Archive for November, 2009
Cool Custom 404 Pages
A collection of 54 well-designed Error 404 (Not Found) pages from a variety of sites. Almost as good as the page you wanted to find!
I’m particularly fond of this one:
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Loading ...The Deadly Dog Virus
We took a break this week from our magazine-publishing project to look at persuasive writing. How can we use logic, authority, and emotion most effectively to get what we want? In our classroom scenario, 10 teams advocated on behalf of owners whose dogs had been struck with a lethal dog virus (H2N2? Shih Tzu Flu?). The catch: the village vet (me) only had vaccine for two of the 10 dogs. Lively presentations led to even livelier voting, which culminated in these two winners. Meet the survivors…
Dog 1: Beano
Owner: PC Ryan Lee – Ryan is a thirty-year-old police officer who works with Beano, his police dog. Together they have caught many criminals. Last month they captured a terrorist who was plotting to blow up a train.
Dog: Beano – Beano is a well-trained ten-year-old police-dog. He is completely obedient to his owner and shows great intelligence sniffing out trouble.
THE STUDENT PITCH
Beano is a well-trained, protective, and dedicated police beagle. He is completely obedient to his owner, Const. Ryan Lee, and shows great intelligence sniffing out trouble.
Together with Ryan, Beano has helped catch many criminals. Last month, they captured a terrorist who was plotting to blow up a train, saving millions of lives. This action earned both Ryan and Beano a personal commendation from the Queen. She went so far as to call Beano a “national hero”.
Locally, Beano saves lives, and contributes to the safety and security of our community. If we allow this dog to die from this horrible virus, we put the entire community at risk. With the training that Beano has been given, our community has invested a great deal in Beano; allowing him to die would cost the community both directly and indirectly.
Because of the service Beano has given this town, we owe him this vaccine.
And number two…
Dog 2: Oscar
Owner: Lee Travers – thirty-year-old Lee is an international rescue worker who travels the world with his dog searching for survivors from disasters. He is married with a two-year-old daughter, but is often away from home with his dog.
Dog: Oscar is thirteen and a very experienced sniffer dog. Wherever there is an earthquake or a building collapsed or someone trapped underground, Lee gets paid to come with his dog and search for survivors. Oscar puts his life at risk searching for people using his sense of smell. Over the years Oscar has saved the lives of many people.
THE STUDENT PITCH
Oscar has saved over 700 people in his career as a sniff dog in England. England has a history of natural disasters including earth quakes, tornados, and floods. These natural disasters result in people becoming injured, trapped, and helpless. You could become trapped from a natural disaster. Oscar could save your life.
Oscar’s entire life has been dedicated to working and training as an experienced sniff dog. Oscar saves on average 60 lives a year — that’s one life saved per week.
Should Oscar die from the virus, Lee’s wife and his two-year old daughter will suffer, because Lee’s career depends on Oscar’s ability to save lives.
Oscar selflessly saves lives every day, so his life should be saved today.
Download the full classroom exercise, which I adapted here.
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That’s the challenge for students of CMNS 165 (Writing for New Media). In five teams, they’re competing for funding of their group e-mag. (Note: My apology to all the design students for the hodgepodge of bolds/headings/subheads hierarchy. Suggestions?)
Step One: The Memo
The Challenge Write a memo to the funder, explaining the purpose of your site, its target audience, and what competition exists online. Choose two competing sites and write a memo targeting their strengths and weaknesses.
Group 1: Broke.ca
TO: Big Money Burns (Chief Editor)
FROM: Team Broke.ca
DATE: Tuesday, 20 October, 2009
SUBJECT: brokegradstudent.com and lifehacker.com homepage layoutAs readership is growing steadily at Broke.ca, we think it’s time to take a serious look at our competition. ‘brokeinboston.com’ and ‘brokeasstuart.com’ are both examples of sites with themes similar to our own.
- Broke in Boston is a website built upon the release of a published book of the same name. The book and the website cross promote each other, and the website is constantly updated with new leads and tips on saving within the Boston area. The website also includes a blogroll with additional information that’s related to both the book and saving money in general.
- Broke Ass Stuart contains similar information (with a less pertinent literary cross promotion) concentrated primarily on the New York area. What Broke Ass also offers is humour. More specifically, Stuart offers crass humour, limiting its audience to those with a flexible funny bone. One of the main differences between the sites is the ‘Do It Yourself’ section in Broke Ass. Another difference is the inclusion of information pertaining to other cities.
Both sites, considering the similarities they share with our vision, should provide Broke.ca with plenty of inspiration. That being said, we are not trying to emulate these sites, but rather build on their examples and create a superior end product. Combining Broke in Boston’s penchant for informative content with Broke Ass Stuart’s humour (though less crass), Broke.ca will be the premier source for affordable living information for the Lower Mainland.
Group 2: FutureOfThings.com
To: John Burns, Chief ResearcherF
From: FutureThings Research Team
Date: October 20, 2009
Subject: Progress ReportWe wish to inform you on the current progress of our research.
Futureofthings.com is a threat to our magazine. Their content consists of the type of articles we want to publish (i.e., conceptual products, products that might be in production 10 - 20 years from now, where technologies might be headed, etc.)
