Fresh Entertainment Feedback & conculstion

Throughout the website how easy did you find the navigation at the top of the page?

Results show the navigation used was simple and easy to understand similar to the on demand services reviewed.

Throughout the website how easy did you find the navigation at the top of the page?

Results show the navigation used was simple and easy to understand similar to the on demand services reviewed.

Throughout the website how easy was it to use the twitter Icon?

I was interested to see the results from this question. I thought because the twitter icon was not labelled and you had to click on the t section and not the bird, people might not understand how to use it. However the feedback was positive and this was not an issue.

How easy did you find it to use the java script slide show to access videos from the day they were uploaded?

This was a big success for 4od in artefact 4 and I was keen to see if the version I created would be as successful. The only slight concern I had was the text would be too small for user to read. However feedback from questionnaire showed that this was not the case and the slider was easy to use.

Did you think it was user friendly to have videos in order of the most recent and alphabetical?

Layout is a key element for on demand services so for my website to be a success I had to get this right. The decisions to order videos by most recent and alphabetical looks to be have been a success.

Did you think it was effective feature lisitng the entire content of the website alphabeticall?

As a users of the BBC iPlayer I find it effective that programmes are listed a to z which is why I used this feature for my website. The user’s response was positive.

How effective did you find the HD section of the website?

This was a last minute decision to include this page because I found I had a lot of HD videos in the website without noticing. The feedback for this page was mixed. I believe this will not finder the website in anyway it will just improve the layout and the ease users can access videos.

Did you find it easy to use the contact form?

The contact form worked effectively the large text areas made it easy for user’s comments to be successfully received. Navigating the users to a page which tells them there feedback has been received reassures users the message was sent.

How easy was it to interact with the live section of the website?

Adding a live section increases interactivity with the user so I was pleased that the users found no problems when using this section of the website.


At any point was you unable to finda video you were looking for?

This was by far the most important questioned asked. Throughout the whole process special consideration had been given to layout and I was pleased to find that the vast majority of users had no problem finding videos.

Though creating a series of artefacts for this project I have discovered that you need the following factors to make a successful streaming website:
The design of the website is very important. If the website looks professional people will use the service and feel safe doing so. A well known brand, if users are familiar with the brand and feel safe online they will have an enjoyable streaming experience.

Quality of content, users will stream videos that are 360p or 480p because they buffer quicker. When streaming videos that are 720p or 1080p I found that users couldn’t see a massive improvement in video quality it just took longer for the videos to buffer. So though my research I found HD is not essential with all users. This is why when creating my own streaming website I made a HD section to keep the videos separate so they could easily be avoided if users didn’t want to stream from them.

Layout, I believe this to be the most important factor of any streaming website. Videos need to be organised effectively for two types of users, firstly for people who know exactly what video they are looking for and for users who want to browse though the selection available.

Though creating my own website that some videos were located in four separate places to make it easy for the user to find the video they were looking for. For instance take Julian Casablancas 11th Dimension can be found in the indie section under most recent, alphabetical, it can also be found in the HD section and the A to Z section under J.

Artefact 5 and 6 Devlopment and Feedback Contiuned

I changed the main area where the category links and JavaScript to a neutral beige colour, this really emphasized the java script slider making the selection area a lot clearer. I added a twitter link which

fills the space really well. I created an accompanying twitter page for the website in an attempt to get more hits.

The twitter page well tells followers when a new video has been added and when there is a show streaming live from the website. The background is made up of artists that feature in fresh entertainment.

I now have a twitter page and a completed template the next stage is to start adding content.

I had noticed in YouTube and the reviewed on demand services they all had the most recent videos available on their homepages I decided this would be a good feature for fresh entertainment. So the final stage of my home page was to add a selection of new music videos spanning the genres.  

Usually when you finish watching a YouTube video you can then view further videos or search YouTube for more videos. I didn't want users to watch one video then go straight onto YouTube so I added this code to the embedded URL disable these features, &rel=0&showsearch=0

However more problems were to follow below is an example of the code YouTube gives you to embed videos:

This code will give you successful results if using Google Chrome or Firefox, however I needed these videos to play on all modern browsers especially internet explorer for the website to be a success. After various attempts at making sure all the code had been selected perfectly the video still wouldn’t play. I had found one solution but it meant you lost the first frame of the video so instead of an image of the video you would just see a black space and I didn’t want to compromise the design of fresh entertainment. After a lot more searching the web I found this was a common problem, I found this code that solved by problem videos would play in all browsers and the first frame was still visible.

With this code in place my homepage was completed and I could move on to creating the individual genres. Special consideration was give to the content of each genre. Once you had selected a genre from the homepage you could view videos by most recent which gave you a description with the artists or alphabetically. Feedback from artefact 4 I also learnt that ordering different categories by alphabetical and most recent was a user friendly feature which made accessing videos easy for the user which was available on the BBC iplayer.

When reviewing the layout of the iPlayer for artefact 4 I found that the service lists all the programmes from A to Z in alphabetical order. This is a quick way for users to access videos of they know exactly what they are looking for. Below are print screens of the iPlayer and fresh entertainment:

If a users selects a letter they will see all artists that are available from the selected letter in alphabetical order. Again though artefact four I found that users favoured sites that limited the amount of scrolling they had to do which is why I added back to the top links on every page.

When creating the website I found I had a lot of HD videos this inspired me to create a separate link for all the HD videos, two of the videos featured are 1080p the rest are 720p.

I also decided to create a live page where users can view various stream from around the world live. Research from artefact showed me how popular UStream they now have 410,000 registers users, 100,000 of which are active broadcasters, with 10,000-15,000 live events being served up daily.

To achieve this I research some of the most popular streams that re regularly broadcast and then it was just a case of embedding the videos. You can also add the comment box so users can get involved with the chat feature. I also added a clock to the website that shows the live time of where the video is being streamed from. Below is a print screen of the live page. I decided to add the time so users would feel more connected to the video. 

The final page I added was a PHP contact form that gives the users the option to email me directly for suggestions on how to improve the service. I feel it is important if you are offering the public a service to always take on board feedback to improve your service. When the users clicks submit they are taken to a page that tells them their message has been sent. 

The website contains 64 videos all related to music. Special consideration was given to the content of videos and the quality available. As I found in artefact 3 users would not be prepared to watch high quality videos with low quality content. However I did find that in some videos where content was entertaining and video quality was poor videos containing sound were not affected.

The vast majority of the videos come from YouTube, this decision was made when in artefact two  53% of the users decided to stream from YouTube because it was a trusted and well recognised brand users could operate with ease. Users also found it effective you because you have the option to skip though the video before it had buffered which was unique to YouTube. 

There were a few sections that I could not get to work on the website that I will be looking to improve in the future. I created PHP pages that would allow the user to upload videos. I also created a PHP guestbook that would allow users to comment on the videos similar to the same way you can do this YouTube.  These pages worked when I tested them on the university server, the problems came about when I tried to add them to my hosting package. The issue was I was not able to connect Dreamweaver to my hosting database after a lot of frustration and help from the technicians the issue could not be resolved so I had to leave the pages out.

Artefact 5 and 6 Devlopment and Feedback

Firstly I would like to say I am very excited and pleased by project has lead me to create my very own streaming website. I aim to combine the effective features from all the streaming websites I have looked at from the start of this process. The final two artefacts combined the knowledge I have gained from this process to create my very own streaming website.  The first stage of creating my own streaming website was to create a template, looking though templates of some of the most successful streaming websites in the internet in iplayer, 4od and YouTube the first decision has been made I am going to have a plan background with no pattern to keep the focus on the videos. If it worked for YouTube it will work for me. 

All three of the services reviewed in artefact 4 had simple navigation at the top of the page. This is a common feature of most websites, using simple navigation will ensure users don’t get lost or confused. Below are print screens for the iplayer, 4od and ITV player.  

Below is a print screen of the navigation that I created for my website, as you can see it is simple and delicate similar to the on demand services reviewed in artefact 4. 

As soon as you enter the BBC iplayer you instantly know where you are and what service the website offers which will inform users they are in the right place and they will stay with your website. As shown in the print screen below. 

I want my users to have that instant sense of recognising they have navigated to the right place so I added a descriptive sentence shown in the below print screen.

I want my users to have that instant sense of recognising they have navigated to the right place so I added a descriptive sentence shown in the below print screen. 

At this stage of the development I had already decided on the name fresh entertainment for my website. The website would be devoted to finding the best new music from hip hop, indie and rock.  

