Profile #6: Mixed Elements and Profile #7: Great Expectations -- in both these profiles the need to deliver specific content and the need to motivate users to a specific response are highly interdependent and interrelated.

These profiles are similar, but the difference between a Mixed Elements site and a Great Expectations site may be that the latter is delivering a high volume of material or meeting a high level of production value specific to a certain field (like multimedia design). Some guidelines for this profile are the same as those for the High Content profile, although designers may take more liberty with the use graphics and page variations in these profiles.

Use graphics to create a visual identity and sustain it throughout the site.

This identity should not only be recognizable, but should convey a strong sense of the organization's character and establish the type of experience being offered at the site. Use a few colors or a single color to establish an identifiable color scheme, and sustain the color scheme throughout the site. The ThinkShop site uses a brightly colored, playful identity graphic to give a welcoming impression to the teachers and students who visit it.

Make sure that the images used to establish identity convey an appropriate message about the organization and the site.

WEBMONSTER is a site created by designers for other designers, with a strong emphasis on kids as designers. The character of the site is established quickly and effectively by --

• the cartoon images on the first page,
• the crayon motif on secondary pages,
• the brightly colored and lightly animated letters on the kid's pages,
• and the handwritten text (also on the kid's pages).

Be careful to avoid media models that do not match the identity wanted for the site.

Establish different treatments for the "content heavy" and "affect heavy" portions of the pages and/or the site.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Web site makes effective use of a rainbow-filled frame and an animated title bar to convey its message of caring for children, while keeping the content-heavy parts of each page simple and straightforward in treatment. The content is conveyed without too much distraction and the subject matter of the site is not trivialized.

The China News Services page addresses a worldwide audience, serving as a primary news source for a large audience outside China itself. The site's design is graphically intensive in keeping with their high need to maintain a professional profile and to encourage their audience to view their content as reputable and authoritative. The pages containing actual news stories are laid out in a comparatively simple, straightforward format for quick and easy reading.

AMTEC 1997 Conference, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
Elizabeth Boling, Barbara Bichelmeyer, Kurt Squire, Sonny Kirkley
Indiana University
Last updated 1 June 1997
URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~iirg/RESEARCH/AMTEC97/profile6and7.html