This site will be a place to share recipes and ideas for cooking and entertaining. I envision a website where information is shared by anyone interested in contributing to the site. Although I was initially planning a recipe sharing site, I included the word "entertaining" in my solicitation email to friends and colleagues and several like the idea of providing more than just traditional recipes. I will also include pages for drink recipes and for techniques, such as making spun sugar and tempering chocolate. I am still waiting for some replies to come in so I may add interesting categories that present themselves. I am hoping that some unusual categories and information will make my website somewhat unique compared to sites providing only food recipes.
The reactions of those that have replied to my request for information and ideas for this site have been positive and enthusiastic. People who cook and entertain are always looking for new ideas and often turn to the internet to find them. The following are four questions I asked in order to initiate some input from others and some of the answers I received.
Everyone eats and many different types of people cook. This makes it hard to define an audience. The only characteristic I can think of that might define those in my target audience and those not in it would be age. Most children don't cook much beyond mac and cheese and canned food. This factor should be considered in the language used on the site and could influence color schemes and graphics.
After considering the feedback of those that have responded to my inquiries so far, I have decided on the following initial categories:
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Sandwiches, Appetizer/Snack, Ethnic, