PRP Artefact Evaluation
Artefact 4 - News web page

The news design took 5-6 hours to create in Photoshop CS2. I based the design on the bbc.co.uk news website. I changed the navigation element of the design by adding a menu bar under the banner. This feature wasn’t in the bbc’s design, but this is an element which reflects other websites in the news genre. A genre which is especially dedicated to the access and usability of it’s content.


The following graph displays the results of question one of the questionaire. Out of 21 people surveyed, only 14% thought the artefact was designed to be a news site. 52% thought it was a games community site, while 26% thought it was a car showroom and 8% voted for portfolio site.

The design element which averaged the most influential was the Content design and position. These elements were also influencial in the games community and car showroom designs.

This is the first artefact which has failed to be correctly identified by the people surveyed. A possible explaination for this that the site I based the artefact on (bbc.co.uk) is free from some of the print-based design elements associated with newspapers and magazines. Nowadays, designers are increasingly thinking about the accessability and usability of their sites. But this approach to may not yet be registering with user’s when they think of a news site.

The opinions of the people who were surveyed about the primary function of the design is varied. I expected this after viewing the results to question one. The opinions are as follows:

To entertain: 28%
For communication: 24%
For advertising: 24%
To inform: 19%
For marketing: 5%

In conclusion, the survey results suggest that the artefact’s design elements are not in keeping with what people associate with a news website.

However, I think these views are likely to change as news websites become more geared towards user ease of access and usability.