Topic 12

Animations can really enhance a slideshow or webpage. They can include cartoons and moving images or text.  
Links provide a ways of users moving from webpage to webpage or slide to slide. They allow users to be in control of what they see next. They can be provided by text links (i.e. hypertext) or image links (hotspots)
Transitions are the movement from one webpage to another. They are more widely used in slideshows and video editing software to create impact and professionalism.

Target audience are the people who will be typical users of the website or presentation. You need to cater to their needs. When trying to find what the target audience is, a number of questions must be asked: What are their needs? How much do they know already? What is the knowledge of the reader about the subject? What level of literacy do they have? How much specialist vocabulary can they handle? How interested are they likely to be in the subject matter? 

Categories of target audience are teenagers, young children, senior citizens and adults. 

Things to consider when designing a website for young children are lots of images, uncluttered page design, very easy navigation, lots of bright colours, no long words or sentences and maybe fun animations such as cartoons.

Things to consider when designing a website for older users are more complex page designs, longer words and sentences, more complex navigation. animations and sound used with care, subtle colours.  

• Forward/ next and back buttons
• Use of home button to take user back to homepage
• Use of menus
• Use of links
• Bookmarks/ favourites

Sight impairment:

• Use zoom in/ out buttons
• Facility to speak words on the screen
• Increase font size
• Choose font type that is easy to read
• Use plenty of contrast 
• Allow user to change colour scheme

Hearing impairment:

• Use visual warnings rather than sound warning
• Use typed versions of any speech used
• Use subtitles for any videos used

If images are to be used on a website or presentation they can take a long time to load, so it is best to use compressed images. This will make the file size smaller so it is quicker to load. 

Advantages: 

• More files can be stored on the storage medium (e.g. DVD, memory card, hard drive, etc) 
• It is much faster for others to download it from a webpage
• It is faster to load when viewed with any software used to view or edit it
• It is faster to transder as an email attachment

Disadvantages:

• Images are not as high quality as images without compression
• Sound quality is not as high with compression such as that used with MP3 files
• Compressions mean it is much faster to transfer movie files and this causes problems with people illegally copying movies