The Analytical Report

1
The Analytical Report

• Getting Started

2
Audience

• Make sure that you know who your audience is.
• Do not confuse your audience with your readers
  audience. You are writing for the website
  owners, and they have an audience that they are
  targeting, as well.

3
Purpose

• Your purpose in the AR is to recommend ways to
  redesign your specific readers website to help
  them accomplish their purposes.
• Be aware that your readers will have very
  specific goals for their websites, and your
  recommendations need to address all of them.

4
Content

• Step OneChoose a Website to Analyze
• Find a site that is interesting to you.
• Make sure that it has at least three pages that
  you can look at.
• Narrow the focus of the site if it is large.
• You may want to specifically look for a site that
  has some recognizable flaws.
• Also determine who their competitors might be and
  look through their sites.

5
Content

• Step TwoMake Lists of Characteristics
• Begin by noting your first impressions of the
  site. Think about your initial reaction to the
  site when the homepage loaded.
• Then, look into the site in more detail.
• Look for the specific characteristics of design
  that we talked about in class.
• Make lists of things that are good about the site
  and lists of things that need to be redesigned.
• Remember that you will need specific examples for
  your report, so make notes of those as you
  analyze.

6
Content

• Step ThreeAnalyze Your Findings
• Categorize your findings from the analysis into
  the three categories on the assignmentcontent,
  organization, design.
• Within each category, group ideas.
• Determine the most serious to least serious
  issues.
• Begin to formulate your ideas for how to address
  the problem areas in the website.

7
Content

• Step FourMake Your Recommendations
• Make a list of the strengths of the
  websitethings that do not need to be revised.
• Look at the ranked list of items that need to be
  redesigned and decide what specific action your
  reader should take to correct the problem.
• Remember that you want to give them specific ways
  to change problem areas, so dont be vague.
• Look back at their competitors sites and think
  about elements that they could draw from them or
  ways that they could out-do them.

8
Content

• Step FiveJustify Your Recommendation
• Ask yourself Why? from your readers
  perspective.
• Think through the reasons they would want to
  implement the recommendations youve made.
• To accomplish a certain purpose for the site
• To better meet their users needs or expectations
• To stand up better to competition
• To move into an international market effectively
• Etc.

9
Conclusion

• Once you have worked through the audience,
  purpose, and content analysis, you will be ready
  to write the final report. We will discuss
  formatting and design issues later in the project
  cycle.