Peer Review #3
My final peer review is here! For the final one, I had the pleasure of exploring Jolene’s enchanting website:Mama Jo’s Family!
Introduction and first impression
Upon landing on her site, the first thing that caught my attention was the introductory paragraph, which provided a welcoming and family-oriented vibe. Jolene’s website is informative and engaging, with her about page particularly noteworthy. I was drawn to her mention of her First Nation heritage and culture, which reminded me of Suler’s article’s Personal and Cultural Values section on “the online disinhibition effect”. This section emphasizes the impact of our personal and cultural values on our online interactions and how we perceive ourselves, which is an important consideration when navigating online relationships with people from different cultures.
To enhance Jolene’s blog, a helpful tip would be to add a picture of her loved ones on her homepage and about me page. Jolene already mentions her husband and sons’ names and ages, so displaying their faces would aid readers in connecting with them and make the stories more captivating. This simple addition will create a warmer and more inviting atmosphere for Jolene’s audience.
Audience and SEO
Referring to Campbell’s article “A personal cyberinfrastructure,” Jalone has demonstrated her cyberinfrastructure to her audiences. By exploring her blog content and photos, the target audience for Jolene Auger’s blog mainly consists of caring and compassionate parents in their 30s-50s who lead a busy and family-oriented lifestyle and juggle multiple responsibilities balancing work and family life. I believe Jolene’s sharing of her moments and experiences perfectly resonates with their interests, goals, and needs.
I believe that Jolene’s blog has the potential to be an excellent platform for connecting with her audience, and I commend her for the valuable insights she shares. While I am still determining whether Jolene has plans to use her blog for marketing or monetizing purposes, I would like to offer some suggestions to enhance audience engagement.
For example, as Hollingsworth mentions in “15 Reasons Why Your Business Needs SEO,” incorporating ways to connect with her audience, such as a contact page, social media sharing buttons, and an email address, can be beneficial. It would enable her to interact with her readers and receive feedback, suggestions, and questions regarding her blog content. Moreover, including a comment section below her posts can foster discussions and conversations among her readers. As her audience is likely to relate to Jolene’s experiences, providing a platform for them to share their perspectives can create a sense of community .
Furthermore, implementing SEO strategies like embedding videos, adding relevant keywords to her posts, and including related hyperlinks can help her reach a broader audience and increase credibility. Good SEO enhances user experience and can improve engagement with her content.
Content
Jolene’s blog topics are incredibly engaging, and I appreciate that they are pure and relevant to her daily routine. Parents with similar concerns to Jolene’s will also find her blog valuable. Like Basu’s digital gardens, Jolene’s blog truly resonates with her inner voice, which is reflected in her comfortable writing style.
Besides, her content’s grammatical and punctuation errors could be easily corrected using AI grammar checkers like Grammarly. Overall, Jolene’s blog is an excellent resource that offers her audience a genuine and comforting perspective.
Design decisions
As Pagé suggested, having a visual hierarchy is one of the critical factors in website design. Using the same font sizes for headings and subheadings may decrease the visual hierarchy. I appreciate the font sizes and typeface choice, which are well-chosen and readable.
Also, to ensure compliance with the guidelines set by “The Accessible Publishing Learning Network (APLN)” for website accessibility, it is strongly recommended to include plugins that offer various accessibility options catering to different disabilities.
I would like to offer my feedback on the “posts” section in the website’s menu bar. Upon clicking on the section, I initially assumed it was a category page that would direct me to a specific page dedicated to each process post. However, I later realized that no separate pages were intended for each process post.
To improve the consistency and accessibility of the content and enhance the user experience, I would like to recommend creating separate pages for each process post. This will enable each post to be self-contained, better organized, and more accessible for readers to navigate. Additionally, as Suzanne and Mickey have suggested, including images and a bibliography for each process post would significantly enhance the quality of the content. Though, having numerous photos and bibliographies on a category page might sometimes be overwhelming and distracting for readers, so creating separate pages would be an optimal solution.
Besides, it’s important to note that the lack of white space on a category page, as highlighted in the Pagé presentation, is a critical consideration. Creating separate pages for each process post will also effectively utilize white space and create an organized layout for readers!
I would also suggest applying the same recommendations for the assignments section as well. Additionally, for the mini assignments, I suggest providing short descriptions for some assignments that require extra information to improve user engagement, such as telling a story through media. Finally, I found the photos section lovely and exciting, and I appreciate Jolene’s family’s warm, sweet, and intimate vibe. I hope all the good vibes in the universe protect their energy! Thank you, Jolene, for sharing your moments with us!
To me, her visual appeal and design choices are already impressive! and I would love to see more storytelling incorporated intoner family pictures to enhance the user experience and user engagement with her impressive contents even further!
Keeping in mind the audience’s desire for family moments and narratives, adding dates beneath the photographs and categorizing them based on dates or dividing them into separate content posts, each with a unique story and associated images, would be an excellent way for her to accomplish this. Moreover, including a date for each post can keep the audience up-to-date, which is always appreciated.
As for the homepage, I suggest she utilize a transparent logo as the current logo is too large and often challenging to identify as a logo. This will help create a cleaner and more cohesive look for her website.
In terms of the color theme, I sometimes find it difficult to keep my eyes focused on pure black (RGB 0). To establish a more appealing color scheme for the audience, it may be beneficial for her to incorporate the color principles discussed in Mauve’s presentation. Considering the family-oriented and joyful nature of the blog, a dark theme may not be suitable, especially with the many pictures featuring white backgrounds on the website. Additionally, the target audience, likely Gen X, prefers bright rather than dark themes, which are more popular among Gen Z (Web flow, 2019).
I also appreciate the hyperlinks for referring to reading materials in the process posts, making it easier for readers to access the sources. However, I recommend using high-quality images instead of some outsourced images and mentioning the source of the photos due to copyright matters.
Menu Bar
The navigation bar on her website is impressively structured and user-friendly. To avoid confusion, it would be better for her to use the term “process post” instead of “posts” since it pertains to all posts related to its specific term in WordPress Terminology. It’s worth mentioning that the navigation bar is exclusively dedicated to process posts.
Final words
I am impressed with Jolene’s blog and believe it has tremendous potential to resonate with parents and younger generations like myself. In addition, I appreciate the sincerity and authenticity she brings to her cyberinfrastructure, which is a rarity in my age group!
Upon delving into her blog, I discovered a refreshing perspective on motherhood and parenting. Her writing style is engaging and relatable, making it easy for readers to connect with her and her experiences. However, her genuine and honest approach to her content sets Jolene’s blog apart.
In summary, Jolene’s blog has the potential to become a valuable resource for mothers and parents searching for inspiration and a sense of community. I commend her commitment to authenticity and openness and am excited to see how her blog will continue to evolve and grow! <3
Bibliography:
Webflow. (2019, March 6). Generational marketing: How to use color to appeal to different age groups. Webflow Blog. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://webflow.com/blog/generational-marketing-colors
Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close
Campbell, G. (2009, September). A personal cyberinfrastructure. EDUCAUSE Review, 44(5), 58-59. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2009/9/a-personal-cyberinfrastructure
Basu, T. (2020, September 3). Digital Gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/03/1007716/digital-gardens-let-you-cultivate-your-own-little-bit-of-the-internet/
Page, M. (2023). Web Design and Type on Screens [PowerPoint Slides]. Department of Publishing, Simon Fraser University.
Website accessibility archives. APLN. (n.d.). Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://apln.ca/category/website-accessibility/
Suler, J. (2004). Psychology of cyberspace – the online disinhibition effect. Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://truecenterpublishing.com/psycyber/disinhibit.html
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