For Week 6, I had to present my idea for my collaborative website.
https://prezi.com/_p6prm3ukqsx/presentation-of-project-outline/
USERS/COMMUNITY TARGETED
MMA is currently the fastest growing sport in the world.
Founded and primarily based in the US, MMA fever has begun to spread across the Atlantic, with signed UK fighters now participating in the UFC.
Unfortunately the UK side of the sport does not have any kind of forum/discussion website where users can go chat with others to see current news, fighter bios, local clubs etc
This gap in the market is where my site comes in, making my target audience anyone interested in UK based MMA.
OTHER SIMILAR SITES
Both are US based MMA forums. Fighters, fans and pundits can post and discuss any MMA related content on the sites
– MMA JUNKIE
– UNDERGROUND
BASIC PROTOTYPE
As a starting template/prototype I used Vanilla Forums on TSOhost and the web application PunBB to set up 2 mock forums.
Both are highly customisable and would work well as a starting block to build my website on.
COMPONENTS REQUIRED
As my website is forum based, there are several factors I need to consider when setting it up.
To make the site work, it needs content and to get content you need to allow users to post.
As administrator I need to set up accounts of varying access that people can register as and upload content/post to the site.
Depending on how active they are or how trustworthy the user may be, they could be allowed more powers regarding the running of the site etc
My administrative power also allows me to ban certain words and prevent spam filling up the threads.
Both Vanilla Forums and PunBB give me a template so its easy for users to register and start threads or post content, such as text, pictures and videos in response to others.
I can easily set up categories to split the different discussions and allow the users to generate the content.
VISUAL/CONCEPTUAL IDEAS
I stuck to the same colours and styles as the other websites, so users would feel more familiar with it.
WHY VISIT MY SITE?
Well as previously mentioned there is no UK market leader in the MMA community, with users currently having to find out information through news or social media sites. Therefore one centralised site with all of this information clearly organised and displayed for users would be much welcomed.
Users could sign on and talk about:
– New and old fighter bios and information (such as fight records) –
– Upcoming fights –
– Local clubs/fighters or events –
– Training/fighting techniques –
HOW DOES THE USER BENEFIT?
Its a collaborative platform for people who all like the same thing to continuously share and update information with one another about everything related to the sport.
Whatever each user knows they can share and in-turn learn from and ongoing bulletin board of responses from other users.
As a user, just posting some information or asking a question could help 100’s of others using the site, who in turn may at some point post something you didn’t know or wanted to learn