Web Analysis

Web Analysis

The website I chose to analyse is the “Nivea” website. What attracted me to this webpage is the simple use of colour in the website. These simple techniques are used to attract readers, to get reader to find more about their product so that they end up buying the product. 

The Use of Visual techniques

This Nivea Website uses Two main colours on its website, Blue and White. The reason for the use of these colour could be that it is their trademark colour for their product. And it has purposely been used on their company website to attract viewer to their website to explore their wide variety of products. “The visual elements and arrangements of a text perform persuasive work” ” (Wysocki 2004, pg 124). It uses many different shades of blue. But why only use the colour blue when you have so many other colours to work with. “blue symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven.”(Parker, 2012 ). So with the use of colour blue nivea wants us to trust their site. Have confidence in their website and their products.

Another important colour in this website is the colour white. This colour has multiple purposes. The use of white gives reader a open feeling, (Wysocki 2004, pg 143). White portrays pureness, cleanliness, its the colour of perfection. I think the use of colour white shows that its a trustworthy website. As from my experience, I try to avoid websites that look like that a tornado of colours has hit their website. The reason is simple; I feel I cannot trust a website that uses too much colour especially if it has harsh colours like fluorescent pink or yellow. Major sites like hotmail, facebook, twitter use blue and white combination for their websites because it keeps the website simple, accessible trustable.

The use of images in this website is minimal but it is very effective. It uses images in a powerful way. It uses few images on their homepage. If you click on the learn more link for Nivea body. It takes you to products that are used on the body. There is a very captivating image which represent pureness. The model wear white undergarment, which again links to the use to colour to portray the message of pureness. By using a model with perfect skin tone, it attracts the women visiting their page to learn more about the product they offer. This is effective because women want perfect skin. The image is used to show an alternative angel. It uses white dress code, blue background. The use of blue behind the model is used again to emphasise its pureness, linking the colour blue now to heavenly image. Again it is creating the image of common men’s (in this sense women) heaven on earth. "Photographs are often used to bring a sense of immediacy and 'reality' to a layout" (Wysocki, 2004, pg132). Thus creating an appeal for women to purchase their products, “advertisements…the product is more or less upstaged by the visuals, the setting, the characters and so on.”(Goatly 2006, 141).

I think the text used in this website is effective as its images and colours. Words on a webpage are deliberately chosen. They are short and get straight to the point, especially the heading. The point of having limited text on the webpage again links to attracting viewer to your webpage. If a webpage has lots of text the viewer finds it quite unappealing. The viewer wants to know as much about a product in as less words as possible. When I clicked on one of the products, I see two links one with overview of the product the other on how to apply the product. These links contain informations about the product. They use very small amount of text but they are very effective as well as informative. This is very good technique used to give the viewer a chance to learn more about the product they offering without having the viewer to actually buy the product. The site helps viewer build confidence in trusting the Nivea brand.

Another important feature of this website is that you don’t have to scroll too down to get to all the information. Some websites you have to scroll down so much that it makes the viewer very frustrated. Again this is in line with limited what the website chose to portray to the viewer. Limiting the amount of details, text used in the website makes it very user friendly.

Also the credibility of a website is very important, as this is the final factor to convince the viewer that this site is genuine. The whole purpose of this website is to attract viewer to buy their product. This is website is used as another form of advertising their product. So the credibility of the site is very important. "credibility is important for Web users, since it is unclear who is behind information on the Web and whether a page can be trusted" (Nielson, 2007). There are links at the bottom of the page with contain information about the webpage being the original webpage of the company, it also contains the registration number aswell as contact details to contact the company representatives directly.

I think this website is very successful in with their goal of attracting people to their webpage so that they can later buy their product. Shows sometimes simple can be more than enough and simplicity can be used in a powerful way.

Wysocki, A.F. (2004). The multiple media of texts: How onscreen and paper texts incorporate words, images and other media. in C. Bazerman, & P. Prior, What writing does and how it does it: An introduction to analysing texts and textual practices (pp. 123-163). Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Eribaum.

Parker, R. (2012), The Meaning of Colors. Retrieves 1 June 2012: https://resources.oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/rreagan/Filemanager_Public_Files/meaningofcolors.htm.

Goatly, A. (2006). Critical reading and writing. London: Routledge.

Nielson, J. (2007), Writing for the web: Research on how users read on the web and how authors should write their web pages. Retrieved 24 October 2011 from: http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/

Wysocki, A. F. (2004). The multiple media of texts: How onscreen and paper texts incorporate words, images and other media. In C. Bazerman and P. Prior, (Eds.) What writing does and how it does it: An introduction to analyzing texts and textual practices, pp.123–163, Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum.