A few things I need to know?

I have decided to create a questionnaire with the assistance of SurveyMonkey to find out a few things regarding the need for a website to show all services available. I have made up ten questions that I will be asking both friends, family and some other people that use transport services to and from Belfast.

1. Select your Gender
2. What age category do you represent?
3. Are you a student or commuter?
4. What county are you travelling from?
5. How often do you travel for work or university?
6. What is the most important issue when travelling?
7. Is there a need for more information on services to and from Belfast?
8. Are you aware of the various operators that provide services to and from Belfast?
9. Are you aware that there are up to if not more than ten operators providing services to and from Belfast?
10. What would your opinion be on a website that would show all of the operators providing services?

I feel that when these ten questions are answered this will give me a great idea to how big and beneficial the Journi.info website will be. It will also narrow down what my target audience will be, although most will be friends between twenty and thirty we do have to remember I'm not just asking them to fill it in for the sake of it but because they do all travel to and from Belfast on a daily basis.

10/1/2011
I now have obtained all of my feedback from my survey, I have a clearer view of my target audience and their thoughts on my website. In total, twenty six people filled in my questionnaire and gave me very positive feedback of what they thought of the idea of a service that I am going to provide.

For question one when asking about gender, 16 were male and 10 were female showing that out of the thirty people I asked there was a greater population of males than females.

The next question I asked was what age category did the person fit into again there was a high percentage for one category which was 18-30, in fact 17 people were in that group ad next was 41-50 which had 4 people next with 3 people was 31-40, then there were2 people in the age group 51-60 and no-one filled in the category 61-65.

The third question which asked whether or not the person was a student or commuter it was almost balanced with regards numbers but students just edged out slightly with 14 to 12. From the questions I asked operators this seems to be the norm with most companies.

Now I needed to find out where most commuters came from in Ulster. Down came out to with 40% or 10 out of 26, then Armagh came in second with 7 people followed by Derry and Donegal with 2. Antrim, Fermanagh, Monaghan and Tyrone came in with 1 and there was no-one from Cavan who filled in the form.

The main choice when asked how often do you travel to work or university was five times a week which was understandable followed by four times a week which in my own opinion would be mainly students.

The next question was asking what the most important issue was when travelling and 17 said that "Price" was important with "Travel Time" coming in at second. Two people said that the comfort of the coach was important but this doesn't seem to be favoured by many so I'm not really going to focus on this.

Is there a need for more information on services? Yes was represented by 20 people 3 people said no, but obviously they are using another service that they are happy with. Therefore there still is a huge requirement for this service to the rest of the population in different counties.

When asked if they were aware of operators providing services, 9 people said yes and 17 said no. This backs up my point on the fact that others feel that there isn't a requirement for the above question. Although some others felt that there was a requirement as they were not happy with the service that they have been using.

I asked if they knew that there were up to if not more than ten operators and all 26 said no. This proves my point for the website. It will benefit both operators and commuters and hopefully it will be a great success. Here are some replies from the last question that asked if they had any opinion on the site:

one person said, "I'm all for it in order to quickly and easily check all the corresponding bus times for all the services." another said, "It would be a great addition to know what services are running at certain times so I can get about more efficiently."

Project Management and Scope

For my Project Proposal I had to take the following into consideration:

• Lift pitch - this is a short description on the project
• Summary - A little more detail is involved on describing the project
• Research Outcomes (This was split into three sections)
• Research Analysis - Analysing everything that I have done in my blogs and at other stages
• Target Market - The age group that my project will suit the most
• Techniques used
• Conclusion - Summing everything up in a couple of hundred words about how you did tasks and brining all of the relevant information together.

Project Scope

When I typed this into Google, I obtained information that was already given out such as sitemap, flowchart and storyboards, but I was looking for something else that I remembered using back in first year. The feature I was looking for was SWOT.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats

I believe that this is a great aspect for bringing the Pros and Cons together and finding out what I am stronger at and finding solutions for my weaker areas. Below is a SWOT Analysis for my Project Proposal:

Strengths

• Unique idea
• I have a good knowledge of the subject
• There is a demand

Weaknesses

• I am a weak programmer
• Time scale will be hard to keep to
• It can be hard to gather information

Opportunities

• Could go further than NI
• Great Promotion/Advertising of services
• A good investment

Threats

• May cause controversy as services from different areas will be on the one page (I doubt it though)
• Other's may adapt this idea

Sitemaps/flowcharts/storyboards for Journi

Now is time to create a site map for the Journi website. This will allow me to see all of the pages in advance and the layout plan of my site.

