BUSINESS & CULTURAL CONTEXT

Transcription

1 PHASE 1 BUSINESS & CULTURAL CONTEXT GEORGIA ZIKA MAJOR PROJECT MA WEB DESIGN AND CONTENT PLANNING

2 Contents Contents... 2 Concept... 3 Twitter Description... 3 Motivation... 3 Elevator Pitch... 3 Problem... 3 Value Proposition... 4 Unique Selling Point... 4 Manifesto... 4 Cultural Context... 5 Greek Mythology... 5 Greek Mythology Today... 5 Archaeological Sites... 5 Business Context... 6 Popularity... 6 SWOT Analysis... 9 References

3 Concept Twitter Description A website for children to learn about the greek gods and goddesses from ancient Greece and explore their places nowadays. (121 characters) Motivation Greek mythology is a very familiar topic for me as I have origins from Cyprus and Greece. I have been interested about it since young age when I first started learning greek mythology in Primary School. I am a person who is being attracted by whatever has to do with fantasy from movies to books and I can say that ancient Greeks were creative minds. Greek mythology was something that I found very interesting because greek myths are short fictional stories with vivid lifelike narrations. I love the fact that there is a big number of gods and goddesses with specific occupation and power. For instance, Athena is the goddess of wisdom and Poseidon the god of sea. Moreover, as I have already mentioned in the twitter description above, my site will provide information about relative archaeological places in present places. Greece is my second home and I have been lucky to explore a big part of the mainland including of visiting many museums and archaeological places. I would like to urge people visit this beautiful country in order to learn about greek culture and history. Elevator Pitch Aim of my site is to engage children to learn about greek mythology in a playful and attractive way. In order to achieve this, the site will be developed by simple and clear content in combination with illustrated images. Except of the educational part, the site will provide information about archaeological places that will be related with the article. Users will be able to discover the places where the stories of the myths took place and explore how they look today. Problem After a quick research on similar content sites, I found out that most of them are not so welldesigned, in result to be difficult to navigate through them. For instance, in most cases, the context is provided in long lists or the images are few or minimal. The same problem exists for sites that are assumed to be kids-friendly, but they are even worse. Moreover, I 3

4 discovered that there are not any websites that links the past with the present something that I want to display in my project. In summary, the main problem is that most of these sites are not user-friendly and none of them give information about the present archeological places. Value Proposition The site will be an educational-based site which will provide information about greek mythology, such as description of gods and goddesses and myths of heroes, legends and other mythical creatures. The site will be kids-friendly designed with simple language code and playful illustrations. The distinctive feature of the site will be the useful information given for archaeological sites all over Greece so that children will have a complete image about ancient Greece. Simple code language Illustrations in order to be a kids-friendly website Information about today s archaeological sites in Greece Unique Selling Point The site will provide simple and clear content The site will consist of illustrated images The site will be designed for children Past and present will be linked Manifesto Main goal of my project is to engage children to learn about this great part of greek history named as Greek Mythology with a further goal to make users to get to be interested in travelling and exploring places in Greece linked to these great myths of the past. In order to achieve this, the content of the site will be adjusted on children s interests. Simple text and illustrated images will be my basic principles. Finally, the website will inform users about archaeological places in Greece, something that does not exist in other sites. 4

5 Cultural Context Greek Mythology Greek mythology was a part of the religion in ancient Greece filled with gods, heroes, monsters and creatures deriving from an unknown world. The word myth comes from the greek word mythos (< μύθος) which means a tale, a speech, something new and created. Ancient Greeks used to invent myths to explain any natural event that they could not understand (Greek Myths & Greek Mythology, 2010). For the same reason, people in ancient Greece created the Olympian gods. Twelve gods with human characteristics who lived on the top of the highest mountain in Greece, Olympus, each of one entitled with a unique power (Pallardy, 2017). However, the council of the twelve Olympians differs depending on who is telling the story. For instance, nobody knows for sure if the twelfth god is Hades or Hephaestus. Also, Hestia, goddess of home and family, used to be one of them but she changed seats with Dionysus, god of wine, because she got tired of the constant fighting of the other gods. In conclusion, the Olympian gods are, actually, fourteen: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Hermes, Artemis, Apollo, Demeter, Ares, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Hestia, Hephaestus, Hades (Greek Gods & Goddesses, 2010). Greek Mythology Today Greek mythology is all over around us from companies names and planets to city names and medical terms. The famous sportswear company Nike (= goddess of victory) or the high-selling e-commerce site Amazon (amazons = a tribe of warrior women) are two significant examples (Staff, 2013). Moreover, names from greek mythology can be found in medicine, like aphrodisiacs which comes from Aphrodite, goddess of love (Pontikis, 1999). Furthermore, greek myths caught the interest of many film producers in Hollywood because of their rich imagination and creativity on fictional stories. In result, nowadays there are a lot of movies based on greek mythology. Some remarkable movies are: Clash of Titans (2010), Immortals (2011), Hercules (2014), Troy (2004), Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2010), Hercules (1997) (Karas & Megas, 2017) (Maidy, 2014). Archaeological Sites Greece is a country with a long history which left a rich heritage behind. Ancient temples, theatres and stadiums can be discovered all over the country where people are given the opportunity to learn about greek history (Discover Greece, 2014). 5

