Building a Personal Website
by Rebekah Radisch

29 January 2006

radisch@email.unc.edu

Target, Branding, Goals & Site Plan

The Target Audience for this website are members of an invitation-only Internet community launched after participants bonded on another message board during a high profile criminal trial. This group numbers approximately 50 persons, of whom two dozen actively participate. Most are women from North Carolina, although several members are found across the country. Political persuasions vary, but they are generally middle-aged, college educated, professionals with a creative bent, good sense of humor, interest in justice and a certain cynicism borne of too many lost elections and failed promises. They are witty, wise and offer encouragement to each other. While they occasionally meet in person for food, film and fun, most of their interaction in online. Although there's no question that the members are quite intelligent and well-read, they are not comfortable with building and launching their own websites. This site is designed with them in mind.

Branding will offer a consistent look. My site will be designed to be organized and easy to navigate. As part of this plan, strategic graphics, complementary colors will and an 11 point san serif font (Arial) will be utilized. The red is used to tie in with my last name (Radisch, as in the vegetable radish). Once I've learned a bit more, a well-laid out and appealing graphic look will emerge.

I plan on having my "logo" in the top left corner of each page. This logo will link back to the home page. To facilitate site navigation, clear, easy-to-find but not overwhelming button bars with links to the main page and other pages related to it will appear across the top and text-based links will appar at the bottom of each page. Additionally, paging buttons (previous/next pages) will be included beneath the top button bar.

The Goals of this site are to enable my target audience to feel enlightened, educated and empowered to the extent that group members can create their own personal websites, if so desired.

Site PlanThe paragraphs below offer a text-based description of my planned site. I invite you to follow along by referring to a schematic diagram of how I intend to organize this site. It's available by clicking on the following link: siteplan.

The Home Page

• About This Site will include a brief statement about the site's JOMC 222 class inception and will link to a Site Map subheading featuring organized text links of page titles and subheadings. The Site Map will link to a page of legal/disclaimer/boilerplate/copyright content (legal.html).

• Other Site Critiques will describe and link to three class assignments considering and critiquing other sites (daij1.html, daij2.html and personas.html).

• Some Site Resources will describe and link to two class assignments: New Logo (newlogo.html) and Color (color.html). Additionally, I plan to include future subheadings about image resources and useful links to other resources.

• Final Site will take the original information presented in my first page (firsthtml.html) and present it anew with the information provided by and knowledge gained from this course.

• About Me will be my first class assignment (firsthtml.html).