Research

Sam Baylis

Mostly researching websites about TV shows or movies as I would like to do my website on Game of Thrones. Doing this research will help me understand how

professional and official TV shows websites are laid out and designed. This will give me the experience I need when it comes to creating my own website for Game of Thrones.

The target audience for my website would be Males aged 18-30. I believe this is my target audience as Game of Thrones is a fantasy, action and adventure series which includes a lot of graphic violence and nudity. This type of genre is generally what this

males would be more into compared to females, there are females who do watch Game of Thrones but its mostly Males.

First example – Game of Thrones official

websiteThis website includes large images at the every front of the page. These images can be effective for the target audience as it is nice and simple images which are placed at the top of the website. This can be a nice eye opener for the website that could allow the audience to continue scrolling through the website.

The website also automatically resizes for when you scale the site. This helps with interactivity for the website.

http://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones#/game-of-thrones

The website has two main navigation bars with some of the same sub menu’s and buttons.

There is also a column which shows the most recent tweets from the official Game of Thrones tweets. This allows the audience to get the latest updates and news on Game of Thrones as well as showing their official twitter page. It also allows you to either reply, favorite or retweet it from the website. When clicked it will open up a popup which lets you login to twitter and be able to do these features.

There is also a column which shows all the episodes for the audience to watch and enjoy.

There is a search bar which allows the audience to search the website for what they want.

They are both included at the top and bottom of the page to ensure that the audience finds it. When you hover over the text the colour will change from white to grey.

Second example – The Walking Dead official

website

This website also consists of large images for an eye opening and interesting site. The navigation bar is very interactive as it drops down a sub menu as you hover the mouse over one of the navigation bars. This allows for plenty of interactivity and content for the page which can be great for the target audience to enjoy.

This page also includes slideshows and a wide variety of images and external links which adds to the interactivity.

http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-walking-dead

There is a search bar which allows the audience to search the website for what they want.

Here there is a slideshow which when clicked scrolls through separate images and text. This slideshow could have been made in InDesign and with different states, when the arrow is clicked it will go to the next state. This will also be saved as a flash format which may not be available to view on mobile devices which is why most websites are using edge animation now.

The slideshow is uses images and text for the different states. The images are also external links to other pages. This adds to the interactivity of the website.

Third example – Video Game High School official

website

This site includes sub menus and external links from the navigation bar which allows the audience to easily navigate through the website and the episodes of the TV show. These sub menus are helpful when it comes to the layout of a website because it stores more information and can make the website look more clean, tidy and professional.

http://www.rocketjump.com/category/vghs#.VMedpEhvZsk

Here there is a slideshow which when clicked scrolls through to the next video/episode. This slideshow could have been made in InDesign and with different states, when the arrow is clicked it will go to the next state.

This video is apart of the slideshow and they is a video which has been embed by YouTube. When clicked, the episode will start playing and you will have the options like any other YouTube video. Such as Play, pause, volume, share on Facebook or twitter, embed, quality, and full screen. This allows for plenty of interactivity for the audience.

This website also includes small images which are external links to all of their social media.

This YouTube video is entered into the website by getting the original YouTube embedded link. Then creating a div table and making sure the size of the box is the same size as the embed link in the code.

Conclusion

From researching and navigating through these websites it has inspired me for when it comes to creating my own site.

I understand that these websites where overall simple and easy to look through.

I also noticed that two out of three websites included links to their twitter, Facebook and other social medias. The site that didn’t include it was the Game of Thrones site which I the site I will be doing.