The purpose of Wikipedia is to inform. It has thousands of articles on all sorts of subjects from films, to quantum physics, to a detailed history of cake.
It is used as reference for when someone needs to find out lots of detail about a certain topic, with a search bar to find specific subjects. The website even has full written articles in multiple languages, instead of relying on other websites to translate articles from English.
b) Visitor Needs
The website allows the user to search for a specific topic that they might want to read about. It also makes navigation easier by including a link wherever there is an article about a specific word, within another article. For example "A bicycle rider is called a cyclist, or bicyclist." with the blue word potentially directing the user to the article about cyclists.
c) Information Flow/User Experience
There is a search bar at the top of the page to allow the user to search for certain subjects. The blue text in articles and many other aspects of the site are hyperlinks to other articles about that topic. The user is also able to click on the site's logo to navigate through a hyperlink back to the home page.
Users can also click on an image to be able to view a
thumbnail in more detail; to view the larger image in a higher quality. There
is an option to log in – even though it isn’t necessary to be able to use the
website – which allows a user to edit and create their own articles.
The Wikipedia website uses a scrollbar to allow the user to be able to view a whole article. The search bar at the top of every page consists of an outlined box with an image of a magnifying glass at the right hand side, with the word “search” at the left. The word search makes it clear to the user that the purpose of the box is to type words that are specific to a topic that they might want to read about.
Text is a very prominent feature of Wikipedia as the main focuses of the website are the articles that users can read. The large amount of text connotes heavily that the purpose of the website is to inform.
The house style of the website includes a surprising amount of white space to contrast with the large amounts of text. The colour of the majority of text is either black or blue, which connotes a professional feeling. The kerring (space between letters) and leading (space between lines) are generally average, with a sans serif font. Only the titles are a serif font. Altogether this makes the large amounts of text on the website much easier to read.
e) Benefits
The most obvious user benefit of Wikipedia is the huge amount of information that Wikipedia presents. It can be used for many purposes from personal interest to research for classes or jobs.
A benefit for the people running the website is that it is a community-based website. The one person, or few people, actually running the website aren't the only ones being relied on to produce more and more material for the thousands of topics covered on the website. Users can make an account to be able to edit and create articles for themselves. This is another benefit for all, as it allows articles to be made in many different languages to expand the audience of people who are able to utilize the website.
f) Content
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