Disney’s communication: A Website Review
1. Introduction
Disney’s website is based on graphic representation of the most popular and latest characters created by the movie company. The www.disney.com.au website’s navigation is based on the image tabs, and the layout complies with the style guides described by Lynch and Horton. The below essay will focus on different website elements that make the Disney.com.au pages responsive, interactive, and user friendly, based on the general guidelines of styling and designing pages.
2. Website Analysis
The purpose of the Disney website designed to engage with fans of movies and provide information about the screening, merchandise, and characters. The website has a simple top and bottom navigation menu, search bar, and graphic tabs that help visitors locate the most popular movies and themes. At the bottom of the page, the website provides links to additional sources created by Disney, such as games, videos, movie features, and other Disney sites. The pages are designed with the audience in mind, and follow an easy to navigate template. Social media page icons are also displayed at the bottom of the page, to allow the audience to engage with the Disney brand on other channels.
2.1. Shortcuts
According to Lynch and Horton (2008, p. 5:3), “Well-designed sites contain modular elements that are used repeatedly across many dozens or hundreds of pages. These elements may include the global navigation header links and graphics for the page header or the contact information and mailing address of your enterprise”. On Disney’s website, the top navigation allows the user to locate games, family features, videos, travel deals, and movie information. There is a permanent search bar on the top of the page that is present on each individual web page. The bottom navigation is also set, and allows the visitor to find merchandise, stores, movies. The top and bottom menus are simple, and do not have drop down menus to make finding and narrowing the search easier. All pages share the top and bottom navigation, as well as the search bar. As Lynch and Horton state, “Basic navigation links are an important part of search optimization, because only through links can search crawlers find your individual pages” (2008, p. 5:9), and this principle is followed on the Disney website, making it user-friendly and easy for search engines to crawl.
2.2. Where am I?
The navigation and wayfinding on Disney’s website is based on graphic elements, and images of movies with the latest features, characters, actors, and events are clickable. The icons are arranged based on popularity, and this is a user-friendly feature of the site. The main image on the site’s top area on the main page is the latest Disney movie, and the image is again clickable. Once the visitor clicks an image, more information (videos, images, text, and information) appear. It is easy to find where the user is at the time, and how they can browse the website’s other content from any page. This is what Lynch and Horton call landmarks in navigation, described as a principle to “Use consistent landmarks in site navigation and graphics to keep the user oriented” (Lynch and Horton 2008, p. 4:5). Another important principle is that the website should not have any dead-end pages. On the Disney’s site, each movie page has a “next up” section, and a “new and upcoming” section, to keep users interested and engaged. As Lynch and Horton (2008, p. 4:13) states that “Users want to get information in the fewest possible steps”. This means that they want links to be displayed on different pages to go to another section without having to search.
2.3. Page headers and footers
The Disney website has a dynamic header, featuring an image of the latest movie. The animation is both engaging and responsive, as visitors are able to click on them to find out more. The page footers contain all the required elements, such as copyright information, logo, social media links, internet safety information for parents, privacy policy, contact, and help pages. Page headers and footers should always include information referring to the identity of the site, and provenance. As Lynch and Horton (2008, p. 7:1) state: “Careful graphic design will give your Web site a unique visual identity” [..] and “well-designed page footers offer the user a set of links to other pages in addition to essential data about the site”.
2.4. Typesetting
With regards to typesetting, the Disney Website uses a simple Helvetica font for the text content, and Georgia type font for the labels on graphic content. The information pages use Lucida Sans Console. Adding emphasis on different sections of the page is done through emphasis, such as Italics, Bold, Underlining, colours, capitals, and headings. One of the principles provided by Lunch and Horton (2008, p. 8) is as follows: “A good rule of thumb when working with type is to add emphasis using one parameter at a time”. This principle is followed by the designers of the Disney website, and they follow the principle of combining graphic elements with emphasised typography. A careful balance among graphics, videos, and text is achieved to match the characteristics of the target audience (mainly children).
2.5. Graphics & colour
Disney’s website uses graphics for illustration purposes, described by Lynch and Horton (2008) as follows: “Graphics can show you things, bringing pieces of the world into your document” and [] “the web is a color medium with an enormous range of display colors, and color graphics on web pages are almost the equal of fine printing on paper”. The use of colours is sparse, in order to allow the images and videos stand out. The black and white design of the site is suitable for emphasizing the colourful nature of the videos and images displayed. The grey background of the main pages and the black header creates a contrast that aids navigation. Fonts are black or grey, and stand out from the background. However, the “Games” and the “Travel” pages follow a different principle, and have either a solid background or one related to the latest creation of the company. The integration of sliders in the site design also make the pages more interactive and engaging.
3. Conclusion
Overall, the main strengths of the Disney.com.au website can be identified as easy navigation, optimization for all screen sizes and browsers, as well as a simplistic basic design to allow the graphic and video content appear more vividly. The basic navigation of the site is easy to follow, and the content is responsive, interactive, with clickable images. The balance among videos, images, and text is designed to match the expectations and behaviour of the target audience. The interactive design and the static top and bottom navigation successfully frames the content of each page.
References:
Lynch, Patrick J. & Horton, S. (2008). Web style guide. Yale University Press. [Online] [Accessed 01/09/2017] Available at: <http://webstyleguide.com/>
