Research and planning Teen Life UK

Teen Life UK‘Your Times, Your Life’

BY Noah Gee

Research and planning

Task:to produce part of an interactive e - magazine called Your Times, Your Life or a website to promote the e-magazine, it should be at least a front cover and 2 linked pages. Your website should include an interactive home page and linked content.

The e-magazine or website must be appropriate to the target audience of young people (12-18 years) and the theme of youth culture. The e-magazine could contain interviews, reports, investigations, dramatisations or any other relevant content.

Research and planning checklist

1. Market research2. Brainstorm3. Research into chosen target

audience4. Production5. Pitch6. Production timetable

1. Market ResearchI used Pinterest (a social media site) to map out websites that I know for a fact, teen agers like my self go on. I particularly looked at my competitors - Live Mag UK and SQ magazine as they’re websites strictly promote their youth culture e-magazines. I soon realised these two competitors are a perfect example of how not to make a website so I then switched to the more successful websites for inspiration e.g. Vice which has aspects of youth culture to it.

http://gb.pinterest.com/noahgee/teen-life-uk-magazine/

SQ magazine

Vice

2. Brainstorm

Mood boardAgain I used Pinterest, this time to make a mood board to get a idea of how I want my website to feel when people click onto it. (http://gb.pinterest.com/noahgee/mood-board-teen-life/)

3. Target audience

• Predominantly boys aged 12 – 18

In order to find out more information about my target audience as a whole I shared an online survey on my Facebook; asking predominately 12 – 18 year old boys to fill it out. In addition to this, I conducted a focus group where by I had a Skype call with a few of my brother’s friends all between the ages of 13 and 14. Although I didn’t get a much of a geographic spread from my results I did get a variety of ages. In total I managed to get 25 responses.

Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7RMD5MD

1. What is your gender

2. What is your age?

3. What are your interests

4. Out of these topics which are the ones you would be most interested in reading?

5. what other topics would you like to see on the website?

• gamer stuff

• Music

• Summary of top European music Festivals Tips and views from university students on the courses they are taking

• Music of Today (Machine Gun Kelly and others)

• Lifestyle topics

• Technology like best phones cameras etc.

• Historical

• fashion pages, tips, websites to browse the newest trends. a website to ask people what makes a trend etc.

• literature and science

• Religious news

• Info about jobs, apprenticeships ect

• More on international sports not just sports in the UK.

6. Who would you want to write this article?

7. Do you read any ‘YOUTH culture' magazines?

Result – 100% of people answered ‘no’

8. What social media site do you use?

Focus Group

• I interviewed three year 9s (aged 13-14)• I found out all of them used Facebook and YouTube

frequently • They were most interested in the entertainment

category of my website (i.e. film & TV) this is the category I will use as one of my two linked pages

4. Production

For my website I plan to use serif web plus x2 at school, as it’s free and it has most of the features I need to deliver my final product. If I had the more money and time I would have purchased adobe Dreamweaver.

Teen Life UKYour Times, Your Life

5. Pitch

Audience

•Age: 12 – 18•Gender: Predominately male•Socio-economic: Predominately middle to lower class

•Problem! No one reads youth culture magazines and 7/25 people are interested in books

Similar real world products

URL Strengths WeaknessesCompetition

www.sqmagazine.co.uk 

Consistent branding – yellow & black ID

Social media sharing not well executed – in wrong places

http://www.livemaguk.com/  

Use of hashtags for topics e.g. #sport

Poor navigation bar

http://www.factmag.com/ 

Good use of carousel Too many headings

http://chasseurmagazine.com/ 

Ability to switch from list to grid

Not enough options on dropdown navigation bar

http://www.fusedmagazine.com/ 

Mailing list feature Poor design, lots of blank space, inconsistent titling

InspirationURL Strengths Weaknesses

www.uniladmag.com 

• Simplistic Only 2 columns

www.vice.com 

Clear layout user friendly no wasted space

Not colourful enough

www.sbtv.co.uk 

Grid layout Overly complicated title of articles

www.theladbible.com 

Submit button Labelling items by medium e.g.

video, picture

Content: Overly explicit/sexualised

http://www.xxlmag.com/ 

Header Heading: ‘Most popular (24 hrs’ and ‘all time’)

www.highsnobiety.com 

Stylish header Navigation drop down menu Large carousel Social media toolbar

Images take up too much space

www.menshealth.co.uk 

Navigation bar (similar to that of the Guardian’s),

‘Competition and offers’

Not enough writing

SQ magazine

Vice

Project Overview

Content:

•Art

•Business

•Entertainment

•Fashion

•Travel

•Technology

•Music

Mediums:• Video

(YouTube)• Pictures• Articles• Polls• Blog• Competitions

ART• Graffiti• Latest Art news• Places to go

Business• Young

entrepreneurs

• Advice on setting up your own business

Entertainment• New film/ TV

releases

• Reviews

• Interviews with actors/ actresses

• Teaser clips

• Social media e.g. Twitter fights

Music• Album reviews

• Interviews

• Upcoming young artists

• Upcoming gigs/ reviews

• Trending

• Most popular

Fashion• Most popular

brands

• New releases• Collaborations• Celeb watch

Travel• Foreign news -

Articles on issues around the world e.g. North Korea, Russia and the Ukraine, Syria, Somalia etc.

Technology• Gaming

• How to… e.g. make a website, connect your laptop to your TV etc.

• Gadget reviews

• New gadgets

Brainstorm

Social Media

6. Production timetable

• Planning deadline: March 24th • Production deadline: April 22nd • Evaluation Deadline: April 28th

I will use all my media lessons as well as spending 2 - 3 hours a week outside of lessons to get this project finished in time for the final deadline.