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.

I decided to register my domain name as early on in the production process so that no one else could buy the domain name that I wanted. As the name of the magazine was called ‘Help Is At Hand’ I wanted the website to have this title in it. I visited the website www.streamline.net where I bought my domain name and hosting package all together. I decided to buy the Home package which allows me to have 250MB of web space for a year with the price I paid; I figured this would be enough as I will only be including text and images on my website. If I need more web space than this I will have to pass this bridge when it comes. The domain name that I have bought is www.helpisathandmagazine.co.uk. After I bought this I checked that it was registered under my name by using the website www.domaincheck.co.uk.

Elements that I aim to include on the interactive website are: 

• Homepage
• Development
• Health
• Nutrition
• Q & A
• Features
• News
• Resources
• Supplement for children and teenagers
• Have your Say
• Contact Us
• Forum
• Sitemap

As well as this, throughout the website I aim to have a search button, tell a friend option and a competition for users to enter. 

 If I have enough time when producing my website I may consider adding in a few extra elements which are: 

• Poll
• Quiz
• Horoscopes
• Subscription
• Editors Blog

As we decided to use pastel colours as a group, I found a website that already had a set number of colour combinations made up, see the link below: 

 http://feeds.feedburner.com/Colorcomboscom 

I picked 27 combinations, and then out of these, the group narrowed it down to 10 combinations. After we had these combinations, I went to the website below: 

http://www.vischeck.com 

This website enabled me to check what these colours would look like to people who have a colour vision deficiency. After I did this I showed the group and we decided to use the colour combination number 225 to use throughout the website and magazine so the colours would be consistent whilst complimenting each other. As well as this, we decided that the colour text would be black, so it stands out and is easy to read.

I researched on the internet and found a website which showed different kinds of web friendly fonts, the link to this website is shown below:

 http://www.theinternetdigest.net/archive/websafefonts.html 

The web friendly fonts I could use were Arial, Times New Roman, Georgia, Verdana and Courier New. I felt that Arial and Times New Roman had no specific style to them that was very attractive and with Courier New I felt it was a little too large. So my personal opinion was to either use Georgia and Verdana throughout the website. I showed the journalists which fonts I had to use and shared with them my opinions. After discussing, they decided to use the same fonts as me as we all agreed that it would give the magazine and website more consistency and flow throughout which would also interlink them better.  

After discussing we decided that we would use Georgia for the section targeted to the adults and Verdana for the children and teenagers supplement as we thought that Georgia was more sophisticated and Verdana more child like so they would relate to the specific target audience more.

Once I knew what competition the Journalists of the magazine were researching into, I researched to see how many of these magazines had websites. Out of the eight, four did not have a website, one only had a digital format of the magazine and three had full working websites. The three websites were: 

http://www.practicalparenting.co.uk/

 http://www.juniormagazine.co.uk/ 

http://www.askamum.co.uk/ 

After we decided that the magazine and website were purely based around Children’s health, I focused on researching this issue the most. Reasoning behind why we narrowed down our product can be seen on the group diary blog.

 These magazines only had a little section each on health which was mainly geared around babies and toddlers. Only two of these websites had forums for the parents to discuss with one another. My website will be different as it is focused on health issues geared towards further years also and will also include a supplement for children and teenagers in order for them to understand abut any health issues. My website aims to be more interactive as it is not just allowing parents to communicate with other parents and children to communicate with other children. The forums will have a section to make this available, but to further this, parents will also be able to communicate with children and vice versa. This way, as well as this website accompanying the magazine it is adding an extra element to it as it is allowing help and support across all ages if users wish.  

These magazines all have a trend of using pastel colours, so this was a task of mine. I would put a number of different colours together in order to see which complimented each other and then as a group we would decide which colours the magazine and website would use throughout the design.  

When I researched if there were any magazines that were based purely on children’s health issues I only found one which had an accompanying website to it. This magazine was however based in America and the website that accompanied it was very old fashioned with unattractive colours, did not work professionally as it was very confusing to navigate around and information was all over the place. A link to this online magazine can be seen below:

http://www.healthychild.net/ 

This shows that there is a clear gap in the market for our product to work. As this magazine is available online as well as print, there are more options for the target audience to decide which platform they decide to use.

I am a web designer and developer, currently I am in the process of making a product by leasing with two Journalist called Jen James and Helena Ready. They are making a magazine targeted primarily for adult’s male and female based on children’s health issues. The magazine will have a supplement for children and teenagers advising them on issues themselves or their peers may be facing. This magazine is accompanied by an interactive website which I am making. Both journalists are my clients and I will be communicating and negotiating with them up until the deadline on May 23rd 2008 in order to make this product a working success.

I decided to set up a blog for myself so that I can blog my own thoughts and processes as I design and develop this website. I also set up a group diary which can be viewed by clicking on the link below:

http://mc602groupdiary.wordpress.com