For artefact four I set two tasks for users to carry out on the iplayer, 40d and ITV player these task were designed to test the on demand services layout to find the most effective and least effective features. When testing the layout of the BBC iplayer users found splitting the programmes into different categories using big bold sections was effective, this was the biggest downfall of 4od in the second task so I wanted to avoid my website making the same mistake.  

In the above print screen is how I decided to split the various genres and live sections. I gave each section a clear colour to separate it from the next which I think works effectively. 

The final stage to completing my template was to add a java script slide show that would show users previous day’s uploaded videos. This was one of the best features discovered though artefact four and it came from 4od as shown below. 

This java script slide was opens source material. I changed the images to suit my designed and also changed the buttons. When the user hovers over the button it changes colour so the users known they are selecting the button. The image was found from deviant art and I edited the images in Photoshop to include the date.  If you select an image uploaded videos form that day appear in alphabetical order.

At this stage the template had almost taken shape however as you can see from the print screen below the page was looking plan and needed some extra colour. 

Web Design and Content Planning, MA

This programme takes graduates from many disciplines and provides them with the skills to plan, design, build and promote effective websites. It is aimed both at people who manage corporate websites and at those who wish to start their own web business. The design of excellent websites presents a notable intellectual challenge and during the programme, students will develop a modern, professional and real-world approach. Our objective is to provide a balanced education in the three aspects of web design and content management: technical, functional and aesthetic. The technical aspects of the teaching provide an understanding of the tools, technologies and principles utilised for the design and development of contemporary websites. This includes the creation of semantically correct markup, the separation of presentation from content (XHTML & CSS) and the use of web standards (W3C).
The functional aspects focus on the creation of websites with good information architecture that are accessible, useable and findable as a result of effective Search Engine Marketing (SEM/SEO). Students learn how people use the web, how they navigate web content and how they search for information.
The aesthetic aspects of web design are considered with regard to graphic/artistic/typographic and business objectives, including corporate identity and branding.
Typically, our students fall into 3 groups: (1) those with web-related skills (often self-taught) who need a structured and balanced approach to further study, (2) those who have become involved with the web and need new skills to develop their present careers, (3) those who have decided on a career change and see web design and content management as a new opportunity.

Content

• Web Page Design
• Website Planning
• Content Strategy
• Web Thesis Project

Options from a range including:

• Website Design and Testing
• Web Art
• Law and Education
• Training

For more information log onto http://www.websitearchitecture.co.uk

KEY FACTS

School

Architecture & Construction

Location

Avery Hill Campus

Attendance

1 year full-time
2 years part-time

Entry requirements

Applicants should have:
A good honours degree in any discipline or equivalent professional qualification. Where English is not the first language, a language qualification is required, such as IELTS scoring 6.0.
• Applicants are interviewed.

Assessment

Students are assessed through coursework, project work and online activities.

Career options

This programme offers enhanced skills for use within the applicant's current career or a new career in web design.

Job 4

job 3

job 2

Job 1

artefact 4

I have looked into how user’s decisions are effected by video quality and video branding when streaming online. Moving on I will test how user’s decisions are effected by layout. The artefact will highlight the effectiveness of the layout of the BBC iplayer, 4od and the ITV player.


When writing my research document I discovered the ITV player almost tripled revenue for ITV last year. The BBC iplayer popularity is massive in a four month period in 2008 page views totalled 75 million and since its launch in 2006 4od has received a staggering 100 million hits. These impressive figures lead me to choice these services for this artefact.

To test this I will use a screen recorder and set users two task to be carried out on each of the on demand services. The tasks were designed to find out what were the good and bad qualities of each services layout.

The first task was to navigate to the programme that was on at 8pm on Friday 23 of April. The second task was to navigate to the most recent food related programme available.

The age range of users that participated was between 15 and 47 years old. I wanted the results to represent a wide age range of they were a good representation of the general public. In total 12 people participated in each task.

The results for the first task were for:

4OD, the total time was 3.12 minutes and the average time was 0.26 minutes.

The browse by date scroll bar available on the home page made it very simple for users to scroll though previous date’s programmes and the times the programme was aired were clearly labelled. Users who used the programmes link which was also available on the homepage found the layout similar to a TV guide which users were familiar with so finding programmes was completed with ease.

ITV Player, the total time was 8.51 minutes and the average time was 1.10 minutes.

