 2006, pp. 1-9. Hsu, CL, & Lu, HP, 2007, ‘Consumer behavior in online game communities: A motivational Factor perspective’, Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 23(3), pp. 1642-1659. MacDonald, M. 2009. Creating a website: the missing manual. New York. Pogue press Macleod, M. 2004, ‘Usability measurement in context’. Behaviour and Information Technology, vol. 13, pp 132 to 145. McCourt, C. 2011. Drupal: The guide to planning and building websites. New York. Wrox press Examples: http://www.eurogamer.net/ http://www.eurogamesny.com/ Read More