All of the pages are straight forward the only page with a difference is the county page as it will have links to the different counties in Ulster. Each county will then link to operators within that section and on their pages there services will be included.

The sitemap has shown the following pages:

• Home
• About
• County(which will go to the various counties and then in turn will take the user to the operator' page)
• News
• Travel Updates
• Contact Us

Currently I have twenty definite pages as I know of some operators already providing the services but now I am waiting for other operators to get back to me with their timetables and whether or not they wish to be included in the website.

Below is a flowchart that shows the process of my site from beginning to end. The flowchart begins with a meeting consultation that began back in week one when we were told to email a text document with the following details:

1. Your Name
2. A 50 Word Pen Portrait
3. Three Prospective Projects (Title, Brief Description, Pros and Cons)
4. Five Inspiring Websites

This image has been taken from My Major Project Proposal.

Below are the storyboards that I have created for my journi website. The storyboards are similar to the paper prototypes only they give a more accurate idea on how the website should appear.

These are the first three pages which are almost similar just with slight different layouts in the main content area. I have gone for a simple, easy approach just like I have researched National Express and Stagecoach create. On the Home page I will have the simple navigation along with some visually expressed content on the left main content area. I will have a Travel Update along the right which will be the Twitter Widget that I will create so that operators can #tag the journi twitter with relevant updates. On the About page I was going to place links along the bottom of the page for Facebook, Twitter and Latest News.

These two pages alike the county page will also be similar as they all have the same layout. The only difference between these pages will be the size of the content area and the different types of styles that I will be including in each of them.

 The selected county and operator pages will also have the same layout keeping a consistency throoughout the whole of my project. In all this will be the basis for my website as I will be using this as a support to the layout of the site. I will be including these storyboards in my Major Project Proposal as part of the appendices as they are a platform in which I will be structuring my project.

Features I'm researching

Now that I have a name, a target audience and ideas I was going to firstly think of a slogan or strap line for my website making it standout a little more.

The name is journi. So I now need to create some sort of slogan that will make the nae journi be remembered. I came up with some slogans myself and there were a few that I liked others sounded fine at the start but were slightly "cheesy" to say the least.

Always trying to take travelling and transport into consideration I came up with:
Journi -

• one route for all
• a new way for all
• the right way to travel
• get there with a change
• everything we do is "driven by Journi"

I then came across an advertising slogan generator which also came up with some good and bad slogans:
http://thesurrealist.co.uk/slogan.cgi?
Journi -

• if only everything in life was as reliable
• we bring travel to life
• go to work on a journi
• make the most of it

I felt that the slogans that I obtained from the advertising generator focused on general ideas but just incorporated the word into it. I also thought that these strap lines targeted more of a holiday audience as "we bring travel to life" reminds me of the title for a summer holiday brochure. 

I was tied between "one route for all" and "a new way for all". I believe that the first "one route for all" best describes everything. The slogan is describing the aim of the website rather than the travel. One route is referring to the website as it will be the one way in which all of the users will interact with to find out the information for all services. This will be my slogan for the website as I feel it incorporates all that I wish to involve into the website.

What age group will I be targeting

I have been in touch with some Private Coach Operators with regards to the age groups that they would be transporting to and from Belfast. I was informed that within the last three to four years that there has been a lot more students using the facility. The services were initially put into effect for commuters who had long travelling from home to work and vice versa, but now they see a popular demand for their services from students who travel on a daily basis.

One Operator told me that he had a steady service for working commuters, but since the increase of prices in Belfast more studets are availing of the service and it has been a great success. In turn this too has given me an insight to what type of site I need to create. Another operator Norma, told me her Coach Company provides a daily service, with commuters being predominately workers than students. She explained that a lot of her commuters are in fact those using the Airport Service, as it is an easy and convenient way of getting to the Airport with the use of wifi.

