Friday, January 25, 2008

Mission Statement & etc.

Client: Zoo Negara
URL: http://www.zoonegara.org.my/

Mission Statement/Site Objective
My first aim is to give the site's visitors a "pre-experience". To give them a slight glipmse of what they will be able to experience in the zoo so they will want to experience it fully - hence, encouraging the real visit to Zoo Negara.

Secondly, I want to portray the image of Zoo Negara in an attrative way to make it a must-go place for tourists. Not only tourists from overseas, but also Malaysian from outstation. Here, good quality images will be of help, whether in enchancing the "pre-experience" I mentioned above, or just by giving stronger visual aid.

Next, I want to send out the message to EVERYONE that Zoo Negara is a good recreational place. They uphold these four concepts: education, conservation, researcg and recreation. You don't just go there to blandly learn about animals, you're there to have fun while you learn! And this wonderful offer isn't just limited to Malaysians, it's to EVERYONE! Limitless of nationality, gender, race or age.

Information on the site will also be presented in a more attractive way. Or at least, not only with text, but with more visual aids and such. Sub-importance will also be given to the research done by Zoo Negara, and also their conservation efforts and adoption program. I feel these are not neglectable as it is part of their zoo conept.

Last but not least, important visitor's information will be made as to be easily-accessable. Information like the zoo's opening hours, ticket prices, maps and so on. 

Goals
▶easy-to-navigate site
▶ easily and quickly accessable information
▶ encourages users to visit Zoo Negara
▶ portrays the "open concept" enclosures

Sub-goals
▶ promote awareness on conservation
▶ promote the adoption programme

Target Audience
▶ overseas/outstation tourists
▶ local parents
▶ local teens
▶ local kids
▶ in short, EVERYONE

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Competitors & Site Analysis

Site Analysis of Zoo Negara
URL:http://www.zoonegara.org.my/
There is pretty decent splash page before one enters the site. A flash of different animals featured in the zoo (sound effects included), along with the logo of Zoo Negara at the bottom right corner.
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Despite the spiffy splash page, I think the website itself is a bit disappointing.

I’ll start by talking about the colors used. Grey does NOT match the green at all. In fact, it gives of a weird feeling. Green is refreshing and reminds people of nature – which I think is why they used that color; but grey gives off an old, faded feeling. Both the colors don’t compliment each other at all.

The navigation bar on top isn’t working properly.
I had to click once to activate it, and click again to access another page.
The static links suddenly looked like buttons, and it was just really misleading.
It took me awhile to figure out it wasn’t a one-click link.
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The sidebar on the right isn’t very nicely designed. There’s a nice wavy line on top but suddenly, there’s a box below.

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The links on the right of the main page, that are introducing the animals, lead to a page that feels like it doesn’t even come with the site. It has white background and the layout has a sudden alignment to the left. There’s not even a back button for users to go back to the site.

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The news section opens up into not-very-nicely scanned newspaper articles as well. And in PDF format.

They have a badly done map in their “Visitor Info” section. Though I think the flash “guide” makes up for it.

Despite all the flaws on the inconsistency and color scheme of the site, I think its content is very rich, though not to say very nicely presented.
All the information a visitor to the zoo would want is listed on the website.

Competitors of Zoo Negara

1. Taiping Zoo & Night Safari
http://www.zootaiping.gov.my/

As soon as I thought of zoos in Malaysia, I thought of Taiping Zoo. Like the site says, it is located in a lovely natural setting in Taiping Lake Gardens close to the foot of the Larut Hill. Despite being a zoo in a small city, it’s still interesting.
They have embarked on an expansion program which includes the building of new "Open Concept" animal enclosures. These enclosures take into consideration the natural habitat of the respective animal.

There is a splash page before the user enters, that enables them to choose either English or Bahasa Malaysia. Even at the main page, the user can still choose which language to view the site in, which I think is very convenient.
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All the pages are consistent, following one same grid.
Pages with longer content have an additional scrollbar between the top and bottom navigation, which I really like.
Make the content seem neater, instead of having to scroll all the way to the bottom.
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I really like the colors they used. Of course, it’s not the best, but it does seem much better than the Zoo Negara one. The green and black bring out a cool nature feeling – I think it suits their night safari theme really well.
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2. Aquaria KLCC
URL:http://www.klaquaria.com/index.html

I chose Aquaria KLCC as one of the competitors as, even though it is not a zoo, they also have a turtle conservation program and aim to educate the public on marine life. It is also local, so I thought it would be nice to do a site analysis on it too.

