Testing & Correcting the code

Testing the site for improvements can be done really easily, sites like nibbler offer services for free to check your website and give it an overall rating based on modern website requirements.

When testing the exhibition website, it gave some really interesting feedback. Below are the results of the test, they mean that the site is lacking in quite a few areas. It is great to know that I succeeded in 5/9 areas in which I was tested

MY OVERALL RATING

NEGATIVES

POSTIVES

I went back and tried to correct my errors, this is the results of the test after I had fixed the problems to the best of my ability.

I improved the meta tags

I reduced the amount of errors;

giving me a new overall rating;

References;

http://nibbler.silktide.com/en_US/reports/www.scottlewis.eu

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Marketing Redesign

While my site works well to create interest and intrigue in the exhibition, there was the fact that the site didn’t really fulfill the brief in the sense that it wasn’t built around marketing made me decide to go back and redesign elements of it to make them more suitable for the branding, I also redesigned based on certain user testing that I did.

 

The homepage has been given a colour scheme to match the other elements and the overall theme of the site, note the two social media links at the bottom of the page.This page listing the four elements has been modified to show the logo at a bigger scale, to improve brand recognition, social media links added to the left and also a call to action to try to make users buy tickets straight away.This screen is an improvement on the Instructions page, I found that users wanted to click on the different elements on the page. This is what I have designed to happen if they were to click on the individual instruction.

The same apples for the ingredients, users expected to be able to click on the elements, so I decided the best thing would be to allow them to click and display further info on the location of where the ingredients can be found.

Finally, I added a map to the exhibition to allow the user to locate the exhibition to know they were close just before they bought tickets.

Designs of website

These are my final designs based upon my research and wireframing stages. These were vital for creating a relevant website that met the brief, I have to tried to use the design techniques employed in the Spotify Year of Music site, to bring mobile web experience to the desktop to create a similarity throughout the devices, you will see all of the designs below for all mobile, tablet and desktop.

DESKTOP

TABLET

 

MOBILE

Ideas I chose against

As part of my branding, I considered using the iconography for the four elements themselves to fit in with the magical theme, I decided to try and create a rotating image but I didn’t think it looked quite right, and I thought it wouldn’t fit in my marketing scheme so i chose against putting it in. This would be places against a black background so therefore only the icon and word would rotate.

Another idea I had was to invert the colours of the elements and let them appear normal when user would hover over them, this could be used as navigation, but I chose not to do this as it didn’t work with the overall theme I was trying to achieve and the marketing scheme. You can see the elements below;

Mockup of content management system

While using the couch content management system was reasonably simple to install and use, it is important to consider that a fully editable site would include its own content management system. Therefore this was the reasoning behind researching what good content management systems looked like. The influences of the interface design can be seen here;

After this stage I went on to create wireframes based upon my research, you can see these here;

Finally, I created actual designs of my content management system, you can see this here;

Facebook marketing campaign

Facebook marketing is a key part of my online marketing scheme, it allows me to target a wide range of my audience very easily based on their location. Firstly I started by creating a Facebook page where potential visitors could get an idea of scale and quality of the exhibition by being able to see how many people like it, their comments on the posts in the museum and also the pictures posted on the Facebook wall giving a deeper insight int what is going on in the museum exhibition.

Next I started a Facebook advertisement campaign to target people within a 10 mile radius of the museum from my target audience, this means that the advert would be see by about 140,000 potential visitors. An internal study of Facebook advertisers found that over 90% of people viewed ads and shopped in the store did not click on the ads, this means that Facebook advertisements act more like digital billboards to create awareness of a brand or event.

The success of a Facebook advert, as previously mentioned isn’t entered based on clicks but obviously clicks do also drive sales, so I have researched what the click through rate is in comparison to the cost per click. The average click through rate for an event is 0.028%, but out of a total of 140,000 visitors that converts to a total of 3,920 of users clicking through on the advertisement. While this isn’t a compiletely impressive conversion rate, it is worth noting that other users will purchase tickets without clicking on the advert as aforementioned.

References;

https://www.facebook.com/business/a/expert-tips-conversion-tracking

Design Influences

These user intefaces have also influenced my design so I thought it would be important to note them. They are directly related to alchemy apps that I have experimented with.

Alchemy

This exhibition will be viewed by many people both young and old. Needs to be very accessible and have and dictation content that is easy to understand for a wide audience. I need to create a website that not only creates a magical feel and experience for the user but also inspires the user to go to the exhibition, this can be done through use of a really powerful marketing response. I have chosen topic of alchemy because within crates an feel of mystery, with many of their spells relating to making gold from other materials and creating a philosophers stone that extends life that creates immortal human beings. I have read “Alchemy and Mysticism” written by Alexander Roob and “The philosopher’s Stone” by Peter Marshall. Both of these books have emphasised the point of unrealistic spells to further prolong their life. All the elements within the spells are made up of the four elements earth wind water and fire. Below are my initial notes I made;

– Story of the preservation of Lady Tai.
– Charcoal & Mercury Sulphate creates perfect body preservation.
– It was believed that mercury could be turned into gold.
– Adding Mercury to copper would make it look like gold
– It’s a symbol of pure consciousness of the journey of your mind to enlightenment