Design Context : DESIGN PRODUCTION - BRIEF 2

I reviewed the study task and realized that by completing it I would also be completing the majority of my research for the web brief.

The success of the project relies on my understanding of the target audience and subsequent organisation of information and visual media.

I started my research by creating a survey which I disseminated to as many skateboarders as possible, I aimed to achieve this by disseminating the survey to skateboard forums, and to skateboard acquaintances I have on various social networking sites. The aim of the survey was to generate some qualitative, quantitative and primary research regarding the ages of skateboarders, insights and feelings about the spot and its history

SURVEY QUESTIONS

I started creating questions for my survey by listing questions that will generate information regarding qualitative, quantitative and primary research.

QUESTION REFINEMENT

The questions generated from my original brainstorm are very mismatch and need refining to define the most relevant. Furthermore, to host my survey I am using a website called 'Survey Monkey', unfortunately as I am not paying for a full access account I am limited to using ten questions.

After choosing each question I simplified the sentences structure and wording so that the questions are easy to understand for a range of ages.

Below are my chosen questions;

How old are you?
When did you start skateboarding?
Do you visit skateboarding websites? if answered yes, how often?
Do you think knowing about the history of skateboarding is important?
What are your feelings about the history of skateboarding?
Do you think knowing about how the sport started is important?
Do you think that skateboard graphics are appealing?
Would you be more likely to look through with a website if it had skateboarding style graphics?

SURVEY

Using the refined questions shown above I created my survey which can be seen below;

Next, I collected and analysed the results of the survey and applied any appropriate information to the research methods given by the study task.

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Qualitative research is all about collecting peoples opinions and feelings regarding the area of research. I wanted to find out what my target audience thought about my initial concept of creating a skateboard history website, and whether they thought its important to know.

To collect my research I created questions relating to the concept and content of my site. Giving participants the option to write a response instead of just selecting a multiple choice answer enabled me to get peoples thoughts and feelings regarding the presented question.

Below are the written responses I received;

DO YOU THINK THE HISTORY OF SKATEBOARDING IS IMPORTANT?

Responses;

If you are interested in the sport then yes
Influences skating in so many ways, its important to know!
Im not that knowledgable on the history tbh
not really can be
Depending on who it is, it will be important to some, but definitely interesting!
It's good to know but isn't important, it's interesting to know if anything

Analyzing the results;

The written responses to this question indicate that people generally feel that it is important to know to history of skateboarding if you are interested in the sport or a skateboarder yourself.

Other comments such as; "not really can be" and "Im not that knowledgeable on the history tbh" point towards the fact that others are more bothered about actually practicing the sport over knowing the history.

WHAT ARE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF SKATEBOARDING?

Its important to know where the sport originated from and how it still effects the spot today.
its good to know where the sport came from.
dont know much about it, would like to know more.
Important to know and interesting
dont know much about it, should probably know more
Know it, know your roots
weird and rapid progression from nothing to something
its sick but its history!
I don't know much about it, likely because I don't skate but I think it's be pretty interesting to find out.
The history of skateboarding shows the true creativity and independence of what skateboarding is about, with guys inventing tricks that have never been done before and pioneering what is now one of the most well known extreme sports in the world.
important as looking at the past and gaining inspiration from it helps the progression of the sport
purple
History is important! Its the start point of skating! Without it all these tricks wouldn't be around now.
I would like to know what different styles came from different parts of the world...
I find it interesting
the 80s were a stupid era.
Super awesome
I think how it has progressed from what it first was to how it is now really shows that it's not just a sport that teenagers get involved in for fun, but it's something that is pioneering, adventurous and genius. Jumping down sets of stairs on a piece of wood with four wheels and making that look cool is pretty fascinating.
Dog Town and Z-Boys is top notch viewing.
Pretty cool how it all came from surfing, not a lot of people know that
Doesnt interest me
It's interesting and passionate
amazing how it has dramatically changed and developed into more street skating.
Knowing your roots is important! Skateboarding history also continues to influence the sport today.

Analyzing the results;

Firstly, this question got the most written responses as it was specifically designed to collect qualitative data. Utilizing only a comment box answering method pushed more people to write a response which helped to create qualitative information.

The general consensus outlined the history of skateboarding as "Interesting" and "important", the results collected are really beneficial as they point towards the fact that my target audience feel that the content of my site is important to know and interesting.

A comment that stood out to me over all the others was "its sick but its history", this statement outlines the fact that although its an interesting subject learning about it is generally unegaging. My response will solve this problem as it will communicate the important parts of skateboard history in an aesthetically alluring way, hence engaging my audience in the information making it interesting to learn.

DO YOU THINK KNOWING ABOUT HOW SKATEBOARDING STARTED IS IMPORTANT?

Not necessarily, for example, if someone was just starting out knowing the history wouldn't be overly important
It is and it isn't depends how serious you are taking the sport
helps people who are new understand that its tough at first. its not a basic instinct to be able to roll on four wheels on a plank, and do loads of other mad shit too. thats why skateboarding was so basic at first
To skateboarders definitely and to people who frown upon it.

Analyzing the results;

As I only received four replies to this questions the results are quite varied, despite this they are still rich in qualitative opinions. Firstly, the majority of the comments state that knowing about the history of the sport is not overly important unless you are really interested in the sport or skateboard yourself. These results are useful in reinforcing my target audience of skateboarders and people interested in the sport.

DO YOU THINK SKATEBOARDING GRAPHICS ARE APPEALING/INTERESTING?

skateboard graphics are appealing, check that dude jimbo phillips who got his designs ripped off by jeremy scott. must show they are worth ripping off no?
Some of them.

Analyzing the results;

The results where also lacking as the question had a multiple choice and comment box, therefore the majority of participants answered using the multiple choice answering option which provides no usable qualitative research.

WOULD YOU BE MORE LIKELY TO LOOK THE CONTENT OF A WEBSITE IF IT HAD SKATEBOARD STYLE GRAPHICS?

depends on the content
how are skateboard style graphics different to other graphics/art?
maybe more bothered about the price
Definitely, appealing/well made design can be the one factor that even allows non-skaters to indulge in a skate-related site better.
Depends what the website is about but mostly yes.

Analyzing the results;

I received mixed answers to this question mostly because it was communicated in quite a vague context. Unfortunately, this is because I wrote the questions so that a younger audience of 11+ would be able to answer them, despite the adaptation of questions nobody from that young age band ended up responding to the survey. In future I need to consider the wording of my questions in much more detail to ensure that I can collect more relevant data.

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

Quantitative research is all about collecting relevant data. As the content of my site is focused on skateboard history the majority of my content will be collected using secondary resources. However, the questions posed by my survey enabled me to collect quantitative data regarding my target audience and the focus of my site.

Below is the data collected;

Of the participants that answered this question 86% visit skateboard websites on a fairly regular basis, this evidences the fact that my target audience have a regular involvement with internet based skateboard content and therefore would be likely to interact with a site similar to mine.

Furthermore, the results from this survey showed that the participants believed that the history of skateboarding is important, the fact that the audience think this leads me to believe that there is an interest in the topic which gives the site a reason to exist.

This question was an important one with regards to the audiences feelings about the contents focus. The questions asked participants about their opinions regarding the importance of knowing about skateboard history, if participants answered negatively towards this question it would seriously underpin the concept of my site. Luckily, the majority of users thought that an understanding of how the sport began is important.

The final question was posed to find out if participants of the survey found illustrative skateboard style graphics appealing, the data collected from the results to this question will help influence my aesthetic choices at latter stages of the design process. Results to the question indicated that 96% of survey participants find the graphics appealing. Therefore, I will balance illustrative graphics and historic information to help my audience engage and digest the information communicated.

SECONDARY RESEARCH

I started collecting secondary research that is very data based, focusing on the ages of skaters that attended one of the largest indoor skateparks in America the 'Skatepark of Tampa'. I decided to review at these statistics as they provide a relatively good insight into the ages of skateboarders, information that can then be used to support the findings from my primary survey. The combination of data taken from my survey and other secondary sources will provide me with a solid platform as to which I can define my target audience from.

In 2008 the most popular ages of skateboarders attending the 'Skatepark of Tampa' ranged from 11 - 20.

In 2012 there seems to be a much more diverse range of age when compared to the last chart which shows ages from 2008, the range increase could be due to a raise in popularity for the sport.
The results taken from this chart show that the most common ages of skaters attending the 'Skatepark of Tampa' are between the ages of 10 - 25.

Link

CONCLUSION

The results collected from the 2012 age range data supports the data collected from the participants of my survey. Firstly, in the graph shown above the most common age of skaters falls between 11 and 22, similarly the results from my survey also indicated that the majority of survey participants were between the ages of 11 and 30 (The age range taken from my surveys is much less focused that the table above because of the unspecific age ranges selected, this is a problem that I will address in future projects).

The combination of both my primary and secondary data has allowed me to define the specific age range to which my outcome will be aimed at.

