Jennifer Randall
Comp Presentation:
Audience.com

The Name

I have decided to enhance the name of the company; instead of calling it "Audience," I chose "Audience.com." "Audience.com" connotes that it is a business functioning in one highly-savvy medium: the web. In our current time, "e-commerce" and "e-business" are buzzwords, and "Audience.com" implies the popularity and power of those words, without directly stating them. Lastly, "Audience.com" has a bit of name recognition that Audience does not, because it looks and sounds like another very popular company: Amazon.com. Visually speaking "Audience.com" looks similar to "Amazon.com," and both titles have the same amount of syllables in them. Amazon.com is typically compared with ideas more than a business that sells books. Popular ideas often attributed to Amazon.com include: innovation, strength, abundance, and financial gain. It is also, typically a well-liked company in business circles, because it is perceived as and championed as an underdog to the mammoth barnesandnoble.com.

The Message

In determining the design, we must first determine the message. Without a message, the design of the website is merely decoration. In this instance, we have been given limited details in preparing for the design of this company's website. Normally, extensive research and conversations with the client, about their goals would take place. Client feedback and research are essential in building an effective design and home-hitting concept. I have relied upon my own assumptions to form a message, on which to base a design.

Audience.com's short-range goal is to sell information to large PR firms, but the outcome of the goal is to sell information of value, which will lead to actual business being gained for the large PR firms. An easy comparison is to think of Q-tips Cotton Swabs. Q-tips wants to sell its product, but their message is not that they want to sell their product. The long-term goal is to have consumers use the product so that they can maintain cleanliness, sustain better health, and ultimately to buy more Q-tips; therefore, Q-tips sells the ideas of cleanliness and health, not cotton swabs.

In this regard, Audience.com sells client leads. Companies have willingly submitted their information to Audience.com, indicating that they are in need of a PR firm. The underlying message, therefore, is "Purchase information about clients from Audience.com, and you are purchasing a business deal." Of course, Audience.com cannot actually say that, because it is not necessarily true nor guaranteed, but Audience.com can relay the message visually; thus, compelling PR firms to purchase potential client information from Audience.com. This, then, is the message I have worked to communicate in the design of this website. One slogan I have incorporated, which can be emphasized throughout different areas of the site, is, "Audience.com Our clients are waiting to do business with you."

The Visuals

Everything about the design of this site works around the unwritten concept: "Purchase information about clients from Audience.com, and you are purchasing a business deal."

I have chosen the handshake, implying an agreement, as the first visual metaphor for the concept. The second visual metaphor is a man in the ocean, in a victory stance. This is to relay the feeling of enthusiasm, inside, when an individual lands a new client for his PR firm.

Note: I got the comp-quality images from the Photodisc website. They are low-res and low-quality, so it has effected the final output of the interface, to a certain extent.

The size of the interface has been reduced down to a small screen, on purpose. Websites so often fill the user's window. This is fine, but I chose something a bit different, and unique, in order to engage the user. It is important to allow users to feel that they are in a different place, not on some website that looks like all the others. Visual impact is important. If users don't remember the online experience, the chances of them coming back are lowered.

The Verbiage

I have chosen fragments of the following verbiage, which are spoken from the point of view of the users of this site. The following are things account executives in large PR agencies might say, after gaining a new client:

"With this new client we landed, we'll be able to demonstrate our strongest public relations strategy in a decade."

"Theresa, congratulations on the new account you landed."

"Thank you for choosing us to develop your new image."

"Mark, here is a cigar to celebrate our new multi-million dollar account."

"Signing that new client renews my energy here."

"Our new public relations campaign for your company focuses on your ability to lead the market."

It is not important that the whole sentences are seen, only key fragments from them. The rest is implied, and can be left open-ended and interpreted.

The Navigation

This website has one purpose: to provide a fee-based service. Because of that, I have chosen to limit the user's choices down to three links, on the front page. If you increase the amount of links, to provide a standard line of choices (company news, a sample client bio, about us, etc), the user's chances of actually doing business on the site are reduced because the margin of error is increased.

The user has only three choices when coming to the Audience.com website:

1. log-in as a pre-registered/paid member through clicking the "that list" link. Non-members who click this link, though unable to log-in, will have options to become a member and see a sample client bio).

2. find out about Audience.com (including "about us" and "news") by clicking the "We" link or the Audience.com logo.

3. register and pay to become a member and receive the full client list.

The links are designed so that when the user mouses over them, a javascript rollover will fly out, offering a brief description of the link. After reading the description, and clicking the link, users will be at the sub-level pages, which would actually be smaller, flyout windows from the main page. The details of this are not presented, because of the obvious circumstances; however, my purpose in adding javascript rollovers is to beckon the user to click to the second level. If the user does not click anything within 2 minutes, an auto timer would re-direct the user to the "register and pay" page.

The Comps

Thank you for reading through the concept before you got to the comps. If you didn't read the concept, please do, after looking at the comps. It is essential in the design of the site.

comp 1 and comp 2

File sizes for the foreground images are not accurate, since this is not how I would usually construct an html page. Background image file sizes are the most accurate:

Comp 1: background file=26K foreground file=18K total=44K

Thank you for reviewing my work.

Jennifer Randall
(212) 828-1099
jrandall@nova.org