3. What they think we like… Rounded Corners Beautiful, innovative designs Fantastic Copy Web 2.0 (whatever it may be) Load Really Quickly Work absolutely perfectly. Work in all browsers (including IE6) Perfectly crafted colour schemes No needless effects (eg Flash) http://www.flickr.com/photos/le_masc/2975704600/sizes/o/
4. NO! (you made him angry) http://www.flickr.com/photos /abennett96/1096808421/sizes/o/
5. Rounded Corners Beautiful, innovative designs Fantastic Copy Web 2.0 (whatever it may be) Work absolutely perfectly. Work in all browsers (including IE6) Perfectly crafted colour schemes No needless effects (eg Flash) Load Really Quickly http://www.flickr.com/photos/anirudhkoul/3804553528/sizes/l/
6. Bold text Bold colours As little writing as you can get away with! Load Really Quickly Just about works (schools still have IE6!) Flash puzzles/games or competitions. http://www.flickr.com/photos/vernhart/1073265478/sizes/o/
Say hello, Welcome everybody in, introduction to talk. Designing for Teenagers – actually not as simple as you might think – don’t (in my humble opinion) like what designers would like.
Bar Camp Virgin! Twitter Business cards (made especially!)
All your usual designer things – fancy rounded corners, nice designs, Web 2.0 (debatable), etc. No need to go through each one.
Ok, so the picture is pretty stupid. But in all honestly teenagers are actually a much easier audience than you might think.
As long as it loads quickly, we are pretty much happy, in all honesty. Teenagers have as much respect for good design as old ladies do for rap music. If you are doing a sight which is going to be almost exclusively teenagers, then this is what you should include:
Very basic stuff, but important none the less if you are going just for the teenage market.
Go through them one at a time then – bright, bold colours are good. Vibrant. Not girly (girls don’t mind blue but guys wont like pink)
Ok, so I jest with the comic sans – but make it stand out. Make you design radiate confidence.
If you believe the stereotypes, you lot think about 5% of teens actually have the ability to read. While this is clearly bs, we don’t care about long paragraphs. Short simple, snappy. Like an alligator without a tail who gets dropped on the head.
Games are great. Look at Facebook – so many good game applications out there – sites with games (even just competitions – not necessarily a full blown flash site) are always good. (and who can resist a good old picture of freddy m?)
We need to have our games loaded before the teacher gets round to blocking the internet, and we tend to be a very impatient people (species?)
School computers/internet connections generally suck ass, so the odd error we are used to.
So, yeh. Certainly something different.
Cheers, any questions/feedback/general chat all very welcome, if you want a business card or whatever let me know. If you’re looking for a “good time”, I’m not your guy. And just for those fan boys, I do have a Mac at home. Honest.