When I asked the operators if there was a need for more information to be made easier to view, they both agreed that there is a great requirement for this as it would help with advertising their services and let others be aware of them.
I have taken both points of view under consideration and believe that the site will have to be modern for the younger generation and very user friendly for the older, navigation will have to be for the older age groups so that they can get to where they want within two or three clicks.

Before I take a survey, I believe the age group that my site will be targeting will be between 18 - 65. When the survey is completed it will give me a better insight to what who the survey will be targeting as I believe it will be a lot narrower than 18-65.

Colour Schemes and Typefaces

Starting to look at the layout of my site and what I am going to put in it. I have done some more paper prototyping of the various layouts that I have in mind.

I have also been on Adobe Kuler and been looking at various colour schemes that I could use in my website. I have been looking this first scheme which is full of neutral colours of blue and green. I personally like the colours green and blue in websites as it looks warmer than just a plain site but also looks professional as it doesn't go too extravagant with vibrancy.

I then looked at colour scheme designer, and it let me select a colour and it would pick out another colour that would compliment it. I like the colour blue and think it is a nice, clean, positive colour and looked at it to see what other colours would compliment it.

I too have looked at colorcombos.com to see if they could give me any ideas on colour schemes that I could use. After looking how Translink and Traveline have achieved neutral schemes they both have used turquoise and white with a black colour on typeface for the text areas. Below is an image of the colorcombos.com website and the way in which they implement colours.

I would like to incorporate the colour blue into a site, as I believe it is a tranquil, peaceful colour which is easy to implement into any website. Here are some colour combinations that I will be looking at in further detail as I believe that they do compliment each other very well:

Here are ome other colour schemes I have looked at which take into consideration the turquoise colour that Translink have used. I just tried them out to see if there would be any other colours that would go well with it:

I still prefer the blue colour schemes further up the page although the first turquoise scheme is quite nice and tranquil, it would give the site a sort of a peaceful and calmness about it. I then typed in purple to see what colour schemes would be brought forward to me. I personally feel that purple always compliments gold as the colours are often used together. It is a nice dark, rich colour whereas gold is bright and the contrast is just right.

You can see even in the football jersey above how well both colours go together and how one compliments the other. Below are some colour schemes for purple that I have researched in Adobe Kuler.

I will still go back to my original colour schemes as I feel that they are best to test for my website they are the following two colours below but I am not yet sure which one I will pick yet.

 I might not use all four colours in the palette but may sample one or two depending on how far I wnt to take them. I still feel that the yellow and blue look the best together and will stick by that, so I could see myself using both of those colours more than the rest.

The next thing that I have to look at is the font title. I was thinking of using a font that symbolised transport and found a transport font which is used on road signs by the Department of Transport. The font looks something like the one below. It is a clear sans-serif typeface designed for road signs in the UK.

"It was created between 1957 and 1963 by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert as part of their work as designers for the Department of Transport's Anderson and Worboys committees. All aspects of signing were investigated and tested, initially on the Preston bypass before their introduction on the M1 motorway a year later. The committee looked at examples from other European states as well as the USA but Kinneir and Calvert found them somewhat harsh and unsatisfactory. Instead, they developed a more rounded typeface with distinctive tails to 'a', 't', and 'l', and bar-less fractions, all of which helped legibility."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_(typeface)

Image courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Road.sign.arp.750pix.jpg

Image and Typeface info courtesy of http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/corporate/media/fonts/

The Johnston typeface has undergone many changes since it was developed for London Underground by Edward Johnston in 1916. It is said to be a humanist sans-serif typeface. As the font associated with London’s transport network for nearly a century, TfL is keen to ensure the Johnston family of fonts is used in a consistent and controlled way.

"Features of the font are the perfect circle of the letter O and the use of a diagonal square dot above minuscule letters i and j and for the full stop. Commas, apostrophes and other punctuation marks are also based on the diagonal square dot." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnston_(typeface)



Typeface Choices

"Any typeface can be specified for a website. Whether or not that face is displayed depends on whether or not it’s installed on the user’s system. The list of dependable typefaces has grown a bit though. It used to be limited to Times, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, and Courier. But these days you can safely add George, Impact, Trebuchet and Comic Sans (though you wouldn't choose Comic Sans now would you?). I would personally add Tahoma and Lucida into that list as well. Clearly this is still a very short list compared to all the typefaces available in print. However, there's nothing stopping you from spec'ing Truesdell, Centaur, or any other typeface of superlative beauty and simply allowing the browser to substitute one of the more certain faces if the perfect typeface is not installed."

http://www.newfangled.com/website_typeface_choices

The above statement really speaks the opinion of many. Helvetica in my own opinion is probably the best typeface to use for the content of the website but for the banner/logo I still haven't found the correct typeface but it is a work in progress.

