Maeve Catherine

Website design is such an interesting concept.

I have changed the look of my portfolio website tons of time because I don’t love the layout after looking at it a lot. This why understanding grids, composition, and wire framing are so important.

According to Graphic Design for Everyone by Cath Caldwell, “In design, a grid is a structure that sits invisibly underneath your layout and helps you arrange elements in an organized way. When you design, use grids to help maximize the meaning-and visual appeal-of layouts”. My biggest issue when creating a digital design is making sure the media does not feel cluttered while also not having too much white/blank space.

When I was creating the wire framing for a new PBS KIDS Parent web page I focused on being simplistic and user friendly. I began by sketching out a similar layout to the current websites with changes based on the trajectory I believe the company should take. The current website has lots of content and tabs parents can explore but for some this may be overwhelming. There is opportunity to offer the newsletters “Above the Fold” as they distribute all the activities in smaller portions.

Additionally, in my undergraduate capstone researched and proposed the idea of a personalized newsletter for child’s parents. The idea of the newsletter is to help better inform parents about their children’s educational media consumption using summaries and analytics which results in the being redirected to the PBS KIDS for Parents website or app. With my new knowledge about wire framing and grid structures I was able to bring this idea to life.

Using the company’s brand colors, logos and fonts I created basic mock ups of what the newsletter could look like.

Through more practice with wire framing software, such as Balsamiq, I think I can continue bring my undergraduate capstone to life. I am taking a Principles of User Experience Design course in Fall 2024 and think that class will bring me more insights on how to best produce those mock ups.

Works Cited

Caldwell, C. (2019). Graphic design for everyone. Dorling Kindersley Limited.