Introduction
For my website review I have chosen to look at www.game.co.uk, I have chosen to do this because it is a popular website that I often use. I will look at different aspects of the website such as the audience that it is aimed towards, the navigation and interface, the overall usability of the site and any other important aspects such as the semiotics and the form of this website.
Audience
The target audience that this website is aimed at is gamers, the game website specifically concentrates on selling game consoles and games. The content of this website is quite good as well and selling games and consoles to their target audience they also provide reviews on current and upcoming titles over a vast range of consoles. They also sell other items such as DVD’s, BLURAY’s and clothing, although all clothing they stock is related to games such as Atari t-shirts and t-shirts for games such as Halo or Call of Duty: Black Ops. The game website also relates to a vast age group, over both genders and through all Socio-economic groups. The site is gender neutral and appealing to all socio-economic groups by having special offers so that people with little disposable income are able to buy from there, they also provide a pre-owned service where you can trade in your old games and buy pre-owned games for cheaper than the new RRP (recommended retail price). The title of the website, also the company logo, is bold at the top of the screen so that younger generations can easily recognize the website and relate it to the shop, this is a clever form of a visual que, some children that aren’t able to read can still relate the GAME name and logo to games. The accessibility for this website is very good, it is easy to navigate, you can get to the place you want within 3 clicks and also has a number of sub-categories to refine your search and doesn’t have any annoying pop-ups or other distracting factors like some websites do.
Content
The content for the website is more than relevant, it goes into substantial amounts of detail and provides reviews on each game so you can find out the general idea of what the game is like before you buy it, you can see a preview of the cover art and it also contains appropriate terminology that is familiar to most gamers such as the review for Halo reach...
‘Now, prepare to relive the events which shaped this iconic series. The first game, Halo: Combat Evolved opened with a UNSC ship, recently escaped from a major battle, exiting slip-space and discovering the first Halo Ringworld. Halo: Reach documents that pivotal battle in humanity’s fight against the Covenant which sees the planet Reach fall to Covenant forces, and a harried retreat where one ship makes a fateful slip-space jump…’
The highlighted words are familiar to any halo fan and the review doesn’t go into detail explaining what each thing is, this shows that the content is relevant and appropriate to gamers and specifically aimed at gamers and fans who are already familiar with the Halo series.
The colour is also very consistent throughout the entire site. The main bulk colour is white and purple and remains like that on each tab, there is no real sound on the Game website unless you are watching a video that is embedded into the site. Also, the only animation that is used on the site is on the home screen and this is a slideshow with active tabs that displays 3 important releases or money off and savings offers. Interacting with the website is very smooth and loads fast. It has various menus and tabs to refine searches and save time, more often than not this can take more than 3 licks but it is achieved faster than skipping through a large amount of games to find the one you want, alternatively you can’t type it in the search bar.
Semiotics and Visual Cues
The Game website has one major semiotic/visual que which I mentioned earlier, the word GAME at the top of the site. This is a very powerful visual que in my opinion because my little cousin who is 3 can’t read or write but instantly recognizes the game logo with buying new games for her DS.
The majority of people don’t read names they associate the logo with the name as logos are intended to do. The game logo does both, it shows the name and is used as a general logo. There is also other things on the website that suggest it is www.game.co.uk such as the purple banners on a white background, it is very simple and doesn’t distract the audience from the products they are trying to sell.
Forms
The layout and design of this website is very clear and simple, it also looks quite sophisticated to say is marketing games un-like the Game Station website which looks over cluttered and harder to navigate. The pages on the website are very consistent and look clean, there is some blank spaces left on the website but I think this is quite good because it looks quite modern and well thought out. There is a sufficient amount of text throughout the site which reviews games and explains about purchasing and pre-ordering prices. The entire website uses a sans-serif font it uses this type of font because it is easy on the eyes and more formal and easy to read, this is an important factor in the design of any media product that uses text.
Navigation and Usability
Limitations
The only real limitation with this website is the speed that it loads at this is only due to broadband speed although the size of the website is also a contributing factor, the size of the game website is 66594bytes on the home page where as on the “games” tab it is 88714bytes due to the animations. The server for the website is obviously very good as I have never heard any report about the website going down to traffic and they must have a lot of people browsing the website because is it a very popular video game retailer. The website requires no plug-ins so is very user friendly and the only plug-in that it would ever require is flash player for external YouTube links. The legal and ethical constraints are as good as it can get with games, by this I mean that they still stock and promote games such as the controversial Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in which there is a level/mission where you kill civilians in an airport, this to some people is un-ethical because civilians are being killed and www.game.co.uk are selling and promoting it. On the other hand so are most other game retailers and websites.
Overall
Overall I think that Game.co.uk is a very good, easily to navigate and relevant website. It is everything you want a website to be. The audience is very vast and not matter what social background they come from or if they are good with computers they can all easily navigate the website. In my opinion the Game.co.uk website is defiantly one of the best game retailers out there and it provides all the relevant information you want to know such as the reviews and prices or new and retro games and consoles. It also ticks all the boxes that you would expect in a website such as clear and relevant content, clever and well used semiotics and visual cues, well thought out forms and layouts and easily to use navigation.
Reveiw By Jordan Szabo
No comments:
Post a Comment