(click on logo to go to the deviantArt website)
For the third iWrite brief, I will be analysing the deviantArt website. deviantArt is a site where artists from across the world who work in various mediums, such as paint, film, Photoshop, photography etc., can join and upload their work for other people to view and comment on. There is also a chance to win awards for your art through the site and the ability to design their own deviantArt logos for the merchandise to be sold through the site.
According to Wysocki (2004), your first look at an Internet page or site should initially have you understand its functions and purposes as it should follow the visual conventions of the genre it is. Thus the arrangement of the website is one of the most important parts of the design overall, in order to create a good first impression. Having the art where it is, right in the centre of the homepage, makes it the evident main feature and therefore lets the viewer know what the website is about immediately, art. While deviantArt's website itself doesn't follow the normal set out of using various of fonts and many differing colours, it is very obvious that the purpose of the website is not academic. The most popular pieces of uploading artwork, or "deviations" as they are called on the site, in the last 8 hours are displayed in the middle of the homepage with links to the multiple categories of art that they offer on the left. Instead of having to navigate away from the main page, the information and news about deviantArt can be found by scrolling down, underneath the featured "Deviations" section. The design choice of having a 'Join Now' section in the Deviations section, to the right of the first two rows of artwork, means that while the viewers eyes are drawn initially to the artwork, they are then drawn towards the joining section, hence lead them to think about joining and how easy it is.
The typeface, as mentioned above, doesn't really deviate from the same one font. The only change to typeface on the homepage is the size. Keeping the same font puts little emphasis on the textual aspect of the page, hence telling the audience that text isn't an important part of the website as a whole. They even use Times New Roman as their typeface, the most commonly used font in the computer world. According to Nielsen (2007), web users spend 4.4 seconds reading for every extra 100 words on a page and only 16% of web page visitors read word-for-word. Use of intertextuality or textual aspects would therefore be redundant in the pull of new viewers. The areas of the web page that use textual interaction are those that are for use of people already involved in the deviantArt world, such as the site news and blog sections. They are not effectively used in the draw of an audience, but rather to keep current members informed as studies of online interactivity have “understandably focused on interactive features unique to new media, but features of the text itself, such as the use of first person, active voice, first name reference, and direct address, can engage the users and increase their sense of presence and immediacy of the message source.” (Warnick, 2006). The fact that most of the text and textual interaction on deviantArt is by the users for the users, rather than by the web page owner/designer for the users. It is used more as a way to keep current member users, not bring in new ones.
In terms of visuals, the homepage colour is only varying shades of green, with most of the bright, obvious colours coming from the featured artworks. This is a great idea, in my opinion, as it enhances the viewing experience of the artworks for the viewers as they are not distracted by loud, bright colours in the background. According to Wysocki (2004), websites that are aiming to be taken seriously tend to use muted colours, and/or a limited number of colours. The designer of the page was evidently expecting the people visiting the site to be concentrating on the art, not the web design, and didn't want to take away from the artworks with over-stimulating site designs as “someone who is composing a text that has visual materiality has to pick and choose among available strategies to build a text that attracts a desired audience, is understandable to that audience, and moves it towards the ends desired by the composer.” (Wysocki, 2004). Therefore, while still staying within their ideas and perimeters of what they want the site to look and to promote, site designers also need to think about the audience they are targeting and how they can get that audience interested in the use of their site. When looking at the web page, attention is instantly drawn to the featured art on the page rather than any of the other aspects of lesser importance on the page, which shows that the designer got the effect he desired for the artwork to be the main feature of the page, not the page's design by using subtle back tones. Also, I like the idea of using graphic links as well as text links. While there are the patent text links for things such as the various categories of art, the chat and forum, there are also graphic links. Instead of having a 'Home' text link, the viewer clicks on the deviantArt logo in the top left and are transported back to the homepage. To view a featured artwork's artist and their gallery, the viewer simply clicks on the featured art they were admiring and are transported to the artist's deviantArt page.
References
Nielsen, J. (2007). Writing for the web: Research on how users read on the web and how authors should write their web pages. Retrieved October 27, 2009 from: http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/
Warnick, B. (2006). Rhetoric on the web. In P. Messaris and L. Humphreys (Eds.), Digital Media; Transformations in Human Communication, pp. 139 – 146, New York: Lang.
Wysocki, A. F. (2004). The multiple media of texts: How onscreen and paper texts incorporate words, images and other media. In C. Bazerman and P. Prior, (Eds.) What writing does and how it does it: An introduction to analyzing texts and textual practices, pp. 123–163, Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum.
