Website Layout Research

I need to design a website that relates well to my magazine, to do this I need to follow conventions and look closely at other entertainment- fashion lifestyle magazines. Here is what I found in order of how I saw it.

Look Magazine:

A Pop Up- personally I find pop ups quite annoying, the screen loads first and just as you're about to get on with what you can to the website for it pops up and and demands you do something which you have to do so that you continue doing what you first intended to do. For a privacy, competition, discount code notifications I prefer a banner at the top or bottom of the page, its less demanding and more user friendly.

The Masthead- It is certainly necessary to have the masthead the first thing a user sees, it lets them know they have found the right website and it is the biggest link to the physical magazine and creates synergy.

An Ad- This product would be well advertised to the TA of LOOK. It is a very female based aged 25-40 TA at which age hair dye would be of interest to them. If I am to use an advert the product must be of intrigue to fun loving go-getters aged 16 to 25 of both male and female.





The Navigation Bar- The navigation bar was right under the masthead and is very user friendly. They are a solid convention of websites in general, not just magazine websites which is why I will definitely will be using on on my website.

The navigation bar also has subheadings for 'Life' and 'Hey Busy Girl' which I like and think would be helpful for users.


Social Media Links- This is very important when it comes to attracting my TA. My research on my target audience revealed that 80% of respondents 'hardly ever' read magazines; which is the result of having everything in the magazine available on their phones, tablets, laptops etc. Having social media links would be a great way to advertise something exclusive to the magazine.

A Large Image/Title- As you scroll down you see a very large image. I found that this image was too big, you couldn't see the whole image without having to scroll up and down and the white text was difficult to read with the background. However, I like the idea of having an image as a title background. This highlights to me that I'd have to be careful in choosing the image and text colour. Furthermore, if you click on the image it takes you to a feature page that links to the title on the image.

The Features- As you scroll down, you reach a heading and the features that relate to the features. I like this, its very organised and clear. This would be a great opportunity to link to the magazine, maybe there is an feature in the magazine that requires updates, this would be a good call to action and persuade readers to visit the website.

Page Link- At the end of each section of features it give you the option to view more feature which is I like.




Elle Magazine

Thing that Elle has the Look doesn't:

Navigation tool


Next to the navigation bar, there was this symbol, when you click on it takes you to another navigation tool.


5 Suggested Features






Picture links to the top 5 features are right under the navigation tool.



Rather than being under a heading each feature has a tag to say what section they are from.


Variety Magazine:

Some things different Variety has:

Top Story Section- similar to Elle but presented differently.

 

A Login- Create an account. This could be great at personalising a users website experience with recommended section due to past articles read etc.w