Tag Archives: peer reviews

Peer Review #3 – Spilling the Royaltea

a screenshot of the homepage for the website "spilling-the-royaltea.com".
A screenshot of Olivia’s homepage.

This week I’ve been tasked with reviewing the website of a classmate, Olivia. Olivia’s blog is named Spilling the Royaltea and focuses on hot topics involving the British royal family, whether positive or negative, mundane or sensational.

Her blog posts are separated into three main categories: hot takes, ranked, and news. Hot takes refers to drama involving various members of the family, ranked pits endearing moments and fashion choices against one another, and news involves reporting the latest updates relating to the royal family.


From a marketability standpoint, Olivia’s blog seems to cater towards a unique audience. Since Olivia stays impartial in her overall opinion on the royal family, she can create content pertaining to both fans and critics alike. This offers her more flexibility when creating blog posts, which she takes advantage of.

This can also give rise to pushback from either community, as Bryce Renninger (2015) points out in his writing on counterpublics. Renninger states that “…counterpublic communication online is often tenuous, at risk of being disrupted, ridiculed, dismissed, or ignored…”; fortunately, Olivia doesn’t seem to have this problem.

Despite my negative stance towards the royal family, I still found myself fascinated by Olivia’s analysis of fashion, controversy, and press releases that I would not have otherwise seeked out. I’m glad to have been paired up with this website, as I don’t often think about the royal family and was surprised at what kind of news was prevalent in the community.

Each of Olivia’s mini assignments fit perfectly within her blog subject, and range from the playful teasing of Prince Harry’s memoir to a thoughtful critique of wealth disparity in the UK. I enjoy the headings found in each post, as they help break up longer pieces of writing with proper context and make it easier to skim posts if needed. Overall, Olivia’s content is deliberate and appropriately matched to the website’s design, which I will cover next.


Olivia immediately showcases the subject of her blog through a well-organized collage of photos placed front and centre on the website’s homepage. Together with the site’s name, Spilling the Royaltea’s subject matter is easily discernable to most people on a first visit.

If I was creating this blog from scratch, I would probably take inspiration from magazines articles, which Travis Gertz (2015) points to as a prime example of more visually interesting design. Gertz posits this in his article Design Machines, with the question “how do magazines achieve rich reactions and connections, and how do we translate those approaches to the screen?”

News about the royal family has usually been relegated to these methods of communication, and I admit that I have a certain nostalgia for these publications as well. However, despite Gertz’s caution towards pre-built and uniform blog themes, I believe that Theme Fourteen Blog is very fitting for Olivia’s content.

The minimalistic and clean layout pairs well with the aesthetics of the royal family, and the typography lends itself well to both serious and more playful topics. Olivia uses Josefin Sans for titles, Lora for accents, and the popular Open Sans for paragraphs. 

Oliva’s blog is a delightful read, with blog posts that a wide variety of people can enjoy. I especially like her posts ranking different fashion styles, as that is another interest of mine. Spilling the Royaltea has certainly grown on me as I’ve explored the website, and I’ll definitely be returning to see what Olivia posts next!

References

Gertz, T. (2015, July 10). Design Machines: How to sur­vive the dig­i­tal apocalypse. Louder Than Ten. https://louderthanten.com/coax/design-machines

Renninger, B. J. (2015). “Where I can be myself…where I can speak my mind”: Networked counterpublics in a polymedia environment. New Media & Society, 17(9), 1513–1529. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814530095

Peer Review #3 – The Stars, Too (part two!)

This week, I revisited Ryn’s blog, titled The Stars, Too. Her about page describes the website as “an amateur journalistic blog … wherein the author offers their analysis of shows from different performing arts mediums, as well as the industry as a whole.” To me, this description is a perfect and accurate encapsulation of the blog.

After looking through the posts that have been made since the last time I visited the site, as well as prior, Ryn is doing a great job of sticking to the theme of her content that she self-described. Clearly, the intended audience is those who appreciate the fine arts.

It would be reasonably accurate to argue that her blog is a digital garden. Tanya Basu elaborates on this notion, explaining “that they can grow and change, and that various pages on the same topic can coexist” (Basu, 2020). Ryn does just this – while she has a specific niche, she talks about various topics that fall under said niche, such as ballet and theatre. However, her website is a personal-enough space where she can share her own music. Therefore, not only is her blog a digital garden in itself, but she also includes her singing, which ties into the ethos of individuality, a crucial part of digital gardens.

In my previous review, I mentioned that Ryn could benefit from including other personal things in her blog since her about page only said a little about the author. At the same time, I acknowledge the importance of controlling one’s online identity and data, which is crucial when having your own space on the internet and more clearly explained in the article The Web We Need To Give Students. I think incorporating her music is a great way to create more personability and helps create a connection between the reader and the author; music is a deeply personal thing. She also has a poetry piece that I really enjoyed reading. It is about ballet, so it ties into one of her blog’s topics; again, it is personal and depicts a series of emotions.

It is clear that the intended audience is lovers of the performing arts, and every post on The Stars, Too has been published with intention. The theatre and ballet posts provide a comprehensive look into the performances, and the personal aspects, such as her poem and song cover, still tie into the main focuses. Therefore if the reader is on the website to look at a ballet review, they won’t be disinterested in the poetry because it is still about the same topic. This also means that the author will connect with the reader through personal aspects.

References:
Audrey Watters. 2015. “The Web We Need to Give to Students”

Basu, Tanya. September 5, 2020. “Digital gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet” MIT Technology Review.

Peer Review #3: MindfulNous

For my last peer review of the semester, I had the pleasure of taking a look at Maren’s site MindfulNous, which you can find here: https://mindfulnous.com definitely go and check it out! Through this review, I will be analyzing the content and design of Maren’s website, as well as the intended audience and marketability of the site. Let’s get started! 

Marketability and Intended Audience Group

Just by reading the name “MindfulNous”, I was inclined to believe that the overall theme of this website was going to be around mindfulness, well-being, and self-awareness. I also could infer that the intended audience was anyone who was looking for clarity within themselves, as well as guidance and practices that will help them become more mindful and present. After reading through the content and becoming familiar with the site, my first impression was pretty much spot on! The overall look of the site is very fun as it includes lots of colour and a creative signature logo, so it welcomes a wide age range audience. Based on the content, I would say that more specifically all stages of adults, ranging from younger to older, could resonate with this site and fully understand  and appreciate the context of the content the most. As discussed in the early weeks of our class in Micheal Warner’s journal article, Publics and Counterpublics, Maren has created her own public with MindfulNous within the broader public of meditation/mindfulness, and she has done a great job at doing so! 

A feature that Maren has incorporated into her site that I haven’t even touched on for my website personally, is advertising. When you are on MindfulNous, you can find advertisements located on the sidebar of the website, along the bottom of the page, and in the occasional pop-up. As we read On Advertising – Maria Popova, by Tom Bleymair, opinions on advertisements being a part of websites are both negative and positive (2013). As a visitor of a website, it can be annoying to be bombarded with various pop-up ads when you are trying to read an article or navigate the site. This is not the case for MindfulNous I will note, as the advertisements on the site do not disrupt the users visit/experience!  On the other hand from the perspective of an author/blogger, ads on their websites can be used to aid and drive traffic to their affiliate marketing links, which have the ability to be highly profitable. Overall, I think the incorporation of advertisements onto Maren’s site has definitely increased MindfulNous’ marketability, and I admire her for taking this step in advancing her website! 

Design

MindfulNous appears as if it has been around for a long time (and I mean that in the best way possible!). From plenty of well thought out and interesting content, to a design layout that incorporates every feature you would expect to see on a long-time professional blog/website, Maren has done an excellent job developing her website throughout the semester and I very much admire her for that! What I like the most about the design aspect of Maren’s website is the use of colour throughout the entire home page and in each of her pages as well as posts. As we learned earlier in the semester from a guest speaker we had in class, Mauvé Page, sometimes the use of too much colour can be overwhelming and distracting for viewers. However, MindfulNous uses a balanced and effective colour scheme that enhances the overall design of the website. For instance, Instead of having a white background like most websites do, Maren decided to have a very light beige, almost pale yellow background that distinguishes the navigation bar/menu from the content of the page, and makes the entirety of the site visually easy to comprehend and follow.

On the theme of colour, integrating coloured text into blog post titles was also a very effective design technique as it ties back to the blog’s logo that we see at the top of the page. I also noticed that each category uses a certain colour for the related post titles, which I thought was a really nice touch! One thing that I noticed however, is that the yellow titles in the “Mindfulness” category bring out the background colour of the page, which slightly reduces the immediate visibility of the post titles as they do not stick out quite like the green titles under the “Philosophy” category do for example. A suggestion for this may be to make the post titles a darker shade of yellow if possible, but overall if that is not an option the current yellow text should not have much of an impact on viewers. Like I stated earlier, Maren has done a fantastic job developing her site, so in order to try and provide any constructive feedback I’ll have to get into the very specific, minor details! 