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The main page features and advertisement on Endau Rompin, Johor’s National Park.
Navigations are below the banner and after clicking into a section, there are sub-navigations available.


The content is limited to the little space they have, and “next” buttons are available to see the remaining information. (Although I noticed there’s a slight problem with the layout in certain pages – the slices weren’t joined well.)
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I really like “The Journey” page. By using that image to categorize the information and give visual implementation.
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Overall, I think the site is full with information a visitor would need, which is good.
The layout is alright as well. The icons used are also consistent. The site is not very impressive, but it passes as a decent site that aims to promote Aquaria KLCC to visitors.

3. Singapore Zoo
http://www.zoo.com.sg/

After analyzing so many sites, I still see a lot of white backgrounds.
I wonder if it’s a trademark?

Anyway, when I first saw the Singapore Zoo website, I gave off a really oriental feeling – reminded me of Chinese New Year.
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I thought the layout was pretty decent, until I clicked into on of the sub-pages.
The whole site was aligned to the left all of a sudden.
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The navigations are simple – the usual rollover, and sub-menus come out.
All the sub-pages have the same grid. With a sidebar on the left, and content on the right.

There’s nothing exceptionally interesting about the site, but like the others I mentioned above – there is sufficient information presented.

4. San Diego Zoo
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/

I wanted to research on a site that belongs to a zoo not in South East Asia, so I analyzed San Diego’s Zoo. Just to understand and see for myself the similarities and differences.

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I think the colors used are nice. Not the best, but it really gives a friendly feeling – warm and welcoming to nature.
It has a simple layout with a header and a sidebar.

What I really like about the site is the top navigation bar. The rollover effects are really to my liking. The color scheme is also consistent throughout the site – may it be text, paragraph dividers or background colors.

I think the images are also appropriately used.
They’re in fine quality (no pixilated, blurred images) and they’re inserted at the correct place. They don’t flood the whole page yet they manage to catch my attention.
Not to forget, it is also packed with information.

~{ * }~

There were other competitors of Zoo Negara that could be found in Malaysia, but as they didn’t own a site, I was not able to do the comparison of sites.
Here are the other competitors I mentioned: A' Famosa Animal World Safari, KL Bird Park, and Langkawi’s Underwater World


Conclusion:

After going through this research, I felt Zoo Negara plays a big role in educating the public about animals.
Not only information about animals, but also on how to keep them from extinction, on how to preserve their habitats and how important it is to protect them.
Charity functions and field trips are often held there too.

The site aims to promote the zoo – of course. Aiming to attract more visitors, to either just have a visit, class field trip or to have an event there.

I think they already achieve a little bit of that, by providing so much information on the zoo – the highlights and the animals.

The problem is – no one really visits a zoo’s site.

Hence, my aim is to make the site more attractive, not so that the users would just visit the site – but they would actually want to visit the zoo itself. To experience the four pillars Zoo Negara stands on: education, conservation, research and education.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

1. Asiasoft.net
URL: http://www.asiasoft.net/en/main_en.htm

What is Asiasoft.net?
AsiaSoft is an online game operator in Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaysia. Its headquarters is located in Bangkok, Thailand.

The more popular game published by Asiasoft.net in Malaysia is MapleSEA.
Other games under it are the upcoming CabalSEA and Ragnarok II SEA.

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This is the main page.
Navigations are under the banner, and they light up in red when you rollover.
Sub-menus appear when you rollover as well.
The sidebar consists of a map where users can acess to the Asiasoft.net website pertaining to their own country.

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*Sub-menus*

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After clicking into one of the sub-pages, the grid is still kept, although the navigations are changed. It was a bit confusing at first, since the navigation bar suddenly disappeared.

Upon further inspection, I found a link back to the main page under the banner, on the right.
By clicking on the logo, one can also access the main page.
However, that fact is not obvious at all.
No rollover effect, nothing to indicate so.

Here's the grid analysis on the main page and the sub-pages.

Main page
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Sub page
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Overall, I think the site's very clean. Though a bit too clean.
Not that being clean is a bad thing - I think it helps users to find the information they want quickly.
However, from the aesthetic point of view, it loses out slightly.

Although it's consistent with the Asiasoft.net logo, the website is just too white.
Like any other big corporate site that is based in many countries, I think it's nice as they put up links to the individual corresponding site to each country.


2. Gururu Journal
URL: http://www.gloomybear.net/index.php

What is Gloomy Bear?
{ I'm not sure if this is counted as a corporate website, but I've heard of corporate blogs, so I'm wondering if this is counted as well }

Mori Chack is the artist name of a Japanese graphic designer, who was born in Sakai, Osaka, Japan. He is famous for his Chax product line, especially Gloomy Bear, a 2m tall, violent, pink bear that eats humans. The design is an antithesis to the excessively cute products produced by Disney, Sanrio's Hello Kitty, and other companies. Mori Chack believes that humans and animals are incompatible, and an animal is wild by nature. This is expressed most pronouncedly by the Gloomy Bear, which is often shown blood stained and striking humans. Gloomy Bear is also available in different colors with slightly different designs.
*Taken from wikipedia*

This site is a slight mix of a blog and a brand site.
Information of Gloomy Bear ( under the Chax product line ) are posted up as updates.
There are shopping information, medias, FAQ etc.

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A sub-section of the Shopping page
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The entire site follows one single grid system.
No matter you're browsing the shopping page, or the updates, it's the same.


Grid analysis
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There's a sidebar on the left that contains a small calendar.
Through it, users can have fast access to previous updates.

On the right, there is a sidebar with external links.

The site keeps the image of the Gloomy Bear brand.
Gloomy Bear graphics and themes all over.
I really likfe the fact that they kept the same grid system throughout all the pages as well.

3. Loius Vuitton
URL: http://www.louisvuitton.com/

The Louis Vuitton Company (more commonly known simply as Louis Vuitton) is a luxury French fashion and leather goods brand and company, headquartered in Paris, France.

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As soon as I got to the site, I fell in love with the grid.
Personal preference of non-scrolling sites.
All the pages do not need unneccessary scrolling.

The grid is consistent as well, as you can see from the analysis below.
Just that sometimes, an extra sidebar appears in the content area.
I think it's a good way to keep the consistency of the site.
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From the brand name, to the navigations to the content.
Simple yet nice.

Althought there is a white background, and I did mention earlier how white background seem slightly bland, I think it's alright for this site.
The central section is already filled with boxes of images and flash, the white helps tone it down.

4. Pepsi Malaysia
URL: http://www.pepsimalaysia.com/

The Malaysian-based website of Pepsi.

A sleek, shiny, cool-blue site with spiffy button rollover-effects.
Here's the main page.
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After clicking into one of the submenus, the grid changes.
The grid is the same for all the sub-pages.
Despite the fact that the navigations move to another location when a sub-page is clicked, because this is a flash website - the user KNOWS where the navigations went.

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Like I mentioned before, the sub-pages have a completely different grid compared to the main page.
Yet, because of the animation, it makes it less confusing.

5. Nitendo
URL:
Nintendo Company, Limited s a Japanese multinational corporation founded on September 23, 1889 in Kyoto, Japan by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda cards. Over the years, it became a video game company, growing into one of the most powerful in the industry and Japan's third most valuable listed company with a market value of more than $85 billion. Aside from video games, Nintendo is also the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners, a Major League Baseball team in Seattle, Washington, USA. They are also the partial owner of the Atlanta Hawks, an NBA team based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

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The main page and the sub-pages have the same hierarchy.
The only difference in grid happens ever so insignificanly.
It's either a different column system in the content section, or the sub-navigation bar.

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Like the Gururu Journal, it has a second navigation bar at the bottom of the page, followed by the disclaimer.
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The basic grid is like this:
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Just the variation of columns and rows in the content section.

It is also might WHITE like the asiasoft website, but because the contents are much more compared to asiasoft's website, it doesn't look so empty.
Of course, I think a bit more design elements wouldn't hurt.

I really like the way they have little boxes for each specific information they want to present.
And despite that many boxes, because they are still following the grid - it doesn't seem messy at all.

The navigations on top are also nicely planned in my opinion.
They didn't cram "What is Wii and NDS" in one single "Products" section, but seperated them.
And in the Wii page, much more information can be accessed to from the sub-navigations.

~ { * } ~

Just a conclusion based on my own opinions:

I think the most important thing a corporate website has to achieve is how to let the user acquire the knowledge they are looking for as easily as possible.
Hence, the grids should be less complicating - same goes with the navigations.
Grids should NOT change much, especially not every page.
It isn't just hard for the user to naviagte, it also gets ANNOYING.

The design should also be clean, but not to say bland.
White is a bit too overrated, but I think with certain extra touches, even a site with white background can seem more interesting.

For example the LV site.
The central part is full of images, flash and videos - the white actually helps to them tone down.

Using graphics that are related to the brand's identity, logo, conept are very helpful in supporting a simple design for these sites.

For example the Gururu Journal.
Each update has a gloomy Bear head next to the date.

Corporate sites aren't always just sleek and elegant.
I think any design goes, as long as the above criterieas are met.