The main reason for this text is to inform pretty much anyone of Harry Potter books and also the author who wrote them, J.K. Rowling. The author of the text does this in a very simple way by using information that will give the readers more understanding of the book. The text is trying to give insight or help with the books, and also trying to get more people to read the books.
As I was looking at the website I realized two things right away. One, the fact that this was for many different people in many different countries, whereas most of the websites I have been to, have been geared towards English speakers like myself. The second thing that I realized was that the website was for all ages, young and old alike.
Looking at the fact that right when you go to the J.K. Rowling website you are faced with the options of six different languages. English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Chinese. This tells me that the author is trying to persuade a lot more than English speakers to read the books, but also shows that the author wants people to know more about J.K. Rowling.
Basically what told me that the website was directed to every single person in the world regardless of age, was the option of looking at the website in a text only version, or you can go through the website in its regular graphical form. Because there are these options, it tells me that the author is trying to use the graphical/visual version for the younger audience, while there is also a text only version for the older or maybe even more mature audiences.
I am going to go into the two different versions of the website and show the differences between the two and show what each website is trying to do for the audience.
The home page of the graphic/visual version of the website gives a view of a desk littered with many different items you might find on any random desk around the world. There is a keyboard, a cell phone, what looks to be a journal, a newspaper, empty gum wrappers, and many other different items.
When you roll over many of the items on the desk, they light up and turn into links that take you to the different pages of the website. The author of the website uses a version of icons in the way that you can almost tell what kind of page each link will take you to. This almost pulls on you emotions to try and get you to view every different page to see what it has in common with the links.
The author of the website also makes different comments here and there that only people who have read the movies or seen the books would understand. For example, there is a help tab in the bottom right hand corner that says this “ As you move your cursor over the objects, some will turn into Portkeys that will transport you to other areas of the site. Every so often, you will discover a Dark Mark. This is a SPOILER WARNING and relates to information contained in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” It then shows the symbol of the Dark Mark.
The first thing that only those who are familiar with Harry Potter would understand is the word Portkeys. Basically this means the same thing as a link, in the book a Portkey was a magical item, it can be anything, that took the characters in the book to a specific predetermined destination. The second thing was the Dark Mark, this being the symbol for the villains in the books. The author uses the symbol in the website to tell people not to look at that specific page if you do not want to receive revealing information regarding the sixth Harry Potter book.
I believe that the author is walking a fine line here by using these phrases or words that only certain people would understand. I think that the author runs the risk of pushing certain members of the intended audience away by using words they don’t know. On the other hand, it almost gives those people who do understand their meaning, a sense of pride and satisfaction because they know something. By using these specific words I believe the author may lose some people but make others really happy.
In the text only version the author uses contrast very well by having a completely black background with only two other colors. The main part of the text is yellow and in a big font so that it is easy to read, and the links to the different pages are blue. This makes the reading of the pages easier and gives very little to distract the audience.
The front page of the text only version starts with the title that says “Everything you might want to know.” This is obviously an overstatement because there is no way that the author could put everything everyone may want to know into the site because they don’t know exactly what people want to see. They have an overall idea of what most people would like, but they cannot realistically please everyone. I don’t think the title is very well thought out because when you scroll down and look at the information given on the page you are not given very much and leaves the audience wondering, was that ALL I wanted to know?
The overall voice or tone of the website is somewhat hard to describe because most of the written words are informational. I would say though that the tone of feeling of the paper is very laid back, and it almost has to be because the whole idea of Harry Potter is to have fun. When it goes into the biography of J.K. Rowling, it is more formal and very informational.
When looking at the kairos of the site and whether or not it is up to date I see two specific examples that tell me it is not. One is the fact that the site was last updated in 2006, the other is that the last book that it talks about is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood prince, which is the sixth of seven books. This would have and will turn many many people away from the site once they realize they will not be able to read anything recent.
Overall, I believe that the author hit the targeted audience right on, and met the needs of the majority of people. The only thing that will turn people away is the fact that the site is not up to date. Only those who want to know more about J.K. Rowling and how she came up with the idea of the Harry Potter books will stay and read the different sites.
I liked your review. I read Corrine's and she didn't mention a text only version, so it was nice to see the other side. I agree with about people not paying attention to sites that aren't updated. You bring up points of view that are differet from Corrine's.
ReplyDeleteI would work on gramman and punctuation, like you said, and also either formalizing or informalizing. You seem to bounce back and forth a lttle bit.
I really like how you talked about the text only part and the different languages. It shows that her audience is not only for people who speak english. I also really liked how you thougth about the people who might not understand the terms that are used in the books, it is a good thing to think about.
ReplyDeleteI think it might be nice to touch a little more on the visual tools that can be found on the page, because I think they play an important role. I also think that you could change the order that you talk about stuff. It felt like you repeated things or explained them out of order from what you had said.
Sorry this was posted so late. :)