Users found the ITV player the most difficult because they were least familiar with the service. Images on the homepage were distracting. Only the previous day’s programmes were available on the what’s on link making it ineffective for this task. Users felt the addition of the date with the day would have made the calendar of more user friendly. Once users had passed this obstacle they commented that the times of the programme could have been made clearer. Links in the footer navigated users out of the ITV player and into the main site which was confusing. If using the TV guide it takes users to the latest programmes page regardless of what programme is selected.

BBC iplayer, the total time was 5.19 minutes and the average time was 0.43 minutes.

Users found the TV column to be very users friendly, if you clicked the BBC one link you were taken to the last seven days worth of programmes from the channel, users were taken to the same place as the previous page to limit the amount of scrolling. Users felt the more link at the bottom of the TV section that takes you to the channel listing could be bigger to make it eye catching.



For each of the services used users felt an effect feature would be to type the date into the search box to view all day’s programmes from the date which was not available on any service.

The results for the second task were for:

4OD, the total time was 9.12 minutes and the average time was 1.20 minutes.

The explore links found at the top of the page navigated users away from 4od to the main channel 4 website which was confusing. There is an option to view programmes by category but no way of sorting these programmes by most recent. Some users found the category section cluttered and hard to read. Users also commented that a category button in the main navigation would have been a user friendly feature. Users didn’t like the fact they had to work out which was the last food programme available themselves using the TV guide and this wasn’t done for you like it was in the other services.

ITV Player, the total time was 5.16minutes and the average time was 1.10 minutes.

The what’s on TV bar was effective to scan for the last food programme because you could search the entire previous days programmes unlike the BBC iplayer that starts at 7pm. The find programmes link had a simple, effective order of the most recent programmes for each channel. Poor features included programmes not order by category and the search box didn’t find programmes by typing in the category you were searching for.

BBC iplayer, the total time was 4.11 minutes and the average time was 0.34 minutes.

Users found the category link for life style and culture eye catching. The link to food related programmes was emphasised by the image of Sophie Dahl holding food which aided users.

For this task the search box was very effective. If users typed food they were navigated to a page listing all the food related programmes. They were ordered alphabetically or by most recent which made accessing the programme straight forward.

I happy with how there has been a natural progression though each of the artefacts. I am now going to combine the information from artefacts 2, 3 and 4 to create my own streaming website this will be the basis for artefacts 5 and 6.

Clinet project where I am at so far......

I haven't been keeping up to date with my blog recently so I though I would take time to document my progress so far.

The content has been agreed. The homepage will consist of a mission statement that has been wrote by the client, latest news and opening times. There will be an events page that now will be created using Google Calender, i would have liked to create my own but set backs with php have consumed a lot of my time, however this will be an excellent solution for the client. There will also be a maps page, an images page powered by the light-box that uses java script, which is an excellent feature that is easy to update. There will be a forum page with a login / logout and register page and a lets play darts page an event held in the pub by the client which he is keen to promote.

The client has sent me all the images I need so far, more images will be needed for the events that take place throughout the design process. The music for the website is secured I have the tracks from a local band called Black Dollar Bills that will be controlled using a flash player that I will create in coming weeks.

The domain www.thepintpot.com has been secured for one year from web hosting company Webhosting UK for an annual fee of £29.99. The package choosen is suitable because it provides the following:

Large-capacity for images, media and posts.
Large-capacity file transfer bandwidth
A php application server to run scripts
MySql Database for storing files

The client is very happy that this domain has been secured and is equally happy with paying the fee.

The biggest issues I have faced so far are all to do with php, so I have decided to tackle this problem first. A Login / Logout and Register page has been created. This will be on the forum page because this is the only page thatr users will need to be logged in to view.

Creating the forum is providing to be quiet tricky and very time consuming. I bought a book called php and mysql create modify and reuse by Timothy Boronczyk with Martin E. Psinas which I tried to follow. I spend the best part of a week tiring to create a login and register page that was far too complicated and when I moved on to creating the forum I found the book very hard to follow with was frustrating and disappointing. Pages wernt being named and the structure of what files should go in which folder was very vague.

