Website Research findings

After analysing a number of charity websites I found numerous conventions of websites that I would like to include in my product as well as some more unique features which may help my design.

Firstly the navigation bars are a key feature of most websites and allow easy navigation around the website and make the user's experience much easier and quicker. I feel a combination of a top and side bar will be most effective for me, the top bar can have the more administration and company tabs such as what we do, contact information, while the side bar can deal more with the products that the site sells.

Another feature relates to the typography, all of the charity sites I visited ensured that they had a clean, easy to read typography. This allows all information to be taken in clearly as well as improving the user experience.

Images are well used in charity sites, on child orientated sites the pictures are positive and show hope to give child visitors a sense of reassurance, however, on sites designed for adults the images are emotive and aim to play on the readers emotions.

I will use a combination of both emotive and fun images to show that although the situation is drastic, there is hope with the help of my charity.

Another feature of my researched sites is a strong, visible logo in the top corner, it may seem like a small aspect of a website but the branding and the image a charity portrays is aided by a good logo. I will ensure that I have a strong logo and use the colours and theme of that logo throughout the site to give a consistent feel to the design.