Content

Each content post on MindfulNous is well thought out, informative, easy to read, and inspiring. Maren has done a great job keeping up with both her original posts and PUB 101 assignments, which has kept a steady flow of content throughout the site. One of my favourite sections on Maren’s blog is her “About” page. Here, I gained an idea of Maren’s inspiration behind MindfulNous as well as who she is as a person, which allowed for me as a visitor of her site to see the website from a more personal and meaningful perspective. I especially like the four pictures and categories at the end of her “About Me” introduction, that enlightened me that Maren’s favourite activity is swimming, her favourite food is a smoothie bowl (good choice!), and that one day she would like to visit Costa Rica! This short list of personal facts was a really nice touch! 

What I really like about Maren’s posts is that almost all of them have a feature image or some visual to go along with the content. After reading through all of the posts on this website, I felt inspired and reminded to stop and take the time to relax and look after myself. I felt this way especially after reading the Mindfulness vs Mindlessness post. This post reminded me the importance of appreciating and living in the moment, and how much peace doing so can bring you. As a student it is so easy to become hyper fixated on school work and the various stresses that come along with doing so, so this was a good reminder for me to practice being more present amongst all the chaos. Something that I also really like in regards to content, is that Maren has incorporated her studies into her website by adding a “Philosophy” category. The posts in this category differ from the rest of the content and main themes of mindfulness and well-being, but still fit nicely within the website not only because Maren is studying philosophy, but because philosophy itself often explores reason, wonder, and awareness; which appears to align with some of the characteristics and values of the site. 

One recommendation I would make is not so much directed to the posts themselves, but to include a short blurb at the top of each category’s page that describes what the main goal of the category is, as well as what type of content you can expect to find there. I have been working on incorporating this into the category pages on my site as well, and find that it adds a lot of clarity and enhances navigation for users! 

Overall, I am a huge fan of MindfulNous! I very much admire how much Maren has been able to develop her website throughout the semester, and was definitely inspired to incorporate some more features onto my own site! As far as the content, I think that MindfulNous can act as a good reminder for us all to incorporate more mindfulness into our lives, and I highly recommend that you check it out! Here is a link to the mindfulness content!: https://mindfulnous.com/category/mindfulness/

References

Bleymaier, T. (2013). On Advertising – Maria Popvova. 

Page, M. (2023). Design. Lecture 6. The Publication of Self in Everyday Life. Simon Fraser University. 

Warner, M. (2002). Publics and Counterpublics. Quarterly Journal of Speech. 88.4. http://knowledgepublic.pbworks.com/f/warnerPubCounterP.pdf

Peer Review #3 – Jellylift

For this peer review, I was delighted to find out I would be looking at Antalya’s blog, cleverly called Jellylift, for a couple reasons: 1) I’ve worked with Antalya in previous courses– she’s lovely!, and 2) I am also a hardcore Jellycat fanatic. I mean, what better way to spend (way too much of) your adult money on stuffed animals? (See my prized possession on the Indigo website.) So, when prompted about how Jellylift markets to their intended audience, I immediately think “well… that’s me!” Before getting into the marketability portion of this peer review, I’m first going to dig further into Antalya’s intended audience.

Who (else) Is the Intended Audience?

From the name “Jellylift” and also the About page, it is very clear that this blog is dedicated to two things and two things only: weightlifting and Jellycats. Side note: I have to add to the pre-existing compliment pile for this super awesome juxtaposition– it’s super awesome. Individually, both weightlifting and Jellycats have their own passionate counterpublics, a term discussed by Michael Warner. So, it seems that these groups make up Antalya’s intended audience. 

I know that the gym community, both online and in real life spheres, is quite a tight-knit and supportive counterpublic, usually circulating discourse around tips on form, advice on the best pre-workouts, flexing their personal bests, etc. (Is it painfully obvious that I’m absolutely NOT a member of this counterpublic?) On the other hand, the Jellycat counterpublic is bonded through obsessing over and collecting the cutest, softest plushes on the planet. Check out the Jellycat website to see for yourself.

So, Jellylift is clearly a hub for members of both of these counterpublics to enjoy. However, by combining the two comically different interests, Antalya may be single-handedly creating a whole third counterpublic through Jellylift– a counterpublic consisting of those who love to sweat and pump major iron AND embrace their inner child with cuddly toys. 

I’ve talked a lot about these people who surely would love Jellylift, but how exactly does Jellylift market to them to solidify this love?

Marketability Through Content and Design

I have determined that both the weightlifting and Jellycat counterpublics are part of Antalya’s intended audience, but this is not to say that you have to be a part of both / Antalya’s up-and-coming third counterpublic to be a Jellylift enjoyer. Take me, for example, who a) would rather die than step into a public gym, but b) has no problem dropping $40 on a hand-sized stuffed cauliflower with legs, and c) loves Jellylift. Antalya does a great job of balancing content about both interests– check out her content categories for Lifting and Jellycats– while keeping them separate enough for pure lifters and Jellycat lovers to enjoy one and not the other. This is important as it opens the door for more (regular) site visitors– I’m not sure the same effect would be achieved if Antalya’s content posts each featured an integration of both interests. 

Additionally, the overall ironic and casual tone used across Jellylift makes the content clearly suitable for Antalya’s audience, or at least a subsection of them. She talks about how Jellycat lovers and weightlifters could be generalized into a “youth” demographic in her process post Knock Knock… Who’s There? Antalya’s style of writing definitely sells to this demographic perfectly, as the language she uses is very Gen-Z-friendly, with dry humour, lowercase titles, and expletives used (tastefully and quirkily) in every post.

Jellylift’s blog design also contributes to supporting its marketability to these intended audiences. At first glance, the pastel text against the rich chocolate brown background is definitely not a conventional website colour palette, but it is undeniably aesthetically pleasing to the youthful eye. Jellylift is also very easy to navigate with the clearly-labelled menu, systematically organized and categorized posts, and use of tags. Although Antalya loves to use a fun title for her posts– such as “What the F**k is Content?”– all her posts can easily be located, and are additionally very readable and scannable due to her use of headers and links. All of these elements, according to our PUB 101 Week 10 lecture material, are ingredients for good SEO. And, according to Sam Hollingsworth, having a good SEO is extremely beneficial for marketability. He further explains how site performance suffers if these elements are missing, but Antalya’s got it covered.

Summing Up

Overall, Antalya’s content and design of Jellylift is all noticeably intentional and carefully executed, which evidently pays off in its marketability as well as user-satisfaction (cite: me). I can’t wait to keep up with Jellylift and see what Antalya has up her sleeve for the rest of the semester!

Bonus Content: A Short Response to Antalya’s Peer Review

If you aren’t Antalya, this peer review post ends here. Thanks for reading! If you ARE Antalya, keep scrolling.

Hi Antalya! I enjoyed your peer review for my blog so much I just had to respond to it here. Thank you for the kind words, I truly am so flattered that someone I admire so much academically and personally likes melatonin gone missing! I am obsessed with the justgirlythings posts you pulled for me, truly thank you so much. melatonin gone missing feels so seen. Keep your eyes peeled for when those make their appearance on the blog.

Me and you after our peer reviews:

Two buff guys, with their arms around each other, flexing for the camera at the gym.
Source: https://becomingajock.tumblr.com/post/145458793098/roided-as-fuck-bros-posing-for-a-gym-pic-yeah

References:

Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close

Norman, S. (2023). Data and SEO [PowerPoint Slides]. Department of Publishing, Simon Fraser University.

Warner, M. (2002). Publics and Counterpublics (abbreviated version). Quarterly Journal of Speech, 88(4), 413-425. 

Peer Review #3

Peer Review # 3 This week I am reviewing “MY LIFESTYLE” by Ziqi Qin (Bonnie). 

Direct Link: http://ziqiqin13.com/blog/ 

First impression: At first glance, Bonnie’s website has beautiful artwork of a sunset over a nature scape that is used as her banner, it gives a feeling of warmth and calmness. The title of her website is called “MY LIFESTYLE”, it is in bold, large lettering that stands out and has contrast against the artwork she chose. This makes her main page appealing and accessible to readers. I like the pink tones throughout her page, it compliments the artwork well. I really love the palm tree in the left top corner, you can click on it on any page to get back to the main page. Her menu tabs pop out and are easy to navigate. You get a sense that it is a personal blog about what she finds interesting to write about. Her vibe isn’t to become viral but more of a personal blog to share amongst peers. As mentioned in John Suler’s (2004) article “The Online Disinhibition Effect” Bonnie uses the “We’re Equals (minimizing authority)” technique because her interaction with the reader feels like a peer relationship that is based on mutual experience and story-sharing. I would suggest adding an accessibility plug-in to her website to help those that have certain visual abilities and that could benefit from the variations of text and contrast. The plug-in called One-Click is an example that is easy to add to your website that comes with a variety of settings to help accommodate all readers.