According to Wysocki (2004), your first look at an Internet page or site should initially have you understand its functions and purposes as it should follow the visual conventions of the genre it is. Thus the arrangement of the website is one of the most important parts of the design overall, in order to create a good first impression. Having the art where it is, right in the centre of the homepage, makes it the evident main feature and therefore lets the viewer know what the website is about immediately, art. While deviantArt's website itself doesn't follow the normal set out of using various of fonts and many differing colours, it is very obvious that the purpose of the website is not academic. The most popular pieces of uploading artwork, or "deviations" as they are called on the site, in the last 8 hours are displayed in the middle of the homepage with links to the multiple categories of art that they offer on the left. Instead of having to navigate away from the main page, the information and news about deviantArt can be found by scrolling down, underneath the featured "Deviations" section. The design choice of having a 'Join Now' section in the Deviations section, to the right of the first two rows of artwork, means that while the viewers eyes are drawn initially to the artwork, they are then drawn towards the joining section, hence lead them to think about joining and how easy it is.
The typeface, as mentioned above, doesn't really deviate from the same one font. The only change to typeface on the homepage is the size. Keeping the same font puts little emphasis on the textual aspect of the page, hence telling the audience that text isn't an important part of the website as a whole. They even use Times New Roman as their typeface, the most commonly used font in the computer world. According to Nielsen (2007), web users spend 4.4 seconds reading for every extra 100 words on a page and only 16% of web page visitors read word-for-word. Use of intertextuality or textual aspects would therefore be redundant in the pull of new viewers. The areas of the web page that use textual interaction are those that are for use of people already involved in the deviantArt world, such as the site news and blog sections. They are not effectively used in the draw of an audience, but rather to keep current members informed as studies of online interactivity have “understandably focused on interactive features unique to new media, but features of the text itself, such as the use of first person, active voice, first name reference, and direct address, can engage the users and increase their sense of presence and immediacy of the message source.” (Warnick, 2006). The fact that most of the text and textual interaction on deviantArt is by the users for the users, rather than by the web page owner/designer for the users. It is used more as a way to keep current member users, not bring in new ones.
In terms of visuals, the homepage colour is only varying shades of green, with most of the bright, obvious colours coming from the featured artworks. This is a great idea, in my opinion, as it enhances the viewing experience of the artworks for the viewers as they are not distracted by loud, bright colours in the background. According to Wysocki (2004), websites that are aiming to be taken seriously tend to use muted colours, and/or a limited number of colours. The designer of the page was evidently expecting the people visiting the site to be concentrating on the art, not the web design, and didn't want to take away from the artworks with over-stimulating site designs as “someone who is composing a text that has visual materiality has to pick and choose among available strategies to build a text that attracts a desired audience, is understandable to that audience, and moves it towards the ends desired by the composer.” (Wysocki, 2004). Therefore, while still staying within their ideas and perimeters of what they want the site to look and to promote, site designers also need to think about the audience they are targeting and how they can get that audience interested in the use of their site. When looking at the web page, attention is instantly drawn to the featured art on the page rather than any of the other aspects of lesser importance on the page, which shows that the designer got the effect he desired for the artwork to be the main feature of the page, not the page's design by using subtle back tones. Also, I like the idea of using graphic links as well as text links. While there are the patent text links for things such as the various categories of art, the chat and forum, there are also graphic links. Instead of having a 'Home' text link, the viewer clicks on the deviantArt logo in the top left and are transported back to the homepage. To view a featured artwork's artist and their gallery, the viewer simply clicks on the featured art they were admiring and are transported to the artist's deviantArt page.
References
Images from:
deviantArt screenshot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeviantArt
deviantArt logo: http://artbykaty.com/Images/
Nielsen, J. (2007). Writing for the web: Research on how users read on the web and how authors should write their web pages. Retrieved October 27, 2009 from: http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/
Warnick, B. (2006). Rhetoric on the web. In P. Messaris and L. Humphreys (Eds.), Digital Media; Transformations in Human Communication, pp. 139 – 146, New York: Lang.
Wysocki, A. F. (2004). The multiple media of texts: How onscreen and paper texts incorporate words, images and other media. In C. Bazerman and P. Prior, (Eds.) What writing does and how it does it: An introduction to analyzing texts and textual practices, pp. 123–163, Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum.
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