Week 5, Blog Post #2: The Target Market for Codex Alexandria

In my opinion, it is pretty obvious to deduce who my target market would be for Codex Alexandria, a hypothetical educational software company that I thought of for the purpose of this class. As its name suggests, the company would be named after the Library of Alexandria, a great repository of written knowledge in the ancient world. My target market would likely be homeschooled students (and public school students who want to get ahead with their studies).  This target market also includes the parents or guardians that would be buying this software for the their children’s education. It might also include public or private schools that are more open-minded about having children learn outside of the official classroom environment. Perhaps some school libraries and computer labs might buy this software so that students could use it in the libraries or computer labs. Realistically speaking, this educational software is also probably going to marketed to middle class, upper middle class, or rich English-speaking parents who have extra money to spend on educational software for their children. Since the educational lessons and videos featured on this software (except for the foreign language class options) are going to be in English, it can be said that these software products are targeting speakers of English. In addition, these software products are going to be directed at potential customers who have a reliable Internet connection and at least one computer in their households.

I believe that trends in education and information technology indicate that more and more students have become disillusioned with bias in public school education, and, in the United States, some parents have spoken out against the implementation of Common Core educational students in public schools across the country. Parents have increasingly felt the public school education systems in their states have not done a very good job with educating their children, so more and more parents have decided to homeschool their children. In addition, some and parents have felt that public schools are not teaching advanced enough material for students prepared enough to handle college-level work. In my view, Codex Alexandria software could help students who are not learning enough in their own public schools by teaching them the skills and knowledge that they need to handle college-level work. In addition, I believe in the future that Codex Alexandria software could gain a bigger customer base among homeschooling families who want to escape being educated in a public school environment that might be hostile to their religious beliefs or personal values. By offering pure academic knowledge and proven study methods in a neutral non-biased manner, Codex Alexandria can meet this need. Codex Alexandria will probably also become more popular as more and more students take online class and rely more on using computers to complete coursework in general.

Week 5, Blog Post #1

There are a few obvious differences between Myrtle Creek and Armstrong garden Centers. Myrtle Creek appears to be a unique, one-of-a-kind botanical garden/nursery that is meant be visited by tourists for pleasure and recreational purposes. There appears only one Myrtle Creek in existence. On the other hand, Armstrong Garden Centers is a corporate chain of stores that operates exclusively in California, and it is possible for California residents to search for the closet store in their respective regions of California. The home page of Armstrong Garden Centers seems to be aimed at attracting business from prospective customers-especially people who practice gardening in their own homes. It also sees to be aimed at customers who professional landscaping services to be performed at their own homes. Based on the DIY gardening tips that posted on this website, I would say that Armstrong Garden Centers are focused gaining the businesses of customers who want garden in their own home spaces. Going to Myrtle Creek, however, seems like an all-day recreational event all by itself. Based on the pictures of happy people placed on the “Café Bloom” and “Curious Gardens” sections of the websites, it appears that Myrtle Creek is almost like botanical garden version of a local theme park or a local nature reserve.

In terms of the customer bases of both websites, it seems like older men and women who like to garden and enjoy spending time with their families at parks and in nature would enjoy both Myrtle Creek. On the other hand, Myrtle Creek appears to probably appeal most to young children, preteens, and people that do not like gardening on their own, but would still like to spend time in nature. Based on the Armstrong Garden Centers website, though, I would guess that their target audience would be middle-aged or older adults who are more likely to own their homes (or are very likely to in the future). In addition, I would also venture to guess that the majority of their customers live in households making middle class or upper middle class salaries. Based on Armstrong Garden Centers’ sections featuring DIY garden tips, I think that the company is less inclined to target people who live in apartments where they cannot practice gardening as a hobby, and cannot make any physical changes to their living space. Just based on instinctive anecdotes, I would say that the middle class and upper middle class or the income groups that most likely to afford to be able to have gardens, but not rich enough to hire gardeners to take care of their gardens all of the time.