Content: I love the content posts on travel and her ragdoll cat. I like that her contact info is in the contact section and that you can leave her a message in the provided fields. I would remove or change the generic contact info from the bottom of the pages. It would be nice to see more content within her posts along with adding enticing headlines.

screenshot of blog talking about her ragdoll cat
Screenshot: Ziqi Qin’s content post about her cat Quiana

Audience: Bonnie mentions in one of her Process Posts that her intended audience is her classmates and friends. I think if she wanted to, she could expand her public further if she used social media links on her website, but that is a personal choice.

It would also be helpful for Bonnie to incorporate SEOs in her posts such as adding keywords to her blog posts, adding videos from YouTube, and including related hyperlinks to her content posts to increase engagement and increase her google search credibility. As Sam Hollingsworth (2021) mentions in “15 Reasons Why Your Business Needs SEO,” using SEOs will ensure a good user experience and increase the chances that more people will read Bonnie’s content. Implementing these strategies could help Bonnie grow her public numbers.

Website’s Marketability: I think for marketability Bonnie could have an opportunity to try some monetization techniques. There is the option of adding ads to her site; Google Analytics has AdSense that you can add to your website. Also, using affiliates is another option, like for cat food or cat supplies or promoting hotels or travel, since she likes to write about her beautiful ragdoll cat and the trips she takes with friends, however, she would have to focus on creating a larger public first. Christina Newberry (2022) says “affiliate marketing is a way for content creators to earn commissions by referring customers to brands.” So you can use affiliate codes or links on your content website and every time someone clicks on that link and purchases that item you can make a commission. 

Screenshot: Ziqi Qin’s content post about tips for new cat owners. A chance to use affiliate marketing with brands.

Overall Bonnie’s website looks professional, is aesthetically appealing, and is well-designed. With some effort and planned direction, her website has the possibility to become more marketable.

References

Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close

Newberry, C. (2022, February 22). Using social media for affiliate marketing: 4 tips to get started. Retrieved from https://blog.hootsuite.com/affiliate-marketing/

Suler, J. (2004). Psychology of cyberspace – the online disinhibition effect. Retrieved from https://truecenterpublishing.com/psycyber/disinhibit.html 

Assignment Peer Review #3: perfecthurricane.com

For this peer review, I explored Riella’s webpage “Perfect Hurricane” (PERFECT HURRICANE – a personal blog about stuff and things). From a user’s perspective, I see how she organized the site’s categories from the top menu bar, and how I’m introduced to loud bright colours. This factor helps users easily navigate their way around the page. I also like the animation effects incorporated into the page as they caught my attention instantly and gives the impression of an interactive site. I find sites with visual effects entertaining and make me want to explore more and play around with them. In terms of a reader’s perspective, visually the text is legible and the website contains visual graphics and pictures to help communicate an idea of what “Perfect Hurricane” is all about.

Scrolling further, I found the carousel concept of gallery photos fitting to her site. It shows a quick intro glimpse of events and a story. After viewing the gallery, I wanted to know more in-depth about the site. So the next page I visited was the “Bio” section. It displayed an easy quick read about the author, although I do recommend maybe giving a small background behind the website name “Perfect Hurricane.” On this page, I like how she kept a consistent theme with bright colours and animations. I also found it helpful that a contact domain was added to encourage involvement and community with social media.

In terms of social media, this week’s readings focused on AI and marketing tools. For a successful site, it depends on how the author decides to display their platform and reach their target audience. In this week’s readings, we learned that Data.ai. Is a useful marketing tool that helps analyze and report the marketing performances of various apps like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc. It also discussed how this generation is known as Gen Z, and it is heavily influenced by technology and social networks (Data.ai., 2022). It is a factor to learn and apply to our sites to move towards success in marketability. As mentioned in Data.ai, topics and trends relevant to Gen Z drive engagement through connections and social platforms (Data.ai., 2022). Taking this into account, I see how “Perfect Hurricane” is more of a personal brand, and to engage both personal life and engagement to gain an audience, adding factors of trending memes or songs can add to viewer activity. For example, at the bottom of the home page, I see how there’s a song displayed. I suggest adding a small description or hashtags to reach other users who listen to the same song or artist. This is a way to grow the community through the author’s interests. Also using these social media tactics like hashtags, links, and trending titles will easily capture Gen Z’s attention but also make use of marketing tools and strategies.

This week we also touched on SEO. According to Hollingsworth, SEO is the most viable and cost-effective to understand and reach an audience. It also introduces the main search engine competitors like Google, Yahoo, and Bing (Hollingsworth, S. 2021). Keeping this in mind, adding relevant features to the site like trends, topics, and facts can increase the audience by keeping these search suggestions in mind. Usually, search suggestions are common topics or prompts that users look up, therefore incorporating topics to reach an audience based on the themes/topics of your site would be a useful tip to consider to grow engagement and further reach an audience to grow a solid community.

Lastly, visually I see that there isn’t much content going on. I suggest uploading more content relevant to your theme that can also be relatable to an audience you’re trying to reach. This will grow activity onto the page, and leave the impression of being “incomplete.”

Earlier like I said, the way how this site is well laid out with colours and grid components. It looks fun and interesting and the animation makes users feel engaged. These are good site attributes to continue and improve on.

– Eliza (aka Peanut)

References:

Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs SEO. Search
Engine Journal. Retrieved March 21, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close

Panipekeesick, R. (n.d.). Perfect hurricane. PERFECT HURRICANE. Retrieved March 27,
2023, from http://perfecthurricane.com/

Posiel.com. Data.ai. (2022). Retrieved March 27, 2023, from
https://posiel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/dataai__state_of_mobile_2022__en.pdf

Peer Review #3

My final peer review is here! For the final one, I had the pleasure of exploring Jolene’s enchanting website:Mama Jo’s Family!

Mama Jo's Website HomePage
Mama Jo's Website HomePage

Introduction and first impression 

 Upon landing on her site, the first thing that caught my attention was the introductory paragraph, which provided a welcoming and family-oriented vibe. Jolene’s website is informative and engaging, with her about page particularly noteworthy. I was drawn to her mention of her First Nation heritage and culture, which reminded me of Suler’s article’s Personal and Cultural Values section on “the online disinhibition effect”. This section emphasizes the impact of our personal and cultural values on our online interactions and how we perceive ourselves, which is an important consideration when navigating online relationships with people from different cultures.

One suggestion for Jolene’s blog is to include a photograph of her family on the homepage and about page. Since Jolene introduces her sons and husband by name and age, it would be beneficial to see and recognize their faces. This would make it easier for her audience to follow their stories and create a more engaging experience.

Jo Mama's About page
Mama Jo's About Page

Audience and SEO

Referring to Campbell’s article “A personal cyberinfrastructure,” Jalone has demonstrated her cyberinfrastructure to her audiences. By exploring her blog content and photos, the target audience for Jolene Auger’s blog mainly consists of caring and compassionate parents in their 30s-50s who lead a busy and family-oriented lifestyle and juggle multiple responsibilities balancing work and family life. I believe Jolene’s sharing of her moments and experiences perfectly resonates with their interests, goals, and needs. 

Although I’m not sure whether Jolene plans to use her blog for marketing and monetizing, I still recommend that she include ways to engage with her audience, such as a contact page, social media sharing buttons, adding her email, or a comment section below her posts if she decides to separate her posts from category pages. This would allow her to connect with her audience and interact with them.

Given that her audience is likely to relate to Jolene’s experiences, they may provide valuable feedback and suggestions for her blog posts and the concerns she has discussed. It would also be helpful for her to incorporate SEO strategies such as embedding videos from YouTube, adding appropriate keywords to her blog posts, and including related hyperlinks to increase credibility and engagement with her content.

As Hollingsworth mentions in “15 Reasons Why Your Business Needs SEO,” good SEO means good user experience, increasing the likelihood that more people will hear Jolene’s message. Implementing these strategies could help Jolene grow her audience and increase engagement with her content.

Content 

Jolene’s blog topics are incredibly engaging, and I appreciate that they are pure and relevant to her daily routine. Parents with similar concerns to Jolene’s will also find her blog valuable. Like Basu’s digital gardens, Jolene’s blog truly resonates with her inner voice, which is reflected in her comfortable writing style.

However, her content’s grammatical and punctuation errors could be easily corrected using AI grammar checkers like Grammarly. Overall, Jolene’s blog is an excellent resource that offers her audience a genuine and comforting perspective.

Design decisions 

As Pagé suggested, having a visual hierarchy is one of the critical factors in website design. Using the same font sizes for headings and subheadings may decrease the visual hierarchy. I appreciate the font sizes and typeface choice, which are well-chosen and readable.

In order to meet “The Accessible Publishing Learning Network (APLN)” guidelines for accessibility on her website, I highly recommend incorporating plugins that provide multiple accessibility options for different disabilities, as well as a dark/bright mode feature for improved vision during the day or at night.I am sharing my thoughts on the posts section of the menu bar. When I first clicked on it, I assumed it was a category page, and I thought I would be directed to its specific page by clicking on each process post. However, I later realized that no separate pages were intended for each process post.

To enhance the consistency and accessibility of the content and improve the user experience, I highly recommend creating separate pages for each process post. This will allow each post to be self-contained, organized, and more accessible for readers to navigate. Additionally, as Suzanne and Mickey suggested, adding images and bibliography to each process post would be a great way to improve the overall quality of the content. However, having numerous photos and bibliographies on a category page can be overwhelming and distracting for readers, so creating separate pages is the best option.

I also want to note that the lack of white space on a category page, as highlighted by the Pagé presentation, is another consideration. Creating separate pages for each process post allows her to utilize white space more effectively and create a cleaner, more visually appealing layout for her readers.

Mama Jo's Posts Page
Mama Jo's Posts Page

I suggest applying the same recommendations for the assignments section as well. Additionally, for the mini assignments, I suggest providing short descriptions for some assignments that require extra information to improve user engagement, such as telling a story through media. Finally, I found the photos section lovely and exciting, and I appreciate Jolene’s family’s warm, sweet, and intimate vibe. I hope all the good vibes in the universe protect their energy! Thank you, Jolene, for sharing your moments with us!

Regarding aesthetics and design decisions, I suggest adding more storytelling and organization to the pictures from the audience’s perspective seeking family moments and stories. For example, adding dates under the photos and sorting them based on dates or dividing them into separate content posts, each with a unique story and related images. Another recommendation is to add a date for each post.

I recommend using a transparent logo for the homepage because it appears too large for its purpose and is challenging to recognize as a logo rather than a picture.

I suggest reconsidering the color theme. Pure black (RGB 0) can be hard on the eyes, and it may be beneficial to incorporate color principles discussed in Mauve’s presentation. On the other hand, given the family-oriented and joyful mood of the blog, a dark theme might not be the best decision, especially considering the many pictures with white backgrounds on the website. Additionally, the target audience is likely Gen X, who prefer bright themes over dark themes, which are more prevalent among Gen Z (Web flow, 2019).

I also appreciate the hyperlinks for referring to reading materials in the process posts, making it easier for readers to access the sources. However, I recommend using high-quality images instead of some outsourced images and mentioning the source of the photos due to copyright matters.

Mama Jo's Menu Bar
Mama Jo's Menu Bar

Menu Bar 

The navigation bar is well-organized and easy to navigate. However, I found one aspect of it to be slightly unclear. Instead of using the word “posts,” it would be more helpful to use the term “process post” since it pertains to all posts related to a specific process in WP terminology. It’s worth noting that the navigation bar is solely used for process posts.

Additionally, the peer review section does not currently have any peer reviews available. Therefore, hiding this section might be more effective until content is added temporarily. At this point, it can be made public.

Final words 

I believe Jolene’s blog has much potential to gain popularity among parents and even younger generations like myself. I’m particularly drawn to the sincerity and authenticity of her cyberinfrastructure, which is somewhat rare among people of my age group.

Upon exploring her blog, I found that it offers a unique perspective on topics related to motherhood and parenting. Her writing style is engaging and relatable, making it easy for readers to connect with her and her experiences. However, what sets her blog apart is the genuine and honest approach she takes toward her content.

Overall, her blog has the potential to become a go-to resource for mothers and parents who are seeking inspiration and a sense of community. Her commitment to authenticity and openness is commendable, and I look forward to seeing how her blog evolves and grows.







Bibliography:

Webflow. (2019, March 6). Generational marketing: How to use color to appeal to different age groups. Webflow Blog. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://webflow.com/blog/generational-marketing-colors

Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close 

Campbell, G. (2009, September). A personal cyberinfrastructure. EDUCAUSE Review, 44(5), 58-59https://er.educause.edu/articles/2009/9/a-personal-cyberinfrastructure

Basu, T. (2020, September 3). Digital Gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/03/1007716/digital-gardens-let-you-cultivate-your-own-little-bit-of-the-internet/

Page, M. (2023). Web Design and Type on Screens [PowerPoint Slides]. Department of Publishing, Simon Fraser University.

Website accessibility archives. APLN. (n.d.). Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://apln.ca/category/website-accessibility/ 

Suler, J. (2004). Psychology of cyberspace – the online disinhibition effect. Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://truecenterpublishing.com/psycyber/disinhibit.html 

Peer Review 3: MindMediaRes

For my final peer review, I looked at Mercy’s blog, MindMediaRes, which is a website that analyzes media through personality theory, as stated in the tagline. In his about page, he explains that he’s been interested in psychology his whole life, and when he got into personality theory, he found the competitiveness of the community extremely toxic. Therefore, with his blog, he wants to create a space where he can safely write about his opinions and invite others to share theirs too.

Who is the Target Audience?

Through exploring Mercy’s content, it becomes clear that his target audience is composed of personality theory enthusiasts, or more specifically, personality theory enthusiasts who are interested in how it manifests itself in media.

Fattal explains that counterpublics are publics who oppose dominant discourses, and I think that Mercy’s target audience fits this explanation perfectly. Personality theory is a way of explaining the mind that isn’t rooted in science, which is the dominant discourse in our society in terms of psychology. By catering to this audience, (or counterpublic) of personality theory enthusiasts, Mercy successfully creates a public and generates discourse in a welcoming environment.

At the same time, Mercy makes it obvious that his intended audience is also himself. Basu explains that the creation of digital gardens is different than simply making a blog because it involves talking about niche interests and focuses on learning and growth, instead of growing large audiences.

In alignment with the concept of a digital garden, Mercy creates an environment dedicated to growth and the telling of his own thoughts and ideas, explained on his about page. He states that “this blog is based on my own thoughts, feelings, and ideas” and also emphasizes that he’s trying to learn more and is open to hearing other people’s opinions too. So with the digital garden in mind, he’s also marketing to himself, but for the purpose of this review, I’ll be focusing on the marketability of the counterpublic of personality theory enthusiasts (which he is a part of anyways).

MindMediaRes's "about page," showing his construction of a digital garden
Mercy’s “about” page, detailing the construction of his digital garden

Writing for an Audience

Looking at the content on Mercy’s blog, it becomes obvious that his content posts specifically cater to his target audience of personality theory enthusiasts who also enjoy media. Each content post focuses on an aspect of personality theory, either cognitive functions or the enneagram. Using these aspects of personality theory, Mercy analyzes different media, such as movies and shows. For example, his most recent content post surrounds the character, Trina from the 1992 musical, Falsettos. He analyzes Trina’s enneagram type through the songs she sings throughout the musical.

Mercy’s content also caters to all levels of personality theory enthusiasts, from beginners to experts, which increases the marketability of his website to a wider audience. This is evident through Mercy’s first two content posts, where he explains the two aspects of personality theory he tackles in his blog: cognitive functions and the enneagram. These explanations provide a solid framework from which beginner personality theory enthusiasts can start building their knowledge.  

It is also obvious that Mercy’s blog content is more intellectually advanced. This is not only shown through the blog’s subject matter, but in the way the posts are written. The academic tone of the blog makes the content more exclusive, but I don’t think this is a bad thing at all. Hollenbaugh explains that when creating content, writers need to present themselves based on their imagined audiences. In this case, the imagined audience would be personality theory enthusiasts, who are assumed to be more intellectually inclined in the first place, just based on the academic subject matter. Take the first sentence in Mercy’s post, “Untangling Morality in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along” Blog as an example:

“Character archetypes have a fairly predictable lifespan of solidifying themselves in pop culture, going through subversions, and subsequently creating new archetypes based on those subversions over the course of many years.”

The vocabulary used in this sentence makes the blog content more exclusive in nature, making it difficult for a younger audience of children, per se, to understand the posts. Nonetheless, the language caters well to the target audience, who, judging by their interest in personality theory, is already intellectually advanced and can understand the vocabulary used in the blog.

Diving into Design

Judging by the blog’s target audience of personality theory enthusiasts and the content in each of the posts, I think that in terms of design, this makes for a more intellectual, serious, straightforward feel to the blog. Mercy uses elements that help maintain this aesthetic that align well with Mauvé Page’s suggestions for blog design. For example, the typeface personality works well with the more serious, intellectual aesthetic of the blog. It is clean, simple, and legible, and makes sure the g’s and q’s don’t mix up, and all those kinds of things.

Excerpt of a post from MindMediaRes, showing effective use of typography to convey the blog's aesthetic
Excerpt of a post from MindMediaRes, showing effective use of typography to convey the blog’s aesthetic

More generally, some other effective design elements include the fact that there is a good contrast between the black and white shades, making the writing clear and legible and adding to the “seriousness” of the blog aesthetic. The design is also very cohesive, with a limited amount of colour and one consistent font used throughout the blog.

Mercy’s website is also accessible, which makes it inclusive to everyone within his target audience. In alignment with Gaines’s explanation of the four principles of accessibility, Mercy’s blog is particularly perceivable. For example, he includes an accessibility plug in and all his hyperlinks are underlined, making them different from the rest of the content and reducing the need to look for them.

Design Suggestions

Mercy uses a theme from Alx for his blog. While this template is effective in organizing his posts and laying out all the content in a logical way, Gertz warns against using templates because they are often standardized and can take the personality away from websites. Therefore, I would suggest that Mercy thinks about building his website from scratch so that it reflects him and his audience better.

But if straying from a template is too much at the moment (which I completely understand as it’s also the reason why I’m still using one), I would suggest that Mercy creates a consistent identity and brand for his blog that caters well to his target audience of personality theory enthusiasts. This might be the “serious, intellectual, straightforward” feel that I talked about earlier, or any other kind of mood Mercy wants to create.

Subtle customizations that reflect aspects related to personality theory might be a good idea. For example, this might include creating a homepage, that, instead of simply featuring previews of posts, hosts a post carousel with pictures related to the content featuring aspects of personality theory. It might also involve playing around with more colours to convey a certain aesthetic if he sees fit.

Branding the site a little more strategically through design elements would create a clear mood and atmosphere for the audience, which, aside from the content, pulls viewers into the experience and shows them what the blog is about even before they read any of the posts.

Overall

All in all, I really appreciate the passion that Mercy puts into his blog. It’s clear that aside from being a school assignment, personality theory is something that he is truly interested in. His posts go above and beyond the course requirements and include in-depth, comprehensive explanations, thorough application of theory to case studies, and even several sources for readers to learn more. Because of this and so much more, I really hope that he continues working on this blog after the course is over and I will definitely stay updated so I can keep learning about personality theory!

References:

Basu, T. (2020, September 5). Digital gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet. MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/03/1007716/digital-gardens-let-you-cultivate-your-own-little-bit-of-the-internet/

Fattal, A. (2018). Encyclopedia entry — Counterpublic. UC San Diego. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/73t260cm

Gaines, H. [UXDX]. (2022, January 27). The four principles of accessibility [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUxx_sq2QdY

Gertz, T. (2015, July 10). How to sur­vive the dig­i­tal apocalypse. Louder Than Ten. https://louderthanten.com/coax/design-machines

Hollenbaugh, E. E. (2021). Self-presentation in social media: Review and research opportunities. Review of Communication Research9, 80–98. https://doi.org/10.12840/ISSN.2255-4165.027

La Bossiere, M. (2023). About. MindMediaRes. https://mindmediares.com/about/

La Bossiere, M. (2023, January 24). The cognitive functions explained. MindMediaRes. https://mindmediares.com/the-cognitive-functions-explained/

La Bossiere, M. (2023, January 30). The enneagram explained. MindMediaRes. https://mindmediares.com/the-enneagram-explained-introduction/

La Bossiere, M. (2023, March 32). Untangling morality in Dr. Horrible’s sing-along blog. MediaMediaRes. https://mindmediares.com/untangling-morality-in-dr-horribles-sing-along-blog/

La Bossiere, M. (2023, March 22). Trina from Falsettos (2016) is a clear 6w7. MindMediaRes. https://mindmediares.com/trina-from-falsettos-2016-is-a-clear-6w7/

Peer Review #3

Victor Poon – http://vpcardcollections.com/

When opening Victor’s website you are first presented with a fullscreen image of Ash Ketchum with Pikachu on his shoulder. I like this design choice and think it gives the reader a glimpse of what his website is about without using any words which is a good thing. At the top left of the page there is a title for his website in a nice simple bold font, and just to the right of that is a navigation menu that allows readers to access each part of his website. Both use a white font which provides a good contrast to the dark blue background making it easier to read. While I think this is a good start, there are a few things I would change. For starters I would replace the default text over the image, currently, it says “My Blog” and “Just another WordPress site”. I think if he replaced that with his website title and then centered the navigation menu at the top it would be more balanced and remove some unnecessary text. Moreover, if he would like to keep the two text boxes he could also add the text just underneath the image that says “VP CARD COLLECTIONS IS A PLACE TO SHARE STORIES AND IN-DEPTH REVIEWS ABOUT A VARIETY OF TRADING CARD PRODUCTS”, that way when someone opens his site they get the title and a short description of it without having to scroll at all.

Scrolling down, there is a detailed about me section with a good picture followed by a section talking about pokemon as it’s one of the main topics of the website and finally at the bottom, there is a gallery of pictures of different card packs he has opened. I think everything here is well done and valid to have on the homepage. The theme of the homepage is very good and looks professional, some may critique the fact that the background changes from black to white to black again as it is inconsistent but I like it and think it provides distinct indicators that you are on a new section of the homepage. The design is kept consistent throughout the entirety of his website, overall a very simple and minimal design that just works very well for this kind of blog. One thing to note is that not all of the content is showing up in the navigation menu which makes it a little confusing to find all his posts. The actual content itself is well done, his content posts examine many different trading cards/card sets from pokemon to the NHL. Reading the posts you can tell this is something he is passionate about, he goes over how many cards are in each set, the prices, the rarity of certain cards, cards that have special qualities, and the artwork on the cards. The process posts do a good job of examining the readings from each week and providing his thoughts on them, but in his more recent ones, he doesn’t include any changes he made to his website or details on his process of content creation for that week which is an important part of the process posts. Since this week is all about blog marketability and search engine optimization I thought I would outline some things that are done well and things that could help improve this for Victor’s blog. The article 15 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO outlines 15 reasons search engine optimization is so important for reachability and every one of these points can translate to any website not only businesses. “With the rise and growing domination of mobile traffic, local search has become a fundamental part of… Success”(Hollingsworth, 2021). The article explains the importance of mobile support for reachability and this is something Victor has done well. Everything on his site works on mobile just as well as on desktop and the navigation bar is put into a three-line icon that just makes more sense for mobile. The article also explains the importance of having keywords on your website so your content will show up more frequently in people’s search results. Pokemon is a massive brand with millions of searches each day so it’ll be hard to optimize this for his website but I think if he used specific pack names as titles for his content posts that it would show up more for people looking for information on those packs. Overall I enjoyed reviewing Victor’s website as someone who grew up playing pokemon games and had tons of pokemon cards as a kid. It was interesting to hear about recent information on the subject and I think with a little more polishing this website would be very good.

References

Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close

Page, M. (2023, February). Designing Yourself. Lecture, Burnaby; Simon Fraser University.

Peer Review #3

Website Link:

Target Audience

Looking at Completely Cass‘ website, her website seems to be catered towards student athletes, like herself. The website currently lacks content posts, which makes it difficult to feel connected to the author; however, the video in the “About Me” section allows the audience to have a better idea of who Cassidy is. This video is lively and entertaining to watch. Through the clips of sports matches, concerts, and spending time with friends, we can get a glimpse of Cassidy’s adventurous and fun life. Using this information about who she is, I can assume her target audience is someone with a similar lifestyle to her.

Content

Cassidy’s blog currently lacks content posts, which prevents me from being able to provide an in depth review of the website’s content. There are categories that Cassidy has made, which makes me excited to see posts from each category once they are published. These categories include “Athlete Who Can Do Both,” “Adventurous Soul,” “Things You Should Know,” and “Mental Well-Being.” Although these categories are currently blank, I can tell that Cassidy’s main focuses are lifestyle and well-being.

Design

In “15 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO,” it mentions importance of having a “clean, effective user experience” and establishing authority for your website (Hollingsworth, 2021). I believe Cassidy does a good job at this. The white background is minimalistic and the menu titles are clear and concise, which makes the website seem simple to navigate from the user’s perspective. Additionally, the website’s logo is clean. The “CC” logo creates a professional look that legitimizes the website, making it more marketable. A way that Cassidy can increase her website’s search engine optimization is by using keywords and tags that increase the audience reach.

Marketability

Considering Cassidy’s website has limited content, it is difficult to observe the website’s marketability. Based on the current website, I believe Cassidy is on the right track to being marketable. The website’s simplicity gives it a professional feel while being easy to navigate. Although there is a professional feel, the About Me” page personalizes the website, giving the audience a glimpse into the writer’s life. Moreover, the website’s alliterative title, “Completely Cass,” as it is catchy and memorable; I think having a catchy title can make a website more marketable.

Conclusion

Overall, I like the theme and layout of the website. The logo gives the website a professional edge, while the content creates a personalized feel to the audience. Although there are few posts on the blog, I still feel like I have a general idea of Cassidy’s interests. To improve the website’s SEO, I would recommend including keywords and tags in each post to reach a larger audience. I look forward to seeing more content on the website in the future and learning more about Cassidy!

Reference

Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 6). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close

Peer Review #2

Peer Review # 2 This week I am reviewing “VP COLLECTIONS” by Victor. 

Direct Link: http://vpcardcollections.com/blog/evolving-skies-is-the-best-sword-and-shield-pokemon-set/

Theme and Customizations 

Upon first glance at the website, it looks visually appealing and exciting. It has plenty of contrast with the black and white styling. You can tell right away that the content will be about Pokemon in some manner with eye-catching Pokemon artwork on the home page. The website design is exciting and draws you in with lots of great pictures and an amazing about-me write-up of the author. I like that it introduces the author on the home page, where you find out about Victor’s passion for collecting cards. The theme choice looks very professional.

Site Structure and Layout

Kaptelinin, mentions “affordances” and explains that a good design is intuitive. This means website visitors should be able to know how to navigate a site using their intuition. I feel Victor’s site has been built using an intuitive design structure, which makes his site easy to navigate, it grabs the user’s attention, creates interest, and allows your eyes to wander to see what will come next. I love that the content of the website is easy to navigate. 

Usability and Accessibility

I noticed and appreciated right away that Victor included “One Click” an accessibility plug-in on his website. Homer Gaines mentions that 15% of the world’s population has a disability, which makes it important to consider accessibility in website design to be considerate to others that may experience visual limitations. This add-on enhances usability for Victor’s users. Victor keeps a consistent theme throughout his site and his sentences are easy to read.

Typography

In addition to the usability of websites, choosing a readable and appropriate typeface is important as well (Gertz, 2015). Victor uses a readable typeface that fits his theme. He uses contrast effectively which makes it easy to read and navigate. The bolded white categories and titles on the homepage are appealing against the dark artwork.


References

Gaines, H. [UXDX]. (2022, January 27). The four principles of accessibility [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUxx_sq2QdY

Gertz, T. (2015, July 10). How to sur­vive the dig­i­tal apocalypse. Louder Than Ten. https://louderthanten.com/coax/design-machines

Kaptelinin, V. (2014). Affordances. In M. Soegaard and R. F. Dam (Eds.), The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed. Interaction Design Foundation.

Peer Review #2 – Sammy Universe

This week I had the pleasure of reviewing Sammy’s website, which is suitably titled SammyUniverse

Immediately, when opening the home page, the banner had a picture of a planet with the blog tagline. I think the photo she chose ties in with the title of her blog since it is a planet in a “universe,” similar to the universe she created with the website. It is also similar to the header style discussed in the article “Design Machines. How to survive in the digital Apocalypse.” Travis Gertz details this commonly used home page format and attributes the widespread use to the fact that it simply works for many people and companies, creating a trend that can be seen on many other sites. 

After scrolling past the banner, there are some clear template blocks still containing placeholder texts. There are some headings which state that “Music, Film [and] Random Things” are going to be explored. There is also a block with a motivational quote, a few sentences, and a link box; however, the link does not direct the reader to any page. It’s unclear whether this block is a filler or something Sammy wrote but possibly forgot to link. Closer to the bottom, after more filler blocks, there are links to some recent posts and assignments and contact information. I do like the homepage, and the colours of the banner photo match the she chose, but I wish it were more concise and included content from or about the blog. The blog’s footer is a GIF of purple/blue clouds, which I thought was a nice creative touch. I liked that it was moving and matched the other colours of the website; it captures the readers’ attention. Sammy could use this to her advantage and include some social media links in the footer since I didn’t see any throughout the rest of her blog. 

The website’s typography is relatively simple. Around three sans-serif fonts are alternated between writing portions, but they fit the blog’s theme and are easy to read. One header on the Film page includes a combination of two fonts that I found visually appealing, especially with the inclusion of the bolded word. It allows the reader to understand what Sammy is trying to emphasize. 

It could be beneficial for Sammy to consider incorporating more contrasting font styles into her text to allow for variety. 

Sammy’s website has a few different cool aspects that come together to create a captivating user experience. 

Similar to the footer, other movements occur throughout the blog, such as appearing text and images that fall into place when the page is opened. These things grabbed my attention and made me want to keep reading. Next, I really enjoyed the use of images! From a reader’s perspective, there was a perfect balance of photos and text. The pictures were all relevant to the blog’s content and acted as a visual aid. It was especially crucial in the movie reviews and music recommendations, so the reader knows what is being discussed. The music and movies were also linked, which is important when discussing or recommending a piece of media, especially if you want the reader to view or listen for themselves. 

The website layout is unique from other blogs that I have seen. The music and film pages are sole pages and don’t include individual posts, making everything easy to find. The same can be said for the blog content, which is just one long page. On the Posiel page, all the content is separated by each week of class. I found this format to be interesting, but it took some work to navigate. While it was all categorized into Process Post, Weekly Content, and Mini Assignments, it isn’t easy to find what you are looking for if you do not have every week of course content memorized. It would likely be a good idea to title each week and the assignments; doing so would give context to the reader and make it easier for them to find what they need. 

In conclusion, Sammy Universe was a very captivating website that I enjoyed exploring. The theme was consistent throughout the site, and the colours and photos matched the theme or the content. Its general usability is good, but the Posiel page could be easier to navigate. Overall, this blog was fun to review, and I look forward to seeing what else Sammy has to add. Keep it up!

Peer Review #1 – The Stars, Too

This week, I got to explore Ryn’s website: The Stars, Too. At first glance, I appreciated the minimalism of the website. The site was very easy to navigate: all the content was in its appropriate place and category. It was also helpful that the ballet and theatre posts were separated into their respective categories. The primary colours are black and white, which I enjoyed because it allows the blog images to stand out even more. 

I was intrigued to learn more about the blog since the home page was so simple, so I went onto the About page. The information on that page included the author’s name and a brief explanation of what the blog was for. I was hoping for additional general information about the writer and the blog. Ryn may consider including some detail about why her blog topics are of such interest to her. Although I understand why there wasn’t a photo of the writer, since it’s a blog about theatre and ballet, it could be beneficial to include a personal photo. The image doesn’t necessarily need to be of the author, but it could be a photo she took of the theatre or ballet to help create a more personal connection between the writer and the reader. 

However, it is possible that Ryn has done this purposefully, with a specific intent in mind. Her reasoning could relate to our class reading, Self-Presentation in Social Media: Review and Research Opportunities. This paper by Erin E. Hollenbaugh aims to view how people present themselves on online platforms and allows for a certain degree of anonymity (Hollenbaugh, 2021). Evidently, every person with any media presence chooses what they want to be shared on social media; therefore, there remains anonymity within the aspects that are not shared. Not only this, but John Suler also discusses the concept of anonymity in his article, The Online Disinhibition Effect. He states that “anonymity works wonders for the disinhibition effect” (Suler, 2004). Perhaps Ryn’s degree of anonymity serves a purpose for the overall goal of her blog.

In contrast, my peer’s blog posts were filled with content! (See theatre here and ballet here) She provided extensive detail in her reviews of Shakespeare’s Richard II and Mayerling (a ballet). I was impressed by the amount of detail put into writing each post. The writing style was easy to follow, and I could clearly understand what my peer was writing about. 

The process posts provided the reader insight into the work being done on the website each week. This included some setbacks and advancements that were involved when creating their website. She also incorporated information and knowledge from the course readings into these posts, making it clear that they were read and understood well. 

To speak on the written work on the website, Ryn did an excellent job. Her writing has no grammatical errors, and the vocabulary choices were very fitting. Not only this, but it was clear that the word choices were used in a way that allowed the reader to understand the writer’s main point better. To add, the writing choices also accurately reflected the writer’s tone, and the illustrative vocabulary complimented the blog topics (theatre and ballet) very well.

To conclude, Ryn’s blog provides a wonderful platform for lovers of the fine arts to go and read about various pieces. The blog is simple and to the point, with the writing being easy to read but appropriately elegant at the same time. These content pieces on my peers contribute to developing her online self. Her interests are apparent, and she aims to speak on these interests throughout her blog posts. 

Peer Review #3: I Wear Your Grandad’s Clothes

For this week’s third and final peer review, I had the pleasure of reviewing Makena Leyh’s site: iwearyourgrandadsclothes.com. What a great site and theme idea!

Starting off with design, the dynamic page element immediately grabbed my attention. I really like how the blog posts slightly move while scrolling the page, making the site more engaging from a user’s perspective. Upon landing on the homepage of the blog, I’m met with so many captivating images. This paired with the cream background, really makes the content pop. Great work!. I also love how minimal the page is. This design decision allows the site’s content to shine through, rather than being too busy, cluttered, or distracting. 

Makena has done a great job of creating a personal connection with the audience which invites them to engage with the blog further. For example, the site title: “I Wear Your Grandad’s Clothes”, paired with the slogan below “Because sustainability is SO in right now!” is witty, on brand, and a great way to introduce your audience to the site. It is definitely a form of expression and your personality is revealed to the audience. This reminds me of what Gertz (2015) had explained regarding making design and content decisions in a more authentic way to forge human connection. I noted this time and time again on your site which really is the framework of successfully marketing your website to the intended audience group.

I highly suggest you add an “About” page because this will definitely create an even more personalized and dynamic site for your audience. It would be nice to see how you put together an “About” page that reflects your site’s theme and invites your users to explore the blog more.

As for specific blog content, I loved your meme. The image once again had that captivating movement effect while scrolling which drew me in as the viewer. It was clever and again connected with your intended audience. Your guest post with Spiderman was also really clever. You did a good job tying it into the blog’s theme and speaking to the intended audience. This was effective particularly with the sentence:

“I’m really here to spread an important message of how YOU can help me and the rest of the Avengers save the world from our biggest threat EVER – like even worse than Thanos – climate change.”

Your content titles are also super creative and captivating. This once again makes your audience interested in diving into the site’s content.

My final feedback is regarding website marketability to the intended audience. While your designs are great, you could definitely add more content. I was looking forward to seeing more public posts from your site that engage with the theme. This way, someone that’s interested in thrifting and sustainability could connect more with your site. The guest post was a sneak peak into this discussion with an intended audience and I’m looking forward to seeing more.

It would also be nice to see a “contact us” page where viewers could get in touch and potentially request different blog post topics. More posts, and an “About” page will really drive in more user traffic, ultimately making your site more marketable. Organic search is a huge source of blog traffic (Hollingsworth, 2018), making SEOs and keywords great tools to grow your website audience.

Looking forward to seeing you develop more content! Great work Makena 🙂

References:

Gertz, T. (2015). “Design Machines. How to survive in the digital Apocalypse.”

Hollingsworth, S. (2018). “12 Reasons Why You Business Absolutely Needs SEO.” https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close

Peer Review #3

Site Development

As I complete my third peer review of website developments, this process has been great experience in bettering my own content through analysis of other successful individuals work. For this review, I was tasked with assessing Brianna’s website Perfume Log”. I really enjoyed reading through this website as it was super easy to navigate and explore. The focus of the site is for readers to learn about new perfumes and use this information to make informed decisions on perfume purchasing. When first entering the site, you are greeted with a simple and fitting home page where navigation to posts is direct. She has a variety of different reviews and a super engaging rating system that helps consumers clearly understand the product.

Typography

I felt that the typography of Brianna’s website is suitable for her content, as this site has a clear focus, and the chosen fonts and flavour is a great match for the perfume industry. I would advise considering the centering decision for the home page description. I feel as though it may be more suitable to reorganize the setting of the writing as it makes it slightly confusing. As for the image choice for the home page, I think there may be a better way of placing the image. Considering a layer of the image with text could be a fun change or else maybe clearer portion of writing and add extras picture in between.

Content Development and Categories

Brianna’s content was very enjoyable to read, she is engaging and provides valuable reviews. I found that her content is very solid and the only suggestions I would think to mention revolves mainly on the categories she has set. The PUB 101 section is great and clearly stated so not edits in that regard but where I believe could benefit from refinement would be in the perfume log. I think that creating subcategories for the perfumes whether they are split up based on review score, type of perfume or even a price point could be super interesting.

Marketability and Intended audience

Most importantly of this peer review is the emphasis on the marketability of Brianna’s website and how has she aligned the intended audience. Firstly, the marketability of the “Perfume Log” is well established. The ability to interpret and enjoy the high level content with great reviews as well.

Peer Review #3

This week I had the opportunity to look over yet another website of one of my peers. Caffeinated Tammy is a personal and lifestyle blog run by Tamanna about her daily life, the things she enjoys, and her experience as a first generation Indian immigrant. As a child of immigrants, it was wonderful to read through her blog and see someone who had such similar and still opposite experiences to myself. There is a refreshing overlap between our content, with both of our blogs being dedicated towards remaining in touch with our culture.

In terms of marketability, I think that Tammy has done an excellent job in ensuring that her site can be discovered by her intended audience. She has links to several different social media platforms indicated clearly at the bottom of her site. One thing that I would recommend in terms of social media links is to have the social media links and icons also listed at the top of the site as well. The lists of pages on the menu are on the right side of the header, leaving space for social media links on the left side. In general, it is generally unlikely that readers will read anything that is “below the fold” unless they are given sufficient motivation or are looking for something in specific. Following this logic, we can assume that they will not be scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page and therefore it is likely that the social media links will be missed.

A screenshot of the Caffeinated Tammy's blog. Icons for Instagram, Twitter and TikTok line the footer, with the title Socials above them. Above that are the bottoms of several images from the blog.
A screenshot of the header of Caffeinated Tammy's blog. On the right hand, a menu reads "home", "about me" and "blog". On the left side is a smaller version of her logo.

The social media platforms themselves are as well quite well chosen in regards to Tammy’s intended audience. Her choice in uploading posts to TikTok, Instagram and Twitter make logical sense given that the user demographics of each of those sites are generally younger audiences. Based on how the algorithm on TikTok in particular works, those who interact with content that is similar to Tammy’s will be more likely to see her posts. The title of her website is also both distinct and inoffensive enough that a Google search will lead to the intended blog, and there is little overlap with other platforms. Furthermore, Tammy’s use of social media operates in the same fashion as transmedia storytelling, in that each platform linked can be consumed almost entirely on its own, however they all contribute to the same overall story. Overall I have little to suggest, and can’t wait to do more stalking into her site!

Peer Review #5

Marilyn Brimacombe’s blog is a place where the author (Marilyn) aims to share tangible tips, tricks and hacks for beauty, wellness and lifestyle, as well as how to live your best balanced life. 

When I first got onto the site, I noticed that the site overall has a certain aesthetic and style to it—clean, cute and girly. The first thing I noticed was the carousel of images, which visually illustrates what the site is generally about. As a user of this site, I am particularly drawn to it. I also saw a few hints of pink in the images, which feels like it ties the entire aesthetic together. The font choice also fits the aesthetic well, making the entire site consistent, which makes me want to keep navigating through the site.

Another thing I like about this website is how easy it is to navigate through the different categories of the site. Not only are these categories shown in the top navigation bar, but they are also shown closer to the bottom of the homepage as clickable images with a text label of the respective category. In addition, I think that the categories are well chosen because it shows the type of content I would want to see as someone who is part of the intended audience.

One thing I think would make the homepage a bit stronger is to add a little bit more detail on what the site is about or what its goal is. Currently, the only pointers I saw that hinted what the site is about is the tagline under the site title, which reads “The ultimate guide to beauty and wellness,” as well as the categories. Adding another short blurb on what this site aims to do for its intended audience might be something that could incline more users to stay on the site and learn more about all the tips and tricks for beauty, wellness and lifestyle. 

Diving deeper into the site, I can see that the headings of each post are really big in the previews. This catches my attention and inclines me to read more about them. Moreover, titles and general content for each post is well related to the goal of the site, which is a good thing because as a user in the intended audience group, it would make me confused if the content did not relate to the goal of the site and would make me not want to continue using it.

Lastly, the about page is great in describing with detail who Marilyn is, what she does and why she does what she does. The goal of her site is very clear here, and she ties in her passions and interests, and what she does to the goal of her site in a cohesive way.

All Travelled By Claire?

PEER REVIEW THREE: reviewing marketability. featuring: all travelled by claire.
A screenshot of Claire's home screen of the website.
A screenshot of Claire’s home screen on the website.

For the third peer review activity, I got the opportunity to browse and look at Claire’s website: All Travelled By Claire

At first glance, the home page is well-organized and aesthetic to look at. The picture featured on the homepage immediately caught my attention because it is from Greece. From a fellow traveller’s perspective, I was immediately interested. 

The title and home screen of Claire’s website clearly state the website is for travel photography and travel resources. From a SEO standpoint, I think it is good marketing as it highlights keywords for the search engine to curate and find (Hollingsworth, 2021). The page captivates audiences who love to travel. 

I really like the home page; it is very clean and organized. The simplicity and natural colours add calmness to the webpages setting. 

Before I began interacting with Claire’s webpage, I thought about my own digital relationship with travel. I thought about the different photos I would take compared to those of others. Therefore, I was interested in seeing what Claire decided to take photos of and decided to upload (“Digital Breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us”, 2023). 

When I clicked on the travel photo option button, it took me to a page labelled “an interactive photo diary”. The page featured two pictures of a similar beautiful sunset overlooking the water. From the photos, I could see the captivated beauty. Overall, I really enjoyed the colour scheme from the sunset. Based on the photos, I assumed the location of travel was possibly Greece, or somewhere warm. 

Although the photos were beautiful, I was missing some information. Unfortunately, there was no story or information regarding the photo’s location and or meaning. I loved the idea of the photo diary, but it seems like photos are missing as there are only two pictures available to see. I think there is a lot of potential for this page despite the missing information.  

Next, I explored the about page. When I went to the about page on the webpage, I found a lot more information. 

I really appreciated the about page as it outlined some information on Claire. I was able to understand Claire’s vision for the website. From my perspective, the website was focused on Claire’s passion for travelling and was intended to be demonstrated through the cultivation of travel photos and fun tips (Basu, 2020). I felt that the about page provided a lot of personality into who Claire is. 

A big thing I would personally focus on is adding some public content that includes travel tips and photos with information. 

Overall, I really liked the intended look of the website. I think the intentions of the audience are clear and precise. The website includes good key search words and is headed in the right direction. I think the website has good potential. 

Thank you for sharing Claire! 🙂

References

Basu, T. (2020, September 3). Digital Gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet. MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/03/1007716/digital-gardens-let-you-cultivate-your-own-little-bit-of-the-internet/

Digital Breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us. (2016, May 23). Pod Academy. Retrieved November 19, 2022, from http://podacademy.org/podcasts/digital-breadcrumbs-our-data-trail/ 

Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 6). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close 

Sofia’s Life For The Day

This week, I explored Sofia’s blog, Day in Sofia’s Life. First Impressions  The first thing I notice upon arriving at her site is the appealing colour scheme and simplistic design that she has chosen. The white, black, and red all contrast with each other nicely, and gives the site a crisp feel.  I also liked...

Peer Review #3: Moda Web Design & Fashion Blog

Home page of Moda Web

Website link: https://brendanmckay.com/101blog/blog.html

Brendan’s website, Moda Web, is a blog about fashion and the fashion industry. The chosen audience is very specific and the website seems to be doing a great job catering to people who care about what is happening in the fashion and design world. Brendan’s blog contains posts about runway fashion shows, the creative minds behind haute couture, as well as new products in the fashion industry. They seem to have an eye for fashion and creativity because their blog has a very minimalistic look, but still somehow looks super neat and modern. The black and white look gives the website a contrasting but welcoming feel that I as the viewer very much like.

Brendan’s posts revolve around the world of fashion is very lucky for those certain people looking to keep up to date with all that is happening in the fashion industry. Since the blog is all about the fashion world, it would only make sense that Brendan’s targeted audience is people wanting to keep up with everything in fashion or people that are generally interested in fashion. 

The website definitely caters to its chosen and very specific demographic especially since in one of the posts it mentions the use of Google Analytics (which by the way is a great way to figure out who your audience is and how to engage more with them). If I were someone who wants to keep up with the world of the fashion industry and see what is happening around the world, Brendan’s website is definitely the place where I would look and depend upon to keep me up to date.

While going through the website and getting lost in all the posts about the fashion world, I found some ways that the website could be improved. Well, to begin with, it would be nice to have an accessibility feature so that everyone and anyone interested in fashion can access Brendan’s blog without difficulty or inconvenience. Another thing that would be nice to see would be a little bit more about the author in the “About” section of the blog because as of right now it only tells the audience about the website (which is absolutely fabulous), but it would be great to get to know a bit more about the genius behind the blog. 

Besides my minor suggestions, Moda Web is an absolutely amazing and fabulous place to visit and keep in mind if you want to stay up to date with the world of the fashion industry and everything fashionable. 

Reviewing Mikaela’s Website

Mikaela’s Website: http://mikaelaswrld.com/

Mikaela’s website is bright and colourful, as the first element I noticed as the user was the red and white background and the bulky pink letters for the title “Mikaela’s Wrld.” As someone who does not often use bright and flashy colours, this element is different and stood out to me. From a user’s perspective, I recommend Mikaela to focus on the unity of her website’s design. Here, I am referring to the consistency of the colours she utilizes. The colours are distracting and overwhelming because pink and red clash together. An element I appreciated was how Mikaela included accessibility tools on the left side of the screen. According to Professor Norman, using “open source/access tools and apps as well as built-in accessibility checkers, plugins and other software tools make it easy” (Norman, 2022, p. 10). Professor Norman implies how important it is for your website to be accessible for anyone to use. In other words, Mikaela’s accessibility tools on her website provide a wide range of people to use, such as people with disabilities (Norman, 2022, p. 10). Moreover, the calendar on the left side could be a helpful feature on a website because it allows the user to see when and how often Mikaela posts content.

After browsing through Mikaela’s website, I want to make a few suggestions for helping her website improve in terms of using formal and plain language. As a user, I found it challenging to read Mikaela’s content, as there are many grammar mistakes and hard-to-read sentences. For example, she is missing punctuation and misspelling words, hindering the flow of her content. In her post, titled “Clocks,” she discusses how “growing up I thought it was mandatory for everyone to know how to read analog clocks.” Here, she is missing a comma between the word “up” and “I.” I highly recommend Mikaela read over her posts and double-check for grammatical errors.

Mikaela’s post continues to highlight how “the skills needed 20 years ago and skills needed now are waaaaaaaay different. Some teachers made it seem like if I can’t read an analog clock, I wouldn’t be able to graduate and/or have a secure future.” Here, the wording and language in her post could be more concise. In other words, if Mikaela simplifies, the content will be more accessible.

I recommend Mikaela to add pictures on her website as well. As someone who is a visual learner, I think adding photos will enhance the website and make it more engaging for users. Lastly, creating categories for Mikaela’s public posts will make it easier for the user to find what they are looking for.

References 

Norman, S. (2022). Lecture 5: Editing & Genres + Accessible Websites [PowerPoint slides]. Simon Fraser University. https://posiel.com/outline/full-semester-outline/

Peer Review #3

She is Recovering

She is Recovering is a blog created by Alessia Turco, and is dedicated to supporting personal mental health. Upon entering the site, I was immediately impressed by the site design. The white background featuring imagery of clouds and light tones matches the theme of her content beautifully, resulting in a very strong initial impression of the blog. I felt a sense of ease after simply viewing the homepage.

Mental health is a topic of dire importance, especially among university students. While Alessia indicates that her blog may not be viewed by many, I believe that it has the potential to be a positive resource for anyone struggling with their mental health. The content and design featured in She is Recovering make the blog extremely marketable to those in need of support (that verbiage definitely has some ethical issues – but ‘marketable’ in this case refers to the site’s appeal to its target audience).

As mentioned previously, Alessia’s blog has an excellent design – specifically the home page. I am thoroughly impressed by the layout that she went with. All of her content is easily accessible through the menu, and the sections featured on the homepage are informative and aesthetically on brand with her site. I also really liked that Alessia included a reference list of mental health support resources, and made them easy to access through her homepage. This is an essential piece of any mental health support site, and would be a useful portal for anyone visiting her blog.

The only suggestion I would make with design is the posts archive. While it maintains the same great header image that is featured on the home page, the content section feels a little bit bland. I would love to see the posts reorganized a bit to be more on the same wavelength as the rest of the site.

The content posted on She is Recovering is a fantastic resource in and of itself. I was particularly interested by the Depression-alleviating activities post, as Alessia provides useful tips and suggestions relating to positive mental health outcomes. Avoiding oversleeping was a tip that I had never thought of, but in hindsight some of the times that I’ve been struggling I definitely found myself in bed more often than not.

All-in-all, She is Recovering is a fantastic resource for anyone looking for support on their mental health. I could definitely see myself coming back to this site for tips during exam week!

Check out She is Recovering here:

http://sheisrecovering.ca/