LO1 - Analysis of website - Wikipedia

5 Different Purposes of websites:
- Information
- Advertising
- E-Commerce
- Download & Streaming
- Social Media

Information - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)

A) Purpose: Wikipedia provides factual information with almost every form of subject. Each of the information given has been cited and given evidence. It allows people to search up a certain subject which will have information written about it. Considering it is basically an ever expanding and enlarging encyclopedia, it will provide a myriad of information which means the target audience will range from young students to the elderly which is considered the mass audience.

B) Visitor Needs: People will be visiting Wikipedia with the objective of trying to find information about certain things. This is provided through several means from hyperlinked words within information, navigation links on the left hand side of the page (Main Page, Contents, Featured content etc.), languages selection and a search bar on the top right. The information pertaining a chosen subject is presented with a generally summarized form at the top of the page along with the name of the subject. The rest of the information is explained towards the bottom of the page such as the explanation of the origin, the time it was found, citations, similar things to the subject but this is not necessarily the same for all subjects as some could be explained differently.

C) Information Flow/User Experience: The website is laid out in a rather extremely easy to use form which allows people to navigate around the website. The text is always kept black so that the hyperlinks that appear in blue appear more clearly. The site also has similar subjects at the bottom to suggest finding more information through that and it will usually follow the same theme of the original search. There is also an option to turn the page into a PDF file for easy access to printing instead of having to copy the entire page.

D) Features: Wikipedia contains several elements that allow a user to navigate around the website through it's hyperlinked keywords, search bar, navigation bar on the left hand side and it even has a mobile version of the website. Apart from the search bar, the main navigational tool that's more commonly used is the hyperlinked words which will lead to more information regarding the chosen subject. Apart from these, Wikipedia itself is simplistic at best, providing easy navigation with little effort and featuring as much information possible. Another example of a feature would be the summary box that's in most wiki pages; It summarizes the main points of the subject in a small box on the page. The page of a subject will be in a certain layout as each page in Wikipedia tends to follow a template to make sure that the information is set out and is easy to pick out from.

E) Benefits: Wikipedia is a very community based website which means that information that is being constantly fed and changed in the website is very much people who will have researched elsewhere, have some experience with or have prior knowledge to it. Eventually, with all the information being added, there will be a pattern of certain information and the information will begin to lead to facts. Information sharing was the main objective of the creation of Wikipedia.

F) Content: Wikipedia is an ever constantly expanding open encyclopedia with content being updated constantly as it is purely an information based website. Although, they have adapted to allow easy access and navigation on phones for example. Since the start of Wikipedia, they have been gaining more and more information translated in to various languages to provide more information for non-native English speakers and readers.