Research for concept

Idea 2 is centered around the fact that student diets are terrible.

One of the first results in the search engine results was the following site:

Although this site offers useful information for students, that is essentially all it is - a mass of content. There are masses of pages of content but there is a lack or organisation of the content. The recipes fail to follow conventions and simply list the method with no measurements or scales in place.

studentrecipes.com offers a 'cheesy' but good selection of recipes. The images that they use are almost childish and patronise rather than aid the design. The website does offer a useful search feature where you can add the ingredients you have and it will relay a relevant recipe.

yumyum.com/student is a resource which lets students know the kind of things they will need to be able to cook nice meals whilst at University. They offer advice on what kind of utensils, spices etc that you will need and also offer recipes.

The main problem with the site is the design, it is dated and looks like there has been no proper use of CSS to design it.

studentrecipes.net is another portal for recipes aimed at students. This site also seems quite dated in its style.

Although this is a recipe website after navigating to the recipes section there were only two recipes there. Another main problem with this site is that it recommends using shop bought sauces for example rather than creating your own - the idea of recipes.

Luis

Research for concept

As I have yet to decide on a concept for my project I'm researching three separate ideas for competition, clarity of concept etc.

The first idea centers around providing a service for student entrepreneurs to find business partners and/or funding for the ideas.

Browsing the internet the only worthwhile sites that I found were as follows:

"Dorm Works" is a website which provides a service which

"Start an Internet Business & Pay Off Your Student Loans - How to start a highly profitable dot com with very little start up capital..."

After reading this I decided to continue, the home page was flooded with sales text which wouldn't look out of place on a pyramid system site or a spam business certainty site. It ultimately lead me (after a long read) to the bottom of the page where they had an image of a software box and a price next to it. Apparently they will provide you with everything you need to make $500 a month whilst you're a student.

I can safely say that this is not the kind of project that I will be pursuing and therefore does not count as competition. Although there are elements of the site which ring true with my project idea, I will not be selling a service which guarantees success.

Visually, the site fails to impress me either. There is a rushed feeling to the design and the paragraphs lack vital left and right padding so that they don't line up exactly the the div edges.

The navigation is also disappointing. Each main link is an image with no hover state which affects accessibility and the whole 'finished' feel of the site. 

The second site I found follows much similar traits elicited by the previous. Here's a screenshot:

This site presents itself a lot better than the previous in the sense that there is a feeling that this site was outsourced to a company for the design. Although, the logo is a bit 'cheesy' with the 'cool' typeface used for the word 'students'. The header image of the people gives a personable feeling to the site and makes you feel like you know the success stories behind the idea.

Again, this site is selling a product which would aid you as a student in being a business guru. This service however, is only available to students studying in Nova Scotia.


The 3rd site I thought was relevant was the following:

Although not strictly speaking a student business website, it is offering a business competition for students. The clean, minimalist design (although indicative of a CMS template) indicates trust and a concept that you can rely on to speak the truth. This could be a design direction that I decide to follow.

The fourth site is more for educational rather than showcase. Here is the screenshot:

Initial thoughts are obvious, this is an ugly website. Ignoring that fact though, there are useful tips here and this could provide a relevant research base which could be explored if this concept were to be chosen.

Luis

Youtube websites?

As a keen twitterer (?) I click on my of the links that the people I follow tweet. This is because I follow a lot of creatives and sometimes they post very interesting and helpful things!

Today someone posted a link to an ad-agency's website, which to my surprise, is hosted on Youtube. At first I couldn't understand why or how you could host your website on Youtube but after following the link up it makes complete sense.

They use the (more often than not spammed) comments feature that you can apply to your videos and have embedded links to each comment. Each link sends you to a different video about their company and what they are about. I think this is a genius idea and something that I'm surprised hasn't been done before. The company is called Boone Oakley and have apparently also won a D&AD award for it.

Here's the link :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&v=Elo7WeIydh8&annotation_id=annotation_98466

Perhaps this could be an avenue for my project?

Luis.

The beginning of the end

Well here it goes.

This blog is for the sole purpose of documenting my planning process for my final year project at the University of Leeds. As I stress and endeavour to meet my targets it will be all documented right here.

It all starts now so bear with me if the first few posts seem odd or irrelevant.

Thanks for looking!