I have now ditched that book and am now working from a book from the liabary called php and mysql web development the third edition which I am finding alot easier to follow and I am hoping by the end of the week that I will have my forum page completed, this would be a big weight off my shoulders and will allow me to focus all my attention on the css that I am keen to do to have something to show my client. If I can't get the forum to work the other option would be to use a php guestbook that would do a similar job, however I will be dispaointed if I have to resort to this option.

Although it was disappointing to have failed with a lot of code it still provided good experience working with code and I now find myself feeling more familiar with the code so all was not lost. 

The next meeting with the client will be on the 28th of feb and I will do my best to deliver a forum and have all the css up and running.

Artefact 3

The third artefact moves on to test weather users will sacrifice video quality over quality of content. This came about because I found this article which talks about YouTube making the decision to allow users to upload videos that are 1080p resolution.

http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/11/1080p-hd-comes-to-youtube.html

Just how much larger is 1080p look at the following screen shots from this video 

 Standard 360p

 

HD 480p

HD 720p

1080p HD

It was estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. The addition of 1080p is going to send these figures rising even more.

When writing my research document I came across an article that said that 30% of the internet is consumed with video and in two years this could rise to 80%. This got me thinking with the amount of video online is it all being watched?

I wanted to test whether users will sacrifice video quality over quality of content. The idea behind the webpage is to take a video of high quality for instance a Messi hatrick which has high quality content and make the video quality poor and see if users would still watch the video. I would then do the opposite take a video that is high quality but has boring content to see if users would watch the video. There would also be a video in the middle. I made the assumption that everyone is interested in seeing Messi score a hatrick which would alienate some of my users so I then created an extra stack of videos including different content to avoid this problem.

I created two stacks of videos and reversed the order so user’s decisions wouldn’t be influenced by the layout. For this artefact all the videos were available from the same brand (Vimeo) so this also wouldn’t affect user’s decisions.

Here is the questionaire that gathered feedback, a link was made from the webpage was avilable.
Which Video Did You Decide To Stream?


• If you streamed the low quality Messi video go to question 2

• If you streamed the low quality Lady Ga Ga video go to question 3

• If you streamed the medium quality CCTV video go to question 4

• If you streamed the medium quality CCTV video go to question 5

• If you streamed the high quality Field video go to question 6

• If you streamed the high quality Field video go to question 7

Why Did You Decide To Stream The Low Quality Messi Video?

• Quality of content

• Interested in content

Why Did You Decide To Stream The Low Quality Lady Ga Ga Video?

• Quality of content

• Interested in content

Why Did You Decide To Stream The Medium Quality CCTV Video?

• The quality was bearable

• The content was bearable

Why Did You Decide To Stream The Medium Quality Sunset Video?

• The quality was bearable

• The content was bearable

Why Did You Decide To Stream The High Quality Field Video?

• The quality of the video was excellent

Why Did You Decide To Stream The High Quality Drilling Video?

• The quality of the video was excellent

Each question had the option to fill in an other box.


This graph shows the results from the artefact. 55% of users opted for the low quality videos. 29% of users watched the medium quality videos and finally only 14% of users watched the high quality videos.

The reasons 55% of users streamed the low quality video was, they were interested in the video content and because of this reasons they decided that it was worth streaming a video of low quality to be entertained. Users added there was music in the Messi video and the sound quality was not affected.
The reasons 29% of users streaming the medium quality video was, they found the video intriguing and felt it was worth continuing to stream to see what might or might not happen.

Further comments said the video quality was bearable and users could see what was happening in the videos with ease. If the content of the videos was improved users would have no problem streaming videos of this quality.

The reasons only 14% of users streamed the high quality video was, they would not be prepared to watch videos with such low quality of content just because the video quality was high. Users saw point in streaming the video until the end and would just seek alternative viewing.

From this artefact I have learned that when people are streaming online video quality alone can not be the defining factor to get views and keep people entertained. If the video quality is poor people will get bored easily and look for alternative methods when online. You need to get a right balance between quality and content.

The feedback was gathered using survey monkey and a direct link was available from the webpage to the questionnaire. The webpage is also set up to Google analytics to collect data on how many page views the webpage receives and the average time spent on the website. In total 30 people took part in this artefact. The artefact was distributed though facebook, twitter, email and word of mouth.

The webpage can be viewed here at: http://www.thepintpot.com/2.html

Moving on I will now go on to test three of the most on demand services available in the UK talked about in my research document and test how effective they layout of the services are. This will be done by recording users with a screen recorder.