FURTHER SECONDARY RESEARCH

Moreover, the information that will form the majority of my content will be collected from my summer brief research which was collected from a book called ' 'Dysfunctional' by Aaron Rose. Although the book offers an insightful look into skateboarding history I still felt that further research needed completing, the book lacks focus in certain areas such as the legendary skate teams that propelled the skateboarding movement forwards and the evolution of the skateboard. Therefore, I decided to collect some further, focused secondary research to help complete the information that will be used to write the content of my outcome.

(add brief secondary res)

SEGMENTATION

Segmentation is a term which refers to the defining of a specific target audience from a wider market. To help me define a focused target audience I used data collected from my survey combined with data based results collected for secondary research.

The segmentation of my target audience ties in with the conclusion reached above where I cross examined results from primary and secondary sources.

SURVEY RESULTS;

The age groups selected for my survey were not thought out well with regards to defining a specific audience, due to the range of age for each group for exmaple 11 year old will have drastically different aesthetic and intellectual preferences to a 20 year old.

SECONDARY DATA RESULTS;

As mentioned above, the results from my survey and secondary data have already been cross examined, the results indicated that my audience would consist of people between the ages of 14 and 24.

Results taken from the secondary research show that an audience younger that that would also be relevant. However, designing content for such a broad age range entails simplifying information and reconsidering aesthetic choices so that they are applicable to all of the audience. I believe that simplifying the site in this way would affect the effectiveness of the contents delivery to the older band of my audience. Therefore, I decided to focus the age range of my audience so that the content can delivered in an effective, appropriate way.

FOCUS GROUPS

VISUAL RESEARCH

I focused my visual research on existing websites that have qualities that could be utilized to make my site more appropriate and functional. Using design inspiration websites such as Awwwards allowed me to browse the more high quality websites that can be found on the web.

This After That by Mike Kennedy -

Website utilizes an infinite scroll which helps guide viewers through the sites content, people are more likely to engage with more of the content as they don't have to click any links.
The limited colour pallet creates visual consistency which is aesthetically pleasing.
I will also make use of a limited colour pallet, my chosen colours will be selected from the 256 web safe colours.
The website has been placed in a central column with neighboring negative space at either side, this focuses the viewer attention on the content and also helps focus the viewers eye on the content provided.

Link

FIXATE - Web and Design.

Website makes full use of the width of the screen, visual elements are placed right too the edge, this makes for a really engaging composition.
Visual media guides viewer around page.
Site makes use of the infinite scroll function.
The illustrative visual elements are appropriate to websites content.
An infinite scroll would suit the function of my website well as it would allow viewers to easily navigate through my content.

Link

Existing websites - Timeline

Energy Trust

The homepage is simple and directs the viewer through to the the timeline.
I want my homepage to have a similar effect, it should briefly introduce the viewer to the sites content and direct them towards the more important information. To achieve this I will have a link that viewers click that will take the viewer through to the timeline.

The timeline is interactive and very illustrative.
You navigate the timeline using the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen, this is a good concept and allows you to scroll continuously in a horizontal direction.
My outcome could feature a similar method of navigation to allow viewers to browse through the sites main content with ease.

Another nice feature that the site has is the small fixed window in the top centre of the image, as the viewer scrolls further along the timeline the information displayed changes.

The timeline also features small icons you can click which brings up more information.
My outcome could utilize a similar feature, this would allow me to have a illustration heavy timeline with small links that open up information regarding the image.

Link

The 'Anne Frank Timeline' is a feature on Anne Frank's website that lets users utilize a horizontal scrolling method of navigation to browse information.
As users scroll along the timeline the pictorial content changes, my site could utilize a similar technique to let users navigate along the timeline.

The scrolling method in more detail.

LINK

The Beauty of Letterpress - 600 Years of Printing History

Link

KINETIC V5

The 'Kinetic V5' website features an infinite scroll feature that allows users to scroll down continuously to see content.
My timeline could utilize a similar mode of navigation.
The site also effectively utilizes textured backgrounds that have a grungy style effect as the site is based around handmade zines. My subject and focus of my website also has large DIY influence and so could use similar textured background images.

The interative illustrations used on the websites also remind me of Neck Face's artwork, a skateboard related artist I featured in my summer brief research. To engage my target audience of skateboarders my outcome could utilize similar a similar graphic style.
Summer brief link - http://j-harrisonreader1215-sb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/summer-brief-final-research-topic.html

The sites graphics have been styled in a hand rendered fashion reflecting the DIY ethic of zine culture, I want to replicate a similar style when creating my site as rough, hand rendered aesthetics appeal to my target audience.

Link

Existing websites - Skateboarding History

Skateboarding Magazine - The Evolution of Skateboarding