COMMENTARY
Context
The aim of this website was to make learning to cook a fun affordable experience for the whole family. I felt the landing page should appeal to both parents and children, with bright colours and easy to read language, surrounded by white space to enable the details of the site to stand out and be visual.
I aimed to use primary colours which are easy to identify in the “Kids Cooking” logo. This re-enforces the need to let the children feel a connection to the site, but also the parents will notice it is also an educational image that they can talk together about and play games by asking their child if they can name any of the colours they can see in the logo.
The navigation of the whole website is important as the overall feel can instantly loose a customer if they feel disconnected from the experience. I kept the landing page simple with a basic explanation of the aims and objectives of the website, this was to give the customer enough information to want to continue navigating around the rest of the site.
I then sectioned each area according to the purpose, based around “Price, Promotion, Product, and Placement.” For this I created separate sections, where I explained pricing structure, what each type of product I supply and the desired customer base for each, where my classes are held with an easy to explore calendar to view dates and venues, links to the educational element of the “Kids Cooking” and sample recipes.
Commerce
This element was only a small part of the overall site, as my purpose was not to directly sell through the site. The website was designed to get the customers interest in the classes and the whole cooking experience, and then take time to contact myself directly for more information about booking onto classes.
The calendar element was the section where prospective customers could view dates times and spaces available for themselves and their children. This area does not gather personal data so the data is not needed to be encrypted. The area is designed as I link to venues booking directly through each centre. This is due to the nature of the business, as I would rent areas off venues to use and invoice them directly myself. Creating the business model this way also enables funding from local councils to be applied for as they set a criteria around postcodes of venues, spread around the local borough (for example Wigan borough council).
I added the universities disclaimer to advise potential customers of the purpose of the site as a university assignment. Other small print such as Frequently Asked Questions, was kept as simple as possible by asking them to email, as most queries would be better answered directly by myself. This was to let the potential customer’s know the website was being run independently from any big commercial venture, as I felt the whole ethos of the “Kids Cooking” was to keep things small, simple, and intimate.
Connection
Links away from the site, are only used to further explain the educational message of the “Kids Cooking” aims and objectives. They directly link to Jamie Oliver’s cooking programmes and initiatives he has developed in-line with the governments and his ‘School Dinners’ campaign. I wanted to show the customers that the website and its aims of getting adults and children cooking together, had a direct base to government backed schemes.
The links open in a separate tab to keep the website open and fully accessible to switch between viewings. This stopped customers losing the website and becoming lost in navigation.
Communication
Key communication is vital when gaining new customers, but just as important not to offend current customer base. This is why I do not use offers just for new customers, as although they can bring in a high rate of new business, I felt on balance this strategy often makes customers feel less valued for their loyalty. To combat this I tried to incorporate a pricing strategy that rewarded groups, and parents with siblings, as the cost of multiple children can often be a barrier in businesses aimed at a family market.
Price sensitive family consumers will still want the best for all family members, and my strategy of also addressing the “carers” element of childcare will hopefully ease the issue of parents’ guilt of not being always able to attend their children’s activities on a regular basis due to their own work commitments.
The language I have used is warm and welcoming to adults and children, with images of happy and excited children in bright colours. This was to create an environment both the parents and children would want to become a part of. Vibrant language and colours evoke memories of fun days they may already have had, and they wish to capture again on the “Kids Cooking” classes, and parties.
Email on a personal basis was the preferred method of communication, this was to let them know it is a family based programme which I am solely responsible for, with a landline telephone for further personal service and connection.
Content
Texts and graphics fonts were kept simple and consistent. This was to aid the branding of the site, as I aimed to have to brand logo on each page. It also enabled parents to easily view the sites purpose without having to negotiate through lots of unnecessary graphics or fancy font styles. Hopefully children will also want to view the website, so the design and content was also aimed for them to view, this meant lots of fun colourful pictures of food and cooking utensils.
Music was not used as I did not think it would enhance the experience, and the classes are used to promote the idea of helping the children gain confidence and aid concentration, and distracting them with music on the website could mislead to what the experience of the classes would be.
Community
The idea of community is very important to a brand, but I did not want to overshadow the website with too many links to social media pages. I created a basic Facebook page just as an extra way off instantly communicating with the online community, as I felt it is easy to update weekly menus and venue issues, or even staff sickness and cancellations this way rather than the slower medium of the full website.
I decided against Twitter and Instagram on the basis that linking the company with too much social media could be too hard to update and if pages are not frequently updated it could mislead potential customers into thinking the service is not active.
Customisation
The only available customisation from a customer’s viewpoint on the site is the calendar section, where they can view add and change where they look for classes. The site has no element that would need to be customised for the customer, due to no direct shop or ‘search’ function. I have not added a function to change language of the whole site, due to the customer base being in the local English speaking area, with no element of international viewing.
With regards to customisation for visually impaired, although there is no speech to text directly in built on the site, I have tried to keep the language simple to read and grammatically correct, so any speech to text software should easily be able to convert this, without losing meaning and flow.
Picture References
Google search terms “copyright free kids cooking pictures” accessed 8/2/2015 and 9/2/2015
Google search terms “copyright free kids cooking utensils” accessed 8/2/2015 and 9/2/2015