Typographers & Designers

Eric Gill

Mark Boulten a graphic designer who had Gill Sans as 'Typeface of the Month' said,"Gill Sans was designed by Eric Gill in the 1920’s and issued by Monotype in 1928 to 1930. Eric Gill studied under the calligrapher and stonemason, Edward Johnston, at the Central School in London so therefore it comes as no surprise that Gill Sans is based on his teachers typeface for London Under­ground, Johnston Underground."

Image from "http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/typeface-of-the-month-gill-sans"

"The display font is Gill Sans, a classic and elegant sans serif font. Gill designed several excellent fonts, which are widely available. In addition to the display font at this website, I use Gill sans a few places in Enivisioning Information and in Visual Explanations."     -- Edward Tufte, April 19, 2002

Image from"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GillSansEG.svg"

Gill Sans different typefaces:

Images from"http://www.prepressure.com/fonts/interesting/gill_sans"

Gills Sans - Light

Gills Sans - Regular

Gills Sans - Italics

Gills Sans Bold

www.frankie.bz/blog/ says "Gill Sans is for sure one of the most used fonts for corporate design in the fashion industry. When a brand claims elegance and self confidence this font is a sure shot."

Such a clean, elegant font that really suits the business/fashion industries as it's such as slender and professional font. A real good font also for the web as it's concise and very easy to read and not monotonous on the eyes.

Wolfgang Weingart

"It was he who ignited the spark of ‘typographic anarchy’ that exploded on the verge of the nineteen nineties." --Keith Tam.

Weingart began teaching at the Basel School of Design, where he was appointed as an instructor of typography by Armin Hoffmann in 1963. He came up with a new approach to typography that put an influence on the development of much of graphic design in the 1990s.

He had a big influence on teaching 'Swiss Typography' which was the use of grid systems to the logical disposition of type and images on the page in an asymmetric layout, along with the use of Sanserif typefaces.

One of his most common pieces of work can be seen below:

Image from: http://www.posterpage.ch/div/news07/n070317a.htm

The next is of his book, 'Weingart - My Way to Typography'. This book gives a view of the influences that have affected the development in his work as both a Typographer and Designer.  

"For the first time readers will see an overview of his work - the author having painstakingly recreated old projects, including the contents of his sketchbooks from the past forty years." --http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/119165.Wolfgang_Weingart

Saul Bass

When researching about different typographers I came across Saul Bass. I actually never heard of him before but when I gathered more information on him I came to like his work. There is something about his font that has a cheerful side to it. It is more like a children's font as it looks groovy and letters don't all look equal in size some are greaer than others. Below is a poster that Bass created for a 1957 film called "Loved in the afternoon".

Image courtesy of Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Love_in_the_afternoon_(1957)_-_movie_poster.jpg

All of Bass's posters had a style of  there own. "After his first film project Carmen Jones, he has been said to have collaborated with Otto Preminger and Alfred Hitchcock. His work spanned five decades and inspired numerous other designers." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Bass

The font is known as "Hitchcock" is said to be a rough, hand cut style that stereotypes the work of Bass. I ten learnt how "in fact, type designer Nick Shinn notes that Bass didn’t do the actual lettering and veteran Robert Trogman adds that Dave Nagata did most of the drawings."
http://typographica.org/2007/on-typography/saul-bass-website-and-hitchcock-font-are-back/

It all began to get a bit confusing as I found out from the website above how "Hitchcock was created by designer Matt Terich as an homage to the iconic lettering that so often appeared in Bass’ title work." Here is the font Hitchcock created by Matt Terich:

Image courtesy of http://typographica.org/2007/on-typography/saul-bass-website-and-hitchcock-font-are-back/