| Jan-Mar | Apr-Jun | Jul-Sep | Oct-Dec | Yearly | Totals | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oahu | 500,000 | 400,000 | 600,000 | 450,000 | 1,950,000 | |
| Maui | 300,000 | 250,000 | 300,000 | 250,000 | 1,100,000 | |
| Big Island | 150,000 | 150,000 | 150,000 | 150,000 | 600,000 | |
| Kauai | 100,000 | 100,000 | 100,000 | 100,000 | 400,000 | |
The Intent of the blog will highlight the following: locals to speak to when visiting Hawaii, what are the interesting and important things about Hawaii you normally would not read, the best times to go for certain activities, where are the best attractions, local hiding spots, and real-life experiences on trips to Hawaii. This Will allow people to experience parts of Hawaii during Covid.
The Purpose is to generate drip Membership sales, sell advertising, and links to shops. According to Digitalist - “by 2022 53% of all software revenue will be generated from subscription models” (Willams 2021). That the largest target market for Hawaii travel was from USA- 60% reoccurring visitors aged 46 years old. Second to that was Japanese visitors (DBEDT 2019). Other research shows millennials would be on the rise as a market in the future. According to the department of business, economic development and tourism in Hawaii, the statistics for visitors are as follows: Us West coast 4,517,996; US east coast 2,167,472; Japan 1,576,205; Canada 540,103; Australia New Zealand 363,551; EU 137,908. Most were reoccurring visitors to the same island, Namely Oahu with almost half. (DBEDT 2019).
Steps taken to control the design process was first to do market research on similar blogs. The main reason for this was users have a certain set expectation when they visit a particular site. The second thing I did was looked at the demographics and what type of person would be looking at the blog. From there I took an iterative approach to designing the user interface. First a sketch, then a site map and wireframe to get the Information architecture and layout. Finally, a mock up to test User experience functionality with and design tools like Adobe XD.
The websites goals and Objectives was to get the most amount of time on the site. The user first looks at their free limited content with plenty of enticing to sign up with advertising on the side. The second goal was to get them to sign up for a membership. Once signed up for a paid monthly subscription you’ll get full travel blog posts, deals, and news of Hawaii. Another goal was to generate the most number of clicks on different links to rank higher in the Google search, this would generate more unique visits to individual blog posts. The navigation always leads back to home, so the view was always refreshed with new ads as the user had to pass by a previous page to see more advertising.
Content works in hierarchical structures and are easy to understand, “2 deep spoked wheeled”. Was used to increase time on the site. Users make a mental map and expect a blog would have a scroll and navigation on the top. When logged in they can see the paid version, that will have a link at the bottom of the article that will navigate there. (This will make mobile navigation easy with a thumb and increase web advertising as the user must pass one layer to see the full content.) This site is an escape blog. Users will be relaxed with the ease of layout and theme. This will utilize Hick’s law of less navigation choices, prompting faster choices and more exploration in the ads / content in the side bar. The index on the bottom will give more exploration options when wanted. This is natural for the eyes to navigate, with the site logo on the top left, different islands tabs from the main page, but a link to back or home on the sub-pages. The card layout with the individual posts is easy to read and showcases the content.
Individual components. The top header has two headers uses code that mushed together the headers and make them reusable. the CSS is reusable. I have a nested members directory that I was thinking about password protecting but for this project I kept it sample for the instructor. All the colors were taken straight from pictures of Hawaii. The typography has a more feminine touch, and the main content is an easy-to-read typography. I considered the fact that the blog might get long. I added functionality with a pop-up index at the bottom this will increase rankings in the search engine with more clicks within the page. The side is designed to fit on a mobile screen, this allows easy use of the thumb for navigation. I stayed within the CSS box model throughout. I use an “aside” element to the right that flows below the text content in the category and content page. Making it responsive. This allows relevant ads, travel tips, or links, to be set aside or slip below depending relevant posts with browser resizing. For responsive image I used in line CSS on the larger images which worked perfectly. The floating sale (beach ball thing), I used a conic gradient which was easy to use, and I accidentally found out I could make it transparent. This worked with a sticky CSS to move with the page. The bottom index was not ambitious as one would think. It's a link within the page that uses a hash before the id of the Div. I added a different page in to the membership area the user would land where intended.
This website is engaging, professional, easy to read and navigate. The website is designed to be super interactive with little weight on the browser. The website is responsive when resizing down to the size of a phone. Almost every element on the site has motion when you hover over it. There's an audio notification when you switch to a main category page of a wave sound. This makes the site fun and playful for the User to interact with. Because all the elements are defined from each other it makes it easy for the user to use. This website will work on all major web browsers that are supported.
Later, with more original content: Social media share links, save as a wallpaper, Japanese content language. I will be not using HTML to submit forms because it's un secure. I will be adding JavaScript and ability to take payments. There is no login section with a password because it's pointless at this time. I will be using grid in the future and integrating react JS with the future sites. With more content I will add more features like a map for where the picture was taken. More interactive data tables.
Time or resources. Local products sold and promotions from sponsors on individual blog posts that you can buy through the site. I was trying hard to stay away from @media, JavaScript, and CSS grid. In the future I will be using CSS grid and JavaScript-react. I did not have time to fit in a payment module that would require a more secure site with a form of JavaScript and database. I want to add more original content posts on the blog. Along with sponsors for people that want links for advertising.
(check in the main index.html and site/css on the bottom)
Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism Historical Visitor Statistics http://dbedt.hawaii.gov/visitor/
Alyson (Feb. 2022) Do Travel Blogs Still Make Money? https://worldtravelfamily.com/do-travel-blogs-still-make-money/
Willams B. (Jan 2021) 36 Useful membership site statistics you should know https://memberpress.com/blog/useful-membership-site-statistics-you-should-know/
Bergstrom N. (2022) How the Rise of Experience Tourism is Changing Travel https://www.traveloffpath.com/how-the-rise-of-experience-tourism-is-changing-travel/
Reid, J. (2015). HTML5 Programmer’s Reference. New York: press.
Pete R. (Dec 2021) 20 Most Beautiful Travel Blogs In 2022 https://www.bucketlistly.blog/posts/best-travel-blogs-design#in-the-travel-blogging-industry