Journeying through Visual Design: GridClub
GridClub is an educational website for children aged 5 – 12 years which offers a variety of learning activities through game play. A brief textual analysis will highlight the visual design and elements of multimedia employed in presenting the site’s ‘multiple-user pathways’. Using the functional categories of Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeuwen (Reading Images, The Grammar of Visual Design) adopted by Andrew Burn and David Parker in their website analysis ‘Chocolate Politics’, I will explore how the website’s design, language and hypertext links represent the content of the site, the relationship constructed between the text and audience and produces models of learning.
I must say at this point that this analysis is conducted as a user participating in the site without subscription rights or accessing the free trial offer.
GridClub provides learning activities through curriculum areas English, Maths, Science, History, Geography, Art, Music and Modern Foreign Languages. The website is designed for children to use at school with their teachers or at home with parents. The site is heavily governed by a discourse of education, childhood and play and therefore informed by a combination of ideologies presented both viually and textually - a bold, colourful layout wih animated characters to represent a “space for kids”, parental involvement in children’s education and as ‘GridClub learning doesn’t feel like learning at all’, exciting opportunities which aid education. The site is supported by the DFES, Curriculum online, Becta (British educational Communications and Technology Agency), and the Scottish Executive.
Organisation – how learning is designed
When accessing the website, the “front-door” page provides options to log in or subscribe to the site. Salience is afforded to the animated characters and icons which are textually organised using both static and dynamic relations. The icons with ‘hypertextual depth’ are visually realised by rollover action and increase their salience for as long as the cursor remains positioned over them. Some of the static characters display particular movements when triggered by a rollover so as to assist in the concept of “things to do” on the front page. 
These dynamic icons present the ‘explicit trajectory’ of the site’s semiotic text, directing users’ to the site’s learning activities. Although users have a choice in navigating meaning, this is significantly limited in contrast to, for instance, the commercial children’s site Nickelodeon, which presents a wide reading path enabling the user to design their own reading and interact at whichever point they choose. The route mapped out by the GridClub website is determined by the functional load of each icon expressing hypertextual depth. Users are invited to: - Log into the site with username and password,- Take part in the free trial or purchase a subscription- Find out more about the site and sample some of the activities.
When finding out more about the site, users are presented with a signpost icon which has dynamic status to direct the three types of user – teachers, parents and kids.
The pages constructed for teachers and parents differ to the one constructed for children. Teacher and parent pages are presented more as text based with a side bar of categories each with dynamic status allowing them to learn more about how GridClub can benefit children educationally. Moving from left to the right of the screen, or as Kress and Van Leeuwen would suggest – moving from the ‘given’ to the ‘new’, the right side of the page offers information in support of GridClub’s credibility. A brightly coloured box containing a series of animated award logos won by the club (each with dynamic status taking the user to the awarding body’s website) is displayed to highlight ‘new’ recognition of the site’s approach and delivery to children’s learning. Below this ‘symbolic representation’ is a testimonial from a user with the word ‘Approved’ stamped across, thus providing evidence of the site’s credibility.
The children’s page on the other hand has far less printed text than the adult page – a sign which indicates that GridClub is re-ordering the child’s world of print based learning and placing salience on creative learning or learning through play. Again, as on the adult pages, the left hand side bar enables children to find out more about the many games they can access if they were to subscribe. This page is hierarchically organised in that navigation is highly controlled and icons have limited hypertextual depth, allowing children to change the sequence of static screenshots only. The ‘let me try’ page has six free games for children to try; this is separate from the 14 day free trial on offer.
The six games offered each relate to a particular curriculum area, ‘Ray X in eliminate the bugs’ is a science activity where children are asked to help Ray X identify moulds, fungi and bacteria. ‘Cyber Café’ can be viewed as a cross between a PSHE and ICT activities as it encourages internet safety through topics such as web browsing, online forums, instant messaging, mobile phones and email. ‘Master Class’ is an art activity introducing children to famous artists and then providing the opportunity to recreate the work in the ‘art factory’. ‘Make a million’ is a maths game where children can play on their own or with a friend. The aim is to make a £million by giving the answers to a series of times table in as fast a period as possible – the faster you are the more money you win. ‘Egyptian pyramid’ is a history activity allowing children to explore inside a pyramid and click on artefacts to play games or find out information. The final game is ‘Finding Zeebo’, a geography activity where children take on the role of a ‘world famous bird detective’ to find a rare Scarlet Macaw and fight the illegal trade of exotic birds. Children can navigate through these free games and play what they like, when they like, as many times as they like.
Each game employs rollover action to determine the static and dynamic status of icons and provides print based information within game play (external to any rules or offer of help). Game play is afforded a high degree of salience on the children’s page alongside the free trial and subscription offer to join the club. This again is part of the sites hierarchical organisation which tells children to either play the games or sign up.
Orientation – Teaching and Selling
The type of communication set out by the GridClub website has what Kress and Van Leeuwen would call a particular type of ‘mood’, the mood of ‘offer’ or ‘demand’. The children’s page uses both of these moods, firstly by offering the free games trial and then by the ‘instruction’ or ‘demand’ to join the club. In the ‘how do I join’ page, the discourses present are one of children’s empowerment – similar again to Nickelodeon’s rhetoric of ‘kid power”, characterised by three salient and dynamic symbols where children can send emails or letters to their teacher or parents (pre-written by GridClub) requesting adults to pay for a subscription.
Representation – Education and Childhood
The site displays three purposes, firstly to engage children in locating site interaction, secondly to engage parents in their child’s education and thirdly to empower children to learn through playful activities. These are characterised by the site’s functional load – its capacity for carrying meaning, which is achieved through its visual design and textual language. The visual design of bright colours, rollover triggers and animated cartoon characters represents a fun environment for children so that children first and foremost won’t recognise the site as a learning environment. Also, the visual and textual design gives children a degree of “inter-active agency” in choosing how to interact on particular pages i.e. trigger animation or access activities. Parents are able to view the site as child friendly and packed with things for their child to do. In terms of textual language, the comic book font signifies fun, allowing the name “Club” to inform children that this is their space so as to empower and motivate learning. For parents, the information provided by textual language is used to communicate the educational benefits the site offers their child , so by viewing the site through the context of education parents will hopefully subscribe.
Bibliography
Burn A & Parker D (2003) Analysing Media Texts, Continuum: London &New York.
GridClub http://www.gridclub.com/
Kress G & Van Leeuwen T (2006) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, Routledge: London and New York
Kress G & Van Leeuwen T (2000) Multimodal discourse: The modes and Media of Contemporary Communication, Arnold: London
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