6 In addition to the previous, ancient Greeks used to build temples, structures for religious purposes where people went there to praise a deity. Each temple was owned by a different god. For example, Parthenon, the most significant and popular temple nowadays, was dedicated to Athena, the goddess of the city (Beard, 2010). Other considerable sites are the following: Olympia, Mycenae, Delphi, Knossos (Discover Greece, 2014). Business Context Popularity My first step was to search some keywords in Google Trends in order to find out how popular are this kind of sites. Here are my results: Figure 1: Google Trends Comparison of search terms in 2017 The above graph shows data for three different search terms: greek mythology, greek myths and greek mythology for kids in the last twelve months of The key phrase greek mythology which is represented by the blue line has been searched much more often in contrast with the other two. Greek mythology for kids is a search term that interests my project, but it is in low level in the chart. 6

7 Figure 2: Google Trends Comparison of search terms between In the second chart, there is a comparison between greek gods and greek mythology from 2009 to Both search terms reach a peak in April 2010 and combining with the research from the Cultural Context above, the peak was reached in the month when Clash of the Titans was released and two months after Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Box Office Mojo, n.d.). In conclusion, it would be helpful for the site to emerge and be popular if there were remarkable recommendations of famous movies that are based on greek mythology. Competitors Next step was to search for cognate sites to find their strengths and limitations so that creating a better aspect on what my priorities will be for my project. Greek Mythology Figure 3: greekmythology.com Strengths: rich content, information for most of characters who appear in greek mythology Limitations: long lists in all pages, not user-friendly design, lack of hierarchy 7

8 Greek Gods & Goddesses Figure 4: greekgodsandgoddesses.net Strengths: easy navigation, appropriate colour scheme and strong contrast Limitations: lack of pictures Greek Myths for Kids Figure 5: greekmyths4kids.com Strengths: online games for kids Limitations: not attractive for children, lack of images or illustrations, strict structure and design In conclusion, the main problem of the cognate websites is about design. Overall, the content is usually strong but there is no creativity in terms of design. Moreover, none of the sites that I visited links to archaeological sites which is something that might be an advantage for my project. 8

9 SWOT Analysis Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats Simple New website, not Visit and explore Children won t Clear content popular yet Greece be interested Illustrated Kids-friendly Educational Present places linked to myths greek mythology for kids is not so trendy in Google Trends Learn about greek history about greek mythology 9

10 References Beard, M., The Parthenon. London: Profile. Box Office Mojo, n.d. Clash of the Titans (2010). [Online] Available at: Box Office Mojo, n.d. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. [Online] Available at: Discover Greece, Leading Archaeological Sites in Greece. [Online] Available at: Greek Gods & Goddesses, The Twelve Olympians. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 18 December 2017]. Greek Myths & Greek Mythology, Greek Mythology. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 18 December 2017]. Greek Myths & Greek Mythology, Greek Myths What are they?. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 18 December 2017]. Karas, M. & Megas, C., Greek Mythology Movies. [Online] Available at: Maidy, A., Top 10 Movies Based On Greco-Roman Mythology. [Online] Available at: Pallardy, R., Greek Gods and Goddesses. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 18 December 2017]. Pontikis, N., Medical Terms from Mythology. [Online] Available at: 10

11 Staff, E., Companies Inspired by Greek Mythology and Their Logos. [Online] Available at: 11