The Gatsby

The Gatsby is the Restaurant/Bar that stands below the cinema. It is described as 'the perfect environment to relax, unwind, eat and drink. On the website that i will design although it is mostly representing the rex cinema i will do a link that people can click on to read up a little about the gatsby as it is part of the whole environment.

As the rex did, the gatsby shut down in 1988 and reopened a year later than the rex had in 2005.

www.thegatsby.net

BUILDING::STRUCTURE::ENVIRONMENT

The Building that I have chosen as a subject for my website is a cinema/restaurant called "The Rex" from at home where I live in Berkhamsted. The Rex first opened in May 1938 and then re-opened in December 2004. I have chosen this building as it has so much atmosphere to it and i think it would be a very interesting project to attempt.

The online environment will be aimed at adults, and used for book and finding out information about the bar/restaurant/cinema. The Rex shows 30 films a month on one screen from big blockbusters to tiny obscure titles. The website would need to be very informative as it would need to show cinema listings, times, menus, opening hours, optional booking etc.

The existing website is www.therexberkhamsted.com

Journal Task: User Generated Content

As part of one of our online journal tasks we were told to find three websites providing user generated content.

1. Chatterbirds

This website is for birdwatchers, the site is to bring bird lovers together and 'connect with a global network of birdwatchers' members can share their birding and nature photos and manage their own online bird watching diary. I think this site is very informative. As someone who is not very interested in birdwatching, i am not drawn to it but it has everything you would need. You can track and identify bird species and find birding hotspots by country and region. The website is not particularly eye catching i would say it relies on its information it provides as it is a site for a niche market. The content is clearly labeled and organised so everything is very easy to find and navigate towards


www.chatterbirds.com


2. Book Group Online


The second website with user generated content is one called the book group online. This site pretty much does what it says in the title. All the users can read their books and then review them on the networking site set up. All members have the opportunity to publish posts on whichever books they choose. The page is very simple and easy to navigate, its not particularly eye-catching or draws people in immediately but as with the birdwatching website it is the sort that would be visited by members who are purely interested in discussing books.


www.bookgrouponline.com


3. MagicSeaweed


The final site that I have chosen is called MagicSeaweed. On this user content site members can upload Videos, Photographs and discuss popular surfing sites etc. Each member can create their own profile and interact with other surfers. The website is very broad as the members can range from beginners to expert, even people that have never been surfing before. I think this website is very informative as it not only acts as a site for people learning how to surf but also tells people good spots to try out surfing . This website is my favourite out of all three as i think the other two websites the user has to have an interest in the topic. whilst surfing may not interest all people the page certainly draws in peoples attention attention with the photographs and videos playing as soon as the page has loaded up.


www.magicseaweed.com

Joel Schafer - "I'm into minimalistic clean design"

The designer talks a fair bit about research and how he gets his inspiration. He gets asked what the mistakes he learned from most while in the web design industry and mentions that he rushed into projects without writing a manuscript to follow and now spends days writing before starting a project. I feel like i can relate to this although obviously I'm not as experienced as him, in alot of projects i find myself taking quite a while to get into and understand fully what it is that i want to try and get across to people and how. Schafer plans his webpages completely making sure he is positive on what problems might occur.

Dan Saffer - "Interaction Design Is An Applied Art"

When reading Dan Saffer's interview it is clear that he has a passion for interactive design. Dan Saffer points out that a designer needs to understand the properties of the medium that they work in. He suggests that you cannot do good design work unless you are aware of the design work that surrounds you. I think the most interesting and important issue that Dan Saffer raised in his interview was that when he was asked the elements of interaction that web designers measure during the creating process, he said that "if the design fills a need in people's lives, works well and looks beautiful, you've got design gold'. I agree with what dan saffer says here as often designers will not manage all three, sometimes only one of them. It is very easy for someone to become comfortable with designing one particular way and never really changing the way in which they do things, as Saffer points out ("falling in love with one direction and not being able to see others")

A Cloud showing popular social sites. We had to List as many networking sites as we could think of and put them in a hierarchy of popularity. We decided sites such as Google/Facebook/youtube were most popular and sites like Yahoo/Myspace are now not so regularly visited.