Research: Website Design

In looking at various websites for radio theatre such as Chatterbox Audio Theatre, Radio Drama Revival and the BBC it became clear that the majority of existing websites concerned with audio theatre focus on a range of dramas, and those members involved, rather than one series. Many of the sites I explored, such as the aforementioned Chatterbox were also part of non profit on line communities, producing drama for free streaming and downloads meaning that they were perhaps not the best examples of monetization. However the sites always had a friendly, personal, and unthreatening feel to them which I thought engaged the audience and if this were applied to my radio drama I believe creating a website almost as a friendly continuation to the story line would be a good way to gain further support for the series, which would then lead to commercialisation at a later stage.

The website of Cosmic Forces however deals with one specific radio series at a time, that series currently being The Soul Patrol, a website which provides information concerning the characters and the separate episodes as well as allowing the consumer to download sneak previews of each episode onto their computer.  

One feature of the websites was an certain degree of interactivity between those involved in the radio dramas and their consumers. For example in the case of the Radio Drama Revival, the site offers budding scriptwriters the chance to produce their own dramas for show, Chatterbox being similar in its page inspiring community spirit and participation to create it’s audio theatre.

In the case of Ground Floor Up however I thought it would be unrealistic to offer recordings of a radio drama, especially since the website was going to deal with the idea or one radio series. However I want to maintain a certain sense of interactivity and as such I am looking at the idea of forums.