Retrofuture.com is a website that looks back to the designs of the past. Over history, designs have always found a way of reappearing in modern day things. When a designer hits the drawing board, the first thing they do is research into the past. Retrofuture.com addresses this. By referencing Retro Futureʼs theories on what they thought technology would be today, our articles will produce educated projections of what technology may be in the distant future.
FutureThings will enhance its content by incorporating the above ideas and consolidating this information into one online magazine.
Group 3: GeekLife.com
To: John Burns, Research and Development Liaison
From: GeekLife Magazine group
Date: 20 October 2009
Subject: GeekLife Magazine’s top two online sites are Wired and Geek MonthlyOur group is creating an online magazine for geeks about everything relating to “geek-dom”. This includes articles about the geek lifestyle, games, movies and cool new gadgets that fellow geeks will enjoy.
We have selected Wired Mag (www.wired.com) and Geek Monthly (www.geekmonthly.com) to be our two best sources for reference.
Comparative Site Analysis
Wired Mag
This site contains articles on gadgets, science, and technology. The articles cover a wide degree of topics to appeal to a larger audience. Each topic has its own individual section (e.g. blog, reviews, how-tos).Conclusion: This site would be a great example of the type of topics we should cover, and also as a guideline for how we should write our articles.
Geek Monthly
This is a printed monthly geek lifestyle magazine. It has articles relating to: latest technology gadgets, toys, science, entertainment for geeks (such as Anime, TV shows, and movies), how-to information, and zombies. This is essentially what we want to do online, but in print. The website itself focuses on promoting its print magazine.Conclusion: This magazine targets the same readership that we are hoping to attract with GeekLife. The website is not very well organized, but we should use the print magazine to determine the scope and depth of our articles.
We will send you the full comparative site analysis report next week.
Group 4: SoundOfCanada.com
To: Head of research and development department, John Burns
From: Sound of Canada Online Magazine
Date: Oct. 20, Oct. 2009
Subject: SOC Market ResearchIn order to succeed in marketing our online magazine, we must know our competition. The competition is quite fierce out there. Our online magazine is still in the development process, and it’s going to need a lot of work to be the best. To ensure our magazine reaches the top, we will have to take some useful ideas from the two websites attached.
The Radio 3 website has specific focus is on Canadian music and artists. The site has many good features such as event calendar, music samples, appealing layout, credibility, valuable information, accessibility and usability.
The Canadian musician website is very different. The design is not as remarkable and welcoming as the first one. This website has a broad range of American and Canadian music. It would be a good idea to use Canadian Musician websites as our inspiration to stay focused on development of our website.
I suggest we get together Oct.27/09 at 6 pm, one week from now, to discuss the ideas and development of our SOC online magazine.
Attachments:
http://radio3.cbc.ca/
http://www.canadianmusician.com/
Group 5: UrbanNosh.com
To: John Burns, Research & Development
From: Urban Nosh Team
Date: October 20, 2009
Re: Competition Websites EvaluationWebsite: chow.com Website: vanmag.com/restaurants
In preparation for the construction of the Urban Nosh website, a review was conducted of eight Vancouver “food centric” websites. Two sites have been identified as containing features useful to the creation of the Urban Nosh website.
Chow.com incorporates the following elements into their website:
• insider food/restaurant info.
• heavy on the recipe section
• restaurant reviews
• seasonal features
• blog and columns (articles – city specific)
• excellent section called “chowland” for forums, how-to’s, advice, where’s the best deli sandwich, etc
• excellent section called “mychow” is a customized page for your personal collection of chow.com content
• “Members”: publishing recipes, responses, questions, favourites, etc
• user review section
• ratings based on review ratings (5 stars)
• visual “How To” guides, video contentChow.com Summary
Chow.com incorporates many excellent elements that would work well for Urban Nosh. Additionally, this site exudes a professional yet casual tone similar to what has been discussed for Urban Nosh. It is not, however, Vancouver based and therefore Urban Nosh would retain a niche incorporating this type of format from a Vancouver perspective.VanMag.com incorporates the following elements into their site:
• article based
• lots of content (lists, recipes, videos)
• very good pictures
• robust search engine
• not possible to submit reviews
• mostly high end restaurantsVanMag.com/Restaurants Summary
Vanmag.com is an article based website, not drawn from user content. There is lots of good content, good photographs and the search engine works well. This site parallels the vision for Urban Nosh primarily with the amount of content, searchability and look.Conclusion
Chow.com and Vanmag.com both incorporate some of the elements we envision for Urban Nosh. It is suggested that both websites, while not perfect examples of what we envision, will no doubt be useful to our endeavors as we move forward in the development of Urban Nosh.
Coming up next:
Step Two: The Report
The Challenge: Present the results of your web analysis in a short formal report presenting your analysis of the state of online publishing in the area you have chosen for your own web site. Clarify what original contribution your publication will make that sets it apart from the rest.
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Hey Photoshopping web designers! Want to speed up your workflow through instant access to common UI elements? Use the Web UI Treasure Chest:
Web UI Treasure Chest (free download)
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