Reflection

Source: canbhol.com.au

 

 

This course has provided many insights on the issues of publication and design.

As a blogger, I have learnt that it is important for the blog to be well-designed to engage the attention of the audience. The layout must be well designed in order to ease the audiences’ reading paths (Kress and Van Leeuwen 1998). This will encourage them to keep coming back for more postings. It is important to understand that readers want prose that are well-written and designed appropriately to accommodate reading on a screen (Shriver 1997). Blogs should include typographic and spatial cues that are comprehensible. Audiences would then be able to perceive and organize their thoughts based on the messages shown on the document (Shriver 1997). The blog must not be too cluttered with words and headings should be clear to ease reading. This same principle applies with designing a print document.

References

Kress, G and Van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front pages: the critical analysis of newspaper layout’, Blackwell, Oxford,pp. 287

Schriver, KA 1997, ‘The interplay of words and pictures’, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.

Starbucks - A Well Designed Website





(Source: www.starbucks.com)

 

Web design is a ‘continuously evolving field’. It is important to have a webpage that is well-designed in order to ease the readers’ reading paths and also for the business to stay at the top.

 

 

Starbucks has a well-designed webpage. There were an increasing number of visitors who were accessing the site on mobile devices. This created a need for a better mobile site. Therefore, Starbucks has created a more responsive design which is equally functional across platforms. The new site is very functional as it allows visitors to locate the Starbucks stores and check the gift card balances from their phone. (Website Magazine 2013).

Readers wanted prose that are well-written and designed appropriately to accommodate reading on the screen (Shriver 1997). The headings on the Starbucks website have short and direct descriptions right below them. This will ease customers understanding on what the links on the headings are for.

The design should include typographic and spatial cues that are comprehensible. Readers will find it easier to perceive, organize, remember and enjoy those messages (Shriver 1997). The typefaces used by Starbucks are clear and easy to be read. The green colour used for the headings are consistent with the colour used nationwide for the brand. The headings are well-organized, even the links at the bottom of the page.

 References:

 

Starbucks 2013, viewed 29 September 2013,  <http://www.starbucks.com/> 

Website Magazine 2013, 'The webs most gorgeously designed websites', viewed 29 Sepetember 2013, <http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2013/05/09/the-web-s-most-gorgeously-designed-websites.aspx#sthash.cmYki95n.dpuf>

Schriver, K.A. 1997, Chapter 6: The interplay of words and pictures, Dynamics in document design, Wiley Computer Publication, New York, pp. 361-441