Website features

Below is my album slider on the homepage.

Further down the website welcomes you to Shooshh

On my pages I have upcoming events on the side as I thought this is a useful feature to see upcoming events on most pages.  I have an interactive map also to see where a bouts it is.

On my Events / Tickets page you have to scroll to Shooshh nights or Djs to see my events calendar.  If you just click on the normal button 'events / tickets/ this gives you an overview without a calendar.

Below is my actual calendar.  You can view this a list, a calendar or however you feel is most convenient for you.

Below is where you can buy tickets to events.  Below shows Amine edge and dance and detailed information.

Another below is for Runway friday which is a shooshh night enabling you to buy tickets.

And Hot Since 82

Below is my shop.  I did not know what else to put into my shop so i've included one item.

I have added a register feature under My account.  A search bar to search everything within my site and a shopping cart to show what you've added to your basket.

New pluggin - Jetpack

A new pluggin that I have installed is called Jetpack.  It allows you to check your sites updates of views:

This shows the amount of views over a certain amount of time.  It also displays a chart.

Crit

For crit we presented our sites in class and to a client.

My feedback was as follows.  I had little content within my pages at this point because of problems with my theme.
I got told to look more into influential sites such as Ministry and other music websites to get some more inspiration.  I have now added my content and arranged it how I would like and how I feel the user would be able to use my website.  Because of my theme delaying my progress of my website building, I have not had time to take some user testing into account.  This would of allowed me to see what works and what doesn't.  I would have been able to see whats the most efficient way of getting round my site and doing what its been made for.

Pluggins Used

Here I am just going to show what pluggins I have used myself from the internet, off wordpress and what actually came with the theme.


Events Calendar-  

This pluggin is from Wordpress.  I wanted an events calendar to show upcoming events efficiently.  I originally tried to use a pluggin from the internet but I couldn't get it to work.  This calendar is more presentable and I like the way each window is transparent.  You hover your mouse curser over each day to highlight any events that are on.  A small window appears and previews a featured image and a short text about the event.  You then click on this that takes you to another page with more detailed information.

Woo Shop- This pluggin enables you to have a shop on your website.  A shopping cart appears in the navigation.  This is the shop.  In the corner of my nag bar I have the shopping cart which shows some products on my site.  

Revolution slider- This slider presents albums of Dj's playing at Shooshh.  The slider if you have enough, lets you scroll across the images and has the option to click on them to get some more information.

Website problems - Theme

For the last couple of weeks my theme hasn't been loading probably.  In every theme that you get for free or purchase you upload demo content.  Demo content is the basic structure of the website and what I paid £40 for ($59).  For 2 weeks I couldn't progress on my website because I didn't want to start styling and adding content without the basic structure I paid for.

Above here is where I purchased my theme from.  The theme is called Clubix.  I liked this theme because it was suited towards the clubbing music scene.  My event is for a club in Brighton called Shooshh and it seemed perfect.

Responsive - The theme is responsive.  Everything within this theme shrinks down to an appropriate size.

Ability to sell content - Since I am going to have a shop within my website, this theme comes with features such as selling music.

Pluggins - Theme comes with a few pluggins.  These are Woo commerance which is a shop, a revolution slider which enables image content to automatically slide. Visual composer - Which is meant to be able to help you add content easily.

After talking with George he has managed to fix a variety of problems I had such as the content not loading, my navigation was huge, with so many buttons.  After this, George amended some of it and get me on track to be able to start adding my own content. 

SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation.  SEO recommendations are intended to help your site rank higher and more accurately in search engines like Google.  When you search for any topic on a search engine such as Google, at the top there will be an estimate of how many results have shown up for your search.  This can be millions and millions.  So you want your site ideally on the first page or as near to the first page as possible so you get more hits and your site becomes ever more popular making your more successful.  There are ways of making your site more popular, therefore ranking you higher in the results.

These are: Consistently publishing relevant work to your topic that is yours and not copied.  It has to be original and maybe different to what others have already published.  Another way is to promote your website in relevant and sufficient ways such as through other blogs, social media and so on.

The more you do this the higher you will rank within search engines.  You can also make your blogs/work as relevant as possible to exactly what your topic is so Google can recognise this.  When someone Googles 'Motor Racing' and your site is about this, you will also list higher if your site is more focused on specifically Motor Racing.     

Usability Testing Research

Usability testing is testing your website with It's respective target audience to receive feedback on how well the website works and how people react to certain features.  This way the designer can see how easy their system works and they can perform certain tasks to see how easy it is do accomplish something.  The usability testing system is a very important part of making your website work when it comes to launching.  When the tasks are being gone through, they are being observed very carefully by other people usually the designers themselves who set out the tasks to be completed.  They will take notes on every single thing that is being done by the tester.  They will be filmed by a webcam to watch their reaction when it comes to opening new page and see where their eyes first latch onto.  This could be done by a heat map, red meaning a lot of attention is being paid to this side of the website and blue very little.  This is helpful as If you feel your website's more vital information is not being noticed you can find out with ease.  These can range from where their eye looks first on a new open page to a pattern in which buttons are pressed.  The designers will then record what may need improving such as a booking system for example.  If they would like something to be completed within 5 minutes and it takes the tester 10 or even more they can re-arrange things to make tasks simpler and more enjoyable to use.  These issues would be recorded at the end of the testing session.
Different people will be chosen to take part in the usability testing methods as everyone is different in how the accomplish, react and generally complete tasks.  By this I mean maybe generally gathering your type of target audience and people from slightly different ages and gender.  Maybe even perhaps where they come from as well so you get the best and maximum effect from usability testing.  The effectiveness of using humans to test on products is vital in comparison to using computers.  
The target audience for my website will be 18 until late 20s.  Since my website is based on a night club it will need to be effective for young people and how they like to accomplish tasks in the most sufficient way possible.  This counts for being simple.
After exploring how usability testing affects a wesbite's functions I feel it's important I carry out my own usability testing methods with people.