            The most subtle differences of both companies’ target audiences is revealed by looking at which social media sites (located at the bottom of their web pages) are linked to their websites. Armstrong Garden Centers urges people to follow them in Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest, which seems typical of businesses that are focused on marketing and selling products.  Interestingly, though, Myrtle Creek actually has an official page on TripAdvisor, Yelp, and YouTube, which suggests that Myrtle Creek is a physical place that is meant to be traveled to and visited. However, Myrtle Creek does have links social websites that many businesses typically do, including Facebook, Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest. Upon examining these links, it becomes clear that Armstrong Garden Centers is ultimately selling products to gardeners and homeowners that practice gardening, and Myrtle Creek is selling a memorable, fun experience of traveling to an enchanting, beautiful botanical garden to tourists.

Week 4, Part 2 Blog Post

Amazon.com possesses  several features that make it a safe, reliable, and easy shopping website to navigate. One great design feature is that it is very easy to load Amazon gift cards and default credit cards to one’s account. In addition, another great design feature includes the ability to added desired future purchases to wish lists (both public and private) on one’s account.

Another wonderful design feature that Amazon uses is a secure https address that protects card cards numbers and accounts from being hacked. The search bar/box at the top of each page makes it easy to search for anything, and customers can load an infinite number of gift cards for future use to their accounts. Another Amazon.com design feature is links on many pages that offer third-party /lower priced options for many products, especially books. Extra login security is another good design feature on Amazon.com. In order to strengthen users’ privacy, it forces users to sign in again after not actively using the website for a certain amount of time.

Macys.com also possesses some effective features that make it a secure website navigate. One great design feature is that the website automatically offers the best current coupons to apply to customers’ orders when they ready to check out. Like Amazon.com, Macys.com also has the advantage of using a secure web address (https) and offering a search bar/box that is easy for customers to use. In addition, Macys.com, like Amazon.com, also forces users to sign in again after becoming inactive on website as an extra security precaution. In addition, another great design feature of Macys.com is that customers can leave reviews for purchases if Macys.com has verified that users have actually purchased them.

In spite of their positive qualities, both Macys.com and Amazon.com can make some improvements. For example, Amazon does not openly advertise their return policy agreements with third-party sellers. In my opinion, Amazon needs to advertise their third-party seller policy more openly on their website so that users can more easily make a choice about whether they want to buy from third-party sellers or not. In addition, Amazon also has a reputation for sometimes selling food and hygiene products that (according to some reviewers) have been doctored, expired, or are not genuine products from the original manufacturers. Amazon should more be vigilant about this from happening in order create a stronger sense of branding in the future. As for the Macys.com website, the store shipping option should be easier for customers to find without having to backtrack on the website and potentially lose their data. In order for Macys.com to improve their website, they should perhaps increase the number of gift cards that can be loaded into customers accounts at a time and the number of gift cards that can be used per transaction. In my opinion, such a move would look favorable to customers because they probably interpret such a move as a sign that the Macy’s brand is so strong that they can afford to give their customers options about how they want to spend their own gift cards and money. In addition, Macys.com should perhaps consider providing more incentives /rewards for customers to leave reviews/comments about their products, especially since they have much fewer helpful customer reviews posted to their website than Amazon.com does. Overall, I would say that both websites are organized very well into different topics/categories; which makes me more eager to use them. The effectiveness of Amazon’s branding has made me more likely to buy only items sold through Amazon Prime on my Amazon Prime membership so that I can obtain free shipping. In addition, the fact that customers can apply for both Macy’s and Amazon cards on their websites convinces me that these are big companies that a lot of customers find appealing, and that their credit cards must therefore be worth applying for.

Week 4, Part I Blog Post

Gates and Fences: Flaws and Possible Improvements

There are several aspects of the Gate and Fences website that need to be improved. For one thing, this website does not possess a secure address, and a secure website address (https) should be added to this website so that visitors can feel safer about protected from hackers. In addition, the website does not currently possess a search box/bar for visitors to look up specific services or items. A search box that leads to indexed pages should be added to the website in order to help visitors navigate around it more effectively. Unfortunately, this website has very little aesthetic appeal.  The background looks very unflattering with the light gray text boxes, and seems to sort of blend with the light gray text boxes, which makes the text on this website harder to read. There are too many different font colors on individual pages, which make web pages look overly busy and hard to read. In order to improve this website’s aesthetic appeal, perhaps only one or two font colors at most should be featured on this website. Otherwise, each page looks too “busy” for the human eye. In addition, the header at the top of the page is crammed with too much information, and it would be better if this company’s short summary of its services were placed below the header. This would make the website look more professional, organized, and easier to read.  There are lots of typos and grammatical errors on this website. I believe that the easiest way to improve it to eliminate all of the typos and grammatical errors from it. If the Webmaster of this website were to perform this task, it would look somewhat more professional, which would lead visitors to trust in the quality of the company’s services more.

Jamilin.com:  Flaws and Possible Improvements

If this website were to attract more customers, it would have to undergo several improvements. First of all, the website does not possess even a website name or logo at the top of it. In order make the business more legitimate, the website creator must add a business name or website name on the header. Once the website creator fixes this flaw, future visitors may have view it more as a trustworthy institution worthy of their respect. In addition, website contains a lot of grammatical errors and capitalization errors, which makes look unreliable and like it was thrown together by a charlatan for the purpose of extracting unknowing victims’ money. In addition, it is a bit uncomfortable to look at this website because the webmaster has a penchant for overusing capital letters where they are not needed. The overuse of capital letters in any web website evokes the idea that the webmaster is shouting at visitors, which is not something that most visitors want to be reminded of when they are visiting this website. Honestly, the appearance of this website itself evokes the feeling that it could be easily used to smuggle a virus into visitors’ computers. The website should acquire a secure address (https) in order make the experience of using it more secure for visitors. In addition, the visual appeal of this website has been downgraded by the use of too many fonts, which make it harder to read. This website should be modified to only black font if the website creator wants to use the current website background because black font will be easier to see than the blue and red fonts displayed here. In addition, the light tan background itself appears to be quite bland and has done nothing to add to the aesthetic appeal of this website. In order to enhance this website appeal, the website creator should perhaps consider using a more lively color like light blue or pastel green as the background color. Unfortunately, this website contains a narrow amount of space, which only take up about 1/3 of the space of each web page. The website design could be improved by making it possible to use most of the rest of the blank space available on each page of this website.

NPS Effective Features

The National Park Service website contains several key effective features. The website is obviously aimed at visitors who have interest in visiting these national parks, and this website showcases the features of these national parks through photographs and videos quite well. The website’s design is clear-cut and quite organized. It features interactive maps that you click on to find national parks in all 50 states, in addition to giving visitors the option of searching for them by the names of the states (which indicates to me the web developer really put a lot of effort into creating the website, which makes me more enthusiastic about reading this website and potentially traveling to some of the national parks mentioned on this website).  In addition, this website has a great design layout and sense of organization. For example, visitors do not have to type in a search box if they do not want to, although that option is still available to them if they want to use it. The website also contains effective branding. The  “National Park Service” logo looks professional, brightly colored, and is placed in the same location at the top of every page. The aesthetic quality of the website is also quite attractive, which includes contrasting colors of lots of brightly colored videos and photographs against a clean white background. The visual contrast makes it very easy to see anything written on any of the webpages on this website.

Riverside Art Center: Effective Features

This website contains several effective features. The website displays the art in a way so that if a visitor clicks on the images, this images will increase in size and be easier to view. In addition, the Riverside Art Center website also features interesting colorful, artistic headers that embody the purpose of the website, which is to display art. In terms of aesthetic appeal, the website does a good job of creating a light-hearted, pleasant environment for viewers to navigate. In terms of the design of the website, I found it very easy to navigate to other pages every time that I click on new links. Each web page also possesses a recognizable logo that appears at the top of every page, and the placement of this logo is consistent on every single page of this website that I looked at. The branding of the this website, which is marked at the top of every web page, makes me think this art center is a institution that is popular with the public and one that is possibly well-funded by public and private sponsors.