roboosh media

Website principles and protocols analysis

I have chosen to evaluate www.play.com the name of the company is registered as play.com, not just play. This shows that the business is purely online. I chose this website because I use it often and I am very familiar with it, Play.com started off as being simply for games and music, but due to its vast popularity it  has widened its store and now sells just about anything. (see website home page below)

Audience:The target audience for this website is mainly a male audience, it particularly attracts geeks/gamers. The socio economic group for this website is D-B, because I think that gamers are usually students, or low levelled workers with a relatively small amount of disposable income, you can tell that it aims towards a lesser-earning audience because of the big offer banner that is always featured on the home page featuring a low price offer. The domain name and the company are the same, and it is a simple one word address, the URL is Play.com, this name is concise and fun, the name connotes gaming and music in the way that you play a video game or listen to music. The name is extremely relevant to the content. The colours of this website are simple and neutral; this is to attract a wide and varied audience. Terminology used is also simple, but can be quite slang in places, for example ‘Knockout deals,’ the typography is sans, serif and usually all in capitals, this makes it easier to read and the capitals bring the text out of the colour.

ContentThe content of the website features mainly small graphics, this is done to advertise many products at once without being too over-powering, the graphics are much bigger than the text, I think they have done this because the audience can tell a product simply by seeing a photograph of it and pictures sell better than words. The main feature of the website is the big sale banner. The sale banner usually varies weekly with different opportunities featured, the banner is an animation which uses a transition to change between several offers, the transition used is a fade in/fade out. Fade-ins are one of the best transitions because it softly edits between two images. The banner is a hyperlink to another page; this means that if you click on the offer banner then it directs you to a page with all of the sale items on it that you have selected. Play.com uses a variety of different buttons which are located at the top of the website, it is important that the buttons are at the top of the page because the layout is consistent, the logo is also located at the top of the page next to the buttons, this is because the eyes are naturally drawn to the top left of any webpage.

All off the buttons on the top navigation bar are rollover buttons, this means that when you hover the cursor over them they change in some way, in this case as you can see in the picture above a drop-down menu appears with specific options to select from the chose category. Another good use of navigation from this site is the search bar, the search bar also features a drop-down menu, and this is used to define your search more accurately. Choices include: games, music, clothing ect.

Semiotics and visual cuesSemiotics are graphics which prompt the viewer to do or think something, the logo for the website itself uses semiotics. The symbol is a play sign, used on DVD players and other modern appliances; this is a powerful logo because it is a visual cue because it is telling us to ‘go’ or to ‘play’. The website is also a dark colour on a light background, using capital letters, this is captures the viewers attention using a recognisable logo in an aesthetically pleasing way. The colour theory used on this website is calming colours, which do not strain the eye if viewed for a prolonged period of time. This website does not use any sounds at all, this shows a more professional approach, because not many people want to be disturbed or even annoyed by sounds on a website.

From the picture above we can see some visual prompts which are located in the top-right corner of the page. The shopping cart image is one of the most commonly used semiotics in online shopping. The symbol represents an actual shopping kart, which is used in a similar way to the virtual kind, to hold items. Another example of semiotics is the flags which are displayed above the basket; these flags represent the currencies which the website accepts.

Form (layout)This website uses space very effectively, there is not much white space and a good balance of pictures and text. I think there is a good balance between the pictures and text  because there is roughly the same amount of space dedicated to each as the large pictures also contain some text. The website is very simple and easy to understand, it is suitable for ever audience. A good example of well used spacing is the location of the contact and legal information (see picture below).

This information is at the very bottom of the page, it has been placed here because it is not really what a visitor wants to see, and even though it is important information which is easily located it is not taking away any room for advertising or more relevant information. The main colours used for this website are orange and blue, I think these colours represent a playful element but the shades of the colours also give the website a more professional feel.

Navigation and usabilityThis website uses an extremely simple but effective navigation bar and buttons. In all the time I have been using this website I have not encountered any broken hyperlinks, for example I have never receive a ‘404 file not found’ at any point on this website. The general rule for web navigation is to be able to find what you are looking for in less than three clicks, I think that play.com definitely has this element of usability, as if you use the search bar you can find what you are looking for in 1 or two clicks every time, if I was looking for halo reach for xbox 360 I would have to follow the steps below:

As you can see this is using less than three clicks. The navigation bar is also well thought out because as you can see in the picture above it also recommends things to you, so if you can only remember one word in the title of a game you could easily locate it using the suggestion drop-down menu.

LimitationsA big problem that some websites encounter is file size and download speed, if too many high resolution graphics are used on one page this can vastly slow down the download speed of the internet. When creating a website it is important to consider the internet speed of your target audience. Although play.com uses heavy imagery, the resolutions of these images are carefully chosen, they are all small-sized files to make for a quick and easy experience for users of the website.

From the image above you can see that the resolution 117x178, which is only 6026 bytes, this is an extremely small image, however it is still easily understandable and eligible. The content on play.com follows legal and ethical constraints, I do not believe it has any potentially offensive material, on the other-hand it does sell some potentially offensive products like controversial games/films, but this is not directly the responsibility of the supplier, it is the responsibility of the manufacturers.