Nick Latourette “Geonomics”

Concept:

·         This is a great idea!

·          These gene kits could really take off in the next couple of years as people begin to see their benefits- good job tapping into that market early  

·         I like that you give your buyer background information about the product, especially because this is such a new market

Audience definition:

·         While I agree that genetics should be something that interests everyone, I think that you are actually going to have a much more specific subset of the population looking at your website

o   People in the field will already know the basic information provided on your site

o   Uneducated people might not be intellectually curious enough to look into this product- especially at its current price

·         So, you are looking to appeal to a portion of the population that is educated, doesn’t know much about this product, and has extra money to spend

o   One thing to keep in mind: you are going to have a more difficult time proving your trustworthiness to this population than you would normally

§  Suggestion: get professor comments on your page to prove that you are not just some random person- make it known that you are a Stanford student

§  Once you get their trust use yourself as a clearinghouse to draw more revenue to your site

Site organization:

·         I love that the navigation bar order goes in logical order of what you would want to know if you came into this website with absolutely no information about this product

o   In example:

§  first I would want to know something about the subject (Genetics 101)

§   then about how this subject is transforming today (research)

§  then about how this impacts society (social and ethical issues)

§  finally, after reading your website I might feel comfortable enough to buy your product!

·         It might be helpful for the reader to have some description of what they can expect to find behind the links in the navigation bar before they click

o   You can give them this information in the homepage

Clarity of writing:

·         Try to write in shorter sentences than you do in your assignments when you start writing on your website

·         I like that you have a sort of “DNA 101” page to explain the terms

o   this is very important for a website about a relatively unknown product

Ethics:

·         the two examples of ethical issues you give in assignment two are good

o   you will want to flesh them out further on your actual website

·         Some questions they raise for me:

o   Can these kits really tell what your skills, passions and tendencies are? Or just your likelihood to develop a certain disease, etc?

o   If you limit the information these kits provide does it really fix the privacy issue? (the companies still have your DNA…)

Potential risks/problems:

·         You could have a problem in that you are presenting supposedly objective information about the product including background information, social and ethical issues etc. while trying to sell the product

o   For example: I’m not sure that I would trust information on the ethics of a product from a website that is trying to sell me that very same product

o   The businesses you are trying to get to give you part of the profits from selling their products on your site might not like that you are including information about ethical issues

·         Competition from the Human Genome Project could be a problem

o   To differentiate your website from theirs

§  Provide personal stories from people who have used the products

§  Provide Stanford professor input

§  Connect with people on a person to person basis

Alyssa London “Ase Lingit”

Concept:

·         I love that you are using something you have a lot of personal experience with- native culture- as the premise for your site

o   This gives you the unique possibility of combining more fact based knowledge, and intangible personal experiences within the Tlingit Culture

·         I appreciate that you will inform the reader about Tlingit culture in a variety of different ways (facts, stories, artifacts/pictures, music, discussion boards…)

o   People learn in a lot of different ways

o   Approaching this topic from a variety to different angles will allow you to net a larger portion of the people who come to your site than it might otherwise

Audience definition:

·         It is great that you are trying to use this site to reach more than one population

o   you have to be careful that by appealing to one group you are not turning another off

o   for example: if you spend too much time describing a powwow on the front page, and don’t make it clear to other native people that there are more in-depth sections deeper in the website, you will lose their interest quickly

o   one way to deal with this problem: split the front page into sections and have clear titles like “for newcomers” or “for natives” or “for Tlingits” at the tops of those sections to direct readers to relevant information

·         It might also be interesting to have a special section for children

o   as the saying goes “children are the future”, so it is important to keep them informed about Tlingit culture through a easier to read, more child friendly section

Site organization:

·         While I really like that the titles of the pages in the navigation bar are names in Tlingit, that can also make your site difficult to navigate

o   To fix this problem you could keep the Tlingit names and put the English names in parenthesis next to them

 

Clarity of writing:

·         You are going to want to use shorter sentences on your actual website than you do in your assignments

·         You will also want to break up the writing on the page more with headings, bullet pts, pictures etc.

·         However, your writing is very clear and once you account more for the internet medium you will have a very comprehensive website

Potential risks/problems:

·         You talk a lot about having interactive elements of your site (pictures, music etc.) in both your business plan and in your presentation outline

o   This is great, but you want to make sure that all of these elements are use controlled

§  Users like to feel like they are in control of their surroundings when searching the web

o   For example: don’t have native music playing as soon as someone clicks on the music site

§  Instead have links and descriptions of what the music is so that readers can choose whether or not to listen

·         You might have a difficult time getting readers to trust the facts you give them if you are also providing a lot of personal information in the same spot

o   To fix this issue: have separate pages for fact/personal based information

Website design:

·         You might want to color some portion of your website- either the words or the background- to keep people interested

o   While having too many visual distractions is a bad idea, having too few can be boring

·         One possible idea- instead of only having the pictures of the artifacts on one page, include them throughout the site with links beneath them to the “artifacts” page

o   This will make your website more visually enticing