Legal and ethical issues!
Introduction
A lot of media products have some sort of legal inclusion behind them, everything is taken into consideration because companies don’t want to get into trouble not following this precautions, as if a law within the legal and ethical sector is broken, the person/company responsible can get fined and/ or prosecuted. Most of these issues break the law if they are not followed.
In terms of web design the laws can be viable to ethical issues, copyright, web accessibility, disabilities etc. The laws are there to prevent any discrimination or misleading content that could offend an audience.
Copyright
With media products a person/company need to make sure that all content is theirs, or in this case everything on the website must be their work i.e. fonts, images and templates. These all have to be yours, unless the website is sponsored by another company authorising their images, adverts and fonts to be used e.g. Microsoft advertising brands of computers other than their own. This shows that the companies are in corporation, authorising any restriction on copyrighted content.
Copyright applies when something originally created applies only to the creator unless he/she is debited payments for the use of their content, in terms of web design this can be;
Introduction
A lot of media products have some sort of legal inclusion behind them, everything is taken into consideration because companies don’t want to get into trouble not following this precautions, as if a law within the legal and ethical sector is broken, the person/company responsible can get fined and/ or prosecuted. Most of these issues break the law if they are not followed.
In terms of web design the laws can be viable to ethical issues, copyright, web accessibility, disabilities etc. The laws are there to prevent any discrimination or misleading content that could offend an audience.
Copyright
With media products a person/company need to make sure that all content is theirs, or in this case everything on the website must be their work i.e. fonts, images and templates. These all have to be yours, unless the website is sponsored by another company authorising their images, adverts and fonts to be used e.g. Microsoft advertising brands of computers other than their own. This shows that the companies are in corporation, authorising any restriction on copyrighted content.
Copyright applies when something originally created applies only to the creator unless he/she is debited payments for the use of their content, in terms of web design this can be;
·
Text
·
Video
·
Image
·
Sound
·
Specific design features
The way it is distinguished or copyrighted is by using
symbols to represent that the product or design that is viable only to the
creator. These symbols are;
·
Trademark symbol (™)
This can be found at the bottom of a website stating the name of the creator i.e. ™ Dzintars Lubiks. Or even on the images, or most likely the logo of a company.
This can be found at the bottom of a website stating the name of the creator i.e. ™ Dzintars Lubiks. Or even on the images, or most likely the logo of a company.
This symbol can also appear anywhere on the website it would pop up as ‘© Anime Flash’ as an example. There’s also water marks, that’s where a logo or a name is place over an image at a lower opacity to prevent people passing it off as their own.
Ethical issues
As I mentioned above, when you make a website, you don’t really want to offend anyone, if you would, your audience would be lost. So basically everything needs to be taken into consideration, everything that makes every person who they are i.e. race, gender, sexuality and religion. You have to respect everyone and treat them equally and fairy. Also if there are images on your website, you will have to make sure they are decent and appropriate for the audience, as you don’t want children to see indecent images as this can offend the audience.
Web Accessibility
When a website is being created, you have to make sure it is accessible by everyone, since everyone is different, your audience may have disabilities that would prevent them from using your website, these are;
Visual Disability
Visual disabilities can vary from being colour blind, close range sight or even full blind, this would mean that they would struggle to see parts of a screen or not see it at all, so as a web developer you need to make sure that this is catered for. If they are colour blind, you will need to make sure that the colours are not too similar so that they would combine together or make it difficult to see or you could even create a special redirected page, that has different colours for those who are colour blind.
If the person is fully blind, as the developer you would have to make sure that you have a screen reader, projecting full Standard English wording, which would be acceptable for the screen reading program.
Hearing Disability
If a user that is a part of the audience is deaf, it could become an issue to your website if you are intending to use sound or videos. This can be solved by limiting mandatory use of these features to work around the website, so that people with hearing disabilities don’t have an issue with listening to them. This also come into consideration with blind people as they cannot see video content being played, a solution for this might be including an Audio Description with the video.
Physical Disabilities
If a user has a physical disability then this might mean they would struggle to gain access to some websites, as it might interpret that they are discouraged using a mouse or a keyboard, this can be solved by making the website simple enough for people to use without having to move the mouse , by keeping the navigation simple and tidy, not overloading the three navigation specifications.
As well as being disabilities, there are different aspects that users may find when they’re viewing a certain website i.e. if a website is in the English language but the person trying to access it might not speak the language. So to solve this you might include multiple choice of languages to view the website in or even use google translate option encoded within the website. Another issue would be the internet connection of the audience, as it would all come down to where a person is located because if a person is living far away from the hosted site, it would cause slow loadings if using large images within the website or even when providing download links.
Unit 60 web design research
In this report I will be talking about different aspects of web design in terms of definitions, products and uses.
Authoring
Authoring is construct an electronic document, such as a web site in relation to this unit, this comes into play for everything for the product i.e. Authoring tools give designer a chance to invent and produce an electronic product, that would be published to the audience. These authoring tools are available in various software packages i.e. Adobe and it’s web-designing composition Dreamweaver or the alternative Microsoft Front Page, there is a lot more but these two are the most common, as they are big companies, creating brand loyalty for their other software being Photoshop, Flash, Microsoft Office etc.
Authoring products, or authoring formats also vary quite a lot, but interactive media authoring formats go along the lines of CD-R OM, Website, Games, PowerPoint Presentation, Interactive TV and hand held devices. These authoring products are there for different purposes i.e. entertainment, research, marketing and to develop skills, meaning for the audience to enjoy the product and gain amusement from it, to be able to research into different areas, being able to advertise and to be able to gain skills, a good example of this is the Nintendo DS and the Brain Training games.
Application uses
Websites are created for various reasons. Following from the previous paragraph, websites are big authoring products, and they are used for almost all of the purposes listed i.e.
Entertainment:
Websites are used to entertain the audience, and most websites do that, whether it would be a great piece of design which is aesthetically pleasing and good to look at or if it’s a really interactive website, that gives the user the ability to play with certain features i.e. if it’s something like clicking a button, opening a video or playing a flash game. This is one of the most important uses for a website as a website needs to give the audience amusement and interactivity.
Marketing:
A website serves a purpose to market or promote something as well, a good example of this is adverts, flash adverts, still images, logo’s, anything that represents a brand, company or business, products and much more. This is where a website becomes a great tool to advertise something up and coming or already existing either on the site itself or links diverting away from it.
Research:
Research is a big part of a website, with sites like Google and Bing, finding out about anything is made possible to the audience, whether it’s websites, education or products, websites can serve a great purpose when it comes to finding out about things.
Assets
To make a website interactive, and more interesting it can include various assets them being:
Text:
Text is needed for pretty much every website , it describes the content, gives information and adds to the optical balance of the interactive product, if not enough text is not included the website won’t have the information required, on the other hand if there is too much text the website may become unattractive to a more informal audience.
Graphics:
This is everything that represents illustration and design i.e. images, which are needed to add visual effect to a website, the use of diagrams, navigation bars and even colour, all are classed as graphical tools to make a website look more aesthetically pleasing. There are different classifications of graphics, but most websites use GIF files so that they can transfer enough information and content with less loading time. If graphics are not included in a website, it may appear bland/boring to an audience, and also not very aesthetically pleasing.
Sound:
This can be anything from music on a website to the clicking sound throughout the navigation, this may not be the most important part of authoring, but it can be used effectively to make a website more interesting or informative in terms of alerts, as a good example of this is Facebook, the notification and message sounds have become iconic on the internet, this shows how much this might matter to an interactive website as Facebook is the biggest website right now.
Video:
This can make a website interactive and interesting depending on the content, a good example of this is Youtube, one of the biggest websites on the internet. A video can be used to represent anything i.e. to show an explanation, different diagrams etc. This can make a website more marketable and exciting.
Animation:
This one is for assets like Flash banners, GIFS etc. These can be used to make a website more attractive to an audience and also to interact in another way compared to a video, it would save on loading time and more versatile in terms of the design aspects.
Interactivity and control
Interactivity is a key aspect when it comes to web-design, there are many features that could be added to a website to allow users to operate it effectively:
Buttons:
Buttons are vital, as they are used for the navigation bar itself, clicking one of the buttons will lead the user to another page and make something more interactive i.e. clicking play on a video embed on a website. If buttons aren’t included this would pose a problem in terms of accessibility and usability of the website, it’s a vital part when it comes to authoring.
Hotspots:
These are invisible hyperlinks that may be tagged to images or other graphics, the area in which clicked on would transfer you to another page, when hovered over a hotspot, a little hand would appear instead of the normal arrow cursor.
In this report I will be talking about different aspects of web design in terms of definitions, products and uses.
Authoring
Authoring is construct an electronic document, such as a web site in relation to this unit, this comes into play for everything for the product i.e. Authoring tools give designer a chance to invent and produce an electronic product, that would be published to the audience. These authoring tools are available in various software packages i.e. Adobe and it’s web-designing composition Dreamweaver or the alternative Microsoft Front Page, there is a lot more but these two are the most common, as they are big companies, creating brand loyalty for their other software being Photoshop, Flash, Microsoft Office etc.
Authoring products, or authoring formats also vary quite a lot, but interactive media authoring formats go along the lines of CD-R OM, Website, Games, PowerPoint Presentation, Interactive TV and hand held devices. These authoring products are there for different purposes i.e. entertainment, research, marketing and to develop skills, meaning for the audience to enjoy the product and gain amusement from it, to be able to research into different areas, being able to advertise and to be able to gain skills, a good example of this is the Nintendo DS and the Brain Training games.
Application uses
Websites are created for various reasons. Following from the previous paragraph, websites are big authoring products, and they are used for almost all of the purposes listed i.e.
Entertainment:
Websites are used to entertain the audience, and most websites do that, whether it would be a great piece of design which is aesthetically pleasing and good to look at or if it’s a really interactive website, that gives the user the ability to play with certain features i.e. if it’s something like clicking a button, opening a video or playing a flash game. This is one of the most important uses for a website as a website needs to give the audience amusement and interactivity.
Marketing:
A website serves a purpose to market or promote something as well, a good example of this is adverts, flash adverts, still images, logo’s, anything that represents a brand, company or business, products and much more. This is where a website becomes a great tool to advertise something up and coming or already existing either on the site itself or links diverting away from it.
Research:
Research is a big part of a website, with sites like Google and Bing, finding out about anything is made possible to the audience, whether it’s websites, education or products, websites can serve a great purpose when it comes to finding out about things.
Assets
To make a website interactive, and more interesting it can include various assets them being:
Text:
Text is needed for pretty much every website , it describes the content, gives information and adds to the optical balance of the interactive product, if not enough text is not included the website won’t have the information required, on the other hand if there is too much text the website may become unattractive to a more informal audience.
Graphics:
This is everything that represents illustration and design i.e. images, which are needed to add visual effect to a website, the use of diagrams, navigation bars and even colour, all are classed as graphical tools to make a website look more aesthetically pleasing. There are different classifications of graphics, but most websites use GIF files so that they can transfer enough information and content with less loading time. If graphics are not included in a website, it may appear bland/boring to an audience, and also not very aesthetically pleasing.
Sound:
This can be anything from music on a website to the clicking sound throughout the navigation, this may not be the most important part of authoring, but it can be used effectively to make a website more interesting or informative in terms of alerts, as a good example of this is Facebook, the notification and message sounds have become iconic on the internet, this shows how much this might matter to an interactive website as Facebook is the biggest website right now.
Video:
This can make a website interactive and interesting depending on the content, a good example of this is Youtube, one of the biggest websites on the internet. A video can be used to represent anything i.e. to show an explanation, different diagrams etc. This can make a website more marketable and exciting.
Animation:
This one is for assets like Flash banners, GIFS etc. These can be used to make a website more attractive to an audience and also to interact in another way compared to a video, it would save on loading time and more versatile in terms of the design aspects.
Interactivity and control
Interactivity is a key aspect when it comes to web-design, there are many features that could be added to a website to allow users to operate it effectively:
Buttons:
Buttons are vital, as they are used for the navigation bar itself, clicking one of the buttons will lead the user to another page and make something more interactive i.e. clicking play on a video embed on a website. If buttons aren’t included this would pose a problem in terms of accessibility and usability of the website, it’s a vital part when it comes to authoring.
Hotspots:
These are invisible hyperlinks that may be tagged to images or other graphics, the area in which clicked on would transfer you to another page, when hovered over a hotspot, a little hand would appear instead of the normal arrow cursor.
Limitations
Websites can incur limitations as well as various opportunities i.e. user limitations, hardware limitations, and network limitations.
User limtiations
This has everything to do with the user of the website i.e. the audience, some of the limitations being lack of computer knowledge or the internet culture, disabilities etc.
Hardware limitations
This is based on what computer the audience is using, either it’s too old to run the latest flash or HTML or it’s not powerful enough to support the features of a website i.e. using a Win98 computer with 512MB of RAM may be problematic if you the content of the website incurs heavy usage of data.
Network Limitations
This is can be a reason for the website created to run slow on different network i.e. not enough speed to run the flash graphics included or videos/sound for interactive purposes as some people still use dial-up connections which aren't as fast to handle heavy usage.
Websites can incur limitations as well as various opportunities i.e. user limitations, hardware limitations, and network limitations.
User limtiations
This has everything to do with the user of the website i.e. the audience, some of the limitations being lack of computer knowledge or the internet culture, disabilities etc.
Hardware limitations
This is based on what computer the audience is using, either it’s too old to run the latest flash or HTML or it’s not powerful enough to support the features of a website i.e. using a Win98 computer with 512MB of RAM may be problematic if you the content of the website incurs heavy usage of data.
Network Limitations
This is can be a reason for the website created to run slow on different network i.e. not enough speed to run the flash graphics included or videos/sound for interactive purposes as some people still use dial-up connections which aren't as fast to handle heavy usage.
