The Trials and Tribulations of Website design
So this whole designing a website thing has been far harder than anticipated. Never before did I realize all of the different decision making and strategizing that goes into such an endeavor.
I have had to make decisions on pages, layouts, content, display, pictures, videos,...the list goes on and on. I thought that my content analysis of other sites would be more helpful. In reality it was practically useless. WOLV TV is not ANY of those other sites. We don't have the same business model, or the same goals.
The key with WOLV is that the internet is not a portal to drive traffic TO our channel, nor is it a portal to provide new information. Instead, it's a place where people can get information about our station (shows, leadership, funding, etc.) and potentially view content they otherwise would not be able to access. By each show having a blog they open WOLV's content up to a brand new audience. This audience has far different needs than the audience we serve in the dorms on the TV channel. Balancing these needs with our current station organization has been an important challenge.
My goal with this independent study is to see how we can make our programming more appealing to audiences outside the University while still keeping our fundamental principal that WOLV is about student's teaching students. The quality of our programming can't compete with the networks, but that's not the goal. Understanding that, and working on ways to still make our content relevant and desired is what I'm hoping to discover over the course of the semester.
I have had to make decisions on pages, layouts, content, display, pictures, videos,...the list goes on and on. I thought that my content analysis of other sites would be more helpful. In reality it was practically useless. WOLV TV is not ANY of those other sites. We don't have the same business model, or the same goals.
The key with WOLV is that the internet is not a portal to drive traffic TO our channel, nor is it a portal to provide new information. Instead, it's a place where people can get information about our station (shows, leadership, funding, etc.) and potentially view content they otherwise would not be able to access. By each show having a blog they open WOLV's content up to a brand new audience. This audience has far different needs than the audience we serve in the dorms on the TV channel. Balancing these needs with our current station organization has been an important challenge.
My goal with this independent study is to see how we can make our programming more appealing to audiences outside the University while still keeping our fundamental principal that WOLV is about student's teaching students. The quality of our programming can't compete with the networks, but that's not the goal. Understanding that, and working on ways to still make our content relevant and desired is what I'm hoping to discover over the course of the semester.
posted by EBUZZED at
5:27 PM
1 Comments:
Kaitlin,
I perceive some frustration in your most recent posts--but I also see that you have been doing the tough work that comes before you ever start putting together a website. Thinking through the process of what you want on a site is critical--and I think we see the lack of that thinking on the sites that you chose to analyze.
As I said, I just came back from the Poynter conference. I posted a lecture on this semester's multimedia course website that you may find useful. You can find it at www.sitemaker.umich.edu/blogosphere. It's the last lecture posted and is about what makes great news websites. You may find some of the information a repeat. But you may also find some of the slides useful as well as the links to stories that do a great job of multimedia storytelling.
Is there anything I can do to help with the site's redesign. I'm happy to do a critique of where you are if you think that will help? I can do it strictly from a user's perspective, not as a professor?
Let me know?
Regards,
Fara
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