As my website aims to be interactive, I proposed to add a forum so that users could interact with one another. There are many pros and cons to adding a forum onto a website and I found an interesting resource which states what these are:

http://www.chemstudioweb.com/pros-and-cons-for-adding-a-forum-to-website/

I researched into adding a free customizable forum that would relate to the website. It would do this by having topics that relate to what the magazine is about and it will also have consistency with the website through colours so users can see that they are related. The forum will open in a new window, so that if users wish to carry on browsing through the website whilst contributing to the forum this is made easier for them.

 I researched into many forums that were customizable, yet some were very confusing to deal with and didn’t have the freedom that I had hoped for as I could not choose all the colours for the forum. The links shown below are forums which I researched into, yet I did not decide to use either of these as I had to download the software first, and after doing so on a couple found out that they did not quite let me do what I had wished. 

http://www.phpbb.com/

http://www.yabbforum.com/ 

http://www.simplemachines.org/ 

http://www.vbulletin.com/download.php 

I did find a useful website which is shown below and I went through the process of creating a forum with them, however when it came to customizing the forum it was very difficult to change the colours.

http://myfreeforum.org/  

http://helpisathand.myfreeforum.org/

I finally found a relevant website which allowed me to create a forum at ease and with the freedom that I had hoped for. This website is: 

http://www.aceboard.net

This forum was very easy to customize as I could change all the colours to relate to the website which allowed me to keep consistency throughout. As well as this, I split the forums up into separate categories; I had a section for parents, a section for children, and a section for parents and children. This way the users could choose who they would prefer to talk to. I used the navigation of the website to aid my thinking into the sections within these categories, which were development health and nutrition. I also had other forums named Q & A and General which were for those who wanted to contribute to more open discussions. The excellent thing about this forum is that users can also start up a new topic; therefore this gives them the freedom to discuss what they want if we do not already provide this.  

As I am the administrator of the forum, at any time I can change the look and feel and also add further topics within it. As well as this if users do not adhere to the terms and conditions on the website I can moderate any posts and delete users if I feel the need. I included a welcome message to this forum. There are still a few things I would like to change on the forum; however the link below shows how this forum is working at the moment:

 http://helpisathand.aceboard.com   

As mentioned before I have designed a bullet point to use throughout the website. I incorporated two of the colours form the colour scheme and have designed a cross as this image is related to health.

As well as this I have also been researching into third party scripts. I have the basic template of my website complete now but will be researching more into third party scripts throughout the whole of the process of developing the website to aid me through my progress. I hope to have everything working by April the 7th so that when i receive the content from Journalists i can put it straight onto the website. I will also be continuing with pre-production work and communicating with my group throughout the Easter period.

Me and Jen have been sending the website brief back and forth and are now in agreement.  I will be sticking to this brief throughout the process of making the website. 

I have now designed the template of how this website will look and have decided to use the two shades of pink together and the two shades of blue together throughout the website. The colour text will be black. We have also come with a conclusion to the slogan we are using which is ‘All you need to know for healthy children.’ This sums up the website successfully. The template of how this website will look can already be viewed at  

www.helpisathandmagazine.co.uk 

 I now aim to make a design of a bullet point which will be used throughout the website to enhance the design of the website. As well as this I will be researching into third party scripts to try and figure out how I import something in to make the website work efficiently.

I designed a number of logos and headers for both the magazine and website using the colours and font mentioned previously. I researched on the internet into different royalty free images that I could use, and the best website that I found was www.morguefile.com I read through the license agreement on this website to make sure that I had understood the terms and agreement.  

I found a number of different images of hands to relate to the name of the magazine ‘Help Is At Hand’ There is also a slogan that we have decided to use which is in smaller writing above the main name, which says ‘All you need to know for healthy children’ We decided on this slogan as it sums up clearly what the magazine is about. I put a number of different images into this header and the best one I felt is the one of a mother and child holding hands as it relates to what the magazine is about. I have now completed the final design of the header and logo which will be used in the magazine and website.