The Smith Family
Website
Darren Smith
N241
November 23, 2014
Purpose
The purpose of my website is to create a central repository and sharesite for past, present
and current events, pictures, etc from all family members, past and present. By creating this site,
everyone in the family should be able to explore family members they knew intimately, socially
or were not aware of their existence.
Needs Analysis
This site will be setup to answer the following questions, and provide information in the
following areas:
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Provide a visual tour of the family
Family history
Photographs by individual
The site will meet the needs of those family members who do not trust nor are
willing/wanting to try Facebook or any other sites. By doing this, I want to encourage a sharing
of pictures amongst the family that was non-existent before.
Goals
1. Provide an online area to encourage family members to share pictures they possess with
those family members who do not possess them.
2. Provide an online area to allow family members to learn more about family members
they know little to nothing of their lives.
3. Provide a website a part from Facebook or other social media websites that can be trusted
by family members.
Audience Characteristics
Visitors to the Smith Family Website will have two different types of audience
characteristics.
Immediate Family:
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Allow for the sharing of pictures from each member of the family
Allow for the sharing of information about each member’s childhood, likes, dislikes, etc.
Allow for the sharing of special personal events behind the pictures
Concentric Circle Family:
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Allow for the sharing of pictures from other concentric circle members of the family
Allow for the sharing of information about each concentric circle member’s childhood,
likes, dislikes, etc.
Allow for the sharing of special personal events behind the pictures
Allow for connecting to other concentric circle family websites as well.
Primary Audience
The primary audience for the site will be my immediate family. My mother and father, as
well as my siblings and their subsequent generations. The age of my audience will range from
82 years old to 3 year old that knows how to navigate the web.
Secondary Audience
The secondary audience is my concentric circle families. Concentric circle family is
defined as a family one generation or more removed from my immediate family. Therefore
allowing for other extended members of my family to share additional information and pictures
which my immediate family would like to know/have or never knew existed and would like to
download the picture for their picture archives.
Competition:
Two "competitive" sites you will analyze for baseline information for your project. For example,
if your sample site is going to be an online pet store, you should identify URL's to two existing
pet store sites on the web.
1. www.duggarfamily.com
2. http://www.thebatesfamily.com
The first site I looked at was the Duggar Family website at www.duggarfamily.com
First impressions:
 I like the page setup
 The upper navigation pane is easy to navigate
 However, the Quick Links navigation pane makes the front page feel cluttered
 There appears to be three distinct columns but after scrolling down the page turns into
two columns.
 The photo albums and videos are placed in the bottom right corner of the initial website
o Is this due to prevent non-family members from quickly finding these and
watching / viewing family material that is not theirs, I do not know.
 Overall, I like the layout of the website.
The second site I looked at was the Bates Family website www.thebatesfamily.com
First Impressions:
 I like the one huge family picture on the banner part of the website.
 And the navigation pane on top of the family picture.
 There’s too much white space on the home page if you scroll down
o This area could be used better or the page should be tightened up
 Overall, I like some of the way this site is setup.
I would like to start out small and continue building my site from aspects of the two sites.
Site Map:
Working on this know.