My digital artefact, La Vie Etc., is a one stop shop for advice on subjects that would typically affect females in university (aged approximately 18-25). My partner for this project, Kira and I decided on such a project as we wanted to create something that’s relatable to our demographic that we would have liked to have had access to, ourselves, upon beginning our journey at university. We wanted to create a safe space where our audience could receive advice from people that were going through similar experiences, and so we came up with our website La Vie Etc. which we created via Wix. We decided we wanted to post articles on a platform that anyone could have access to, including ourselves in a way, as we didn’t want to pay for website builders, and narrowed our ideas to three subcategories – university, personal life, and everything else, or, Etc. Upon further researching our intended audience, and people whom work on similar content as their careers, for example, YouTubers Bella Fiori and bestdressed, we got a good idea of the aesthetic we wanted to go for, as well as the type of content that was the most popular on each channel. Such research also allowed us to further define and refine our audience as psychographics are just as important as demographics, and we got a feel of the type of people that engage with such material.
The actual website was the first thing we wanted to create, as that would be the base of our project, and so we started off by paper prototyping. We drew up rough layout designs, as well as logo ideas and then converted that into our website online. However, we had some technical difficulties with the website creator, and so had to research ways to operate Wix. This meant we had to make some changes to the design as certain website layouts had certain restrictions.
We also created an Instagram page to promote our articles and interact with our audience, which was a learning process in itself as running a professional account is different to a private one. We learnt how to use features such as suggestion boxes, which really helped with engagement and feedback. All the feedback we received was very positive and encouraging, although there were some problems, such as the fact that out DA does not work on UOW wi-fi, but the only way we could try to manage this problem was to let our audiences know about the glitch.
The positive feedback ensured we were on the right track with our project, and many audience members stated that our articles were helpful for them. In terms of chronemics, we learnt that it was important to consider when the articles would be posted, as context became something of importance. For example, we got 50+ views on an article about staying organised at university just by posting it around the time people would typically be having exams. To conclude, we have thoroughly enjoyed the process of content creation and felt immense satisfaction when seeing our project come to life.
Sources
Wix: https://www.wix.com/
Bella Fiori (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaezsZGhwWgB4ZRmHNCfIyw
bestdressed (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnQhwPVwcP-DnbUZtIMrupw
Psychographics & Demographics: https://insights.c2bsolutions.com/blog/the-differences-between-psychographics-and-demographics
Paper Prototyping Tutorial (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMjozqJS44M
How to Use Wix: https://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/website-builders/wix/how-to-use-wix/
Business Accounts on Instagram: https://business.instagram.com/getting-started?locale=en_GB
(Thirtieth of October 2019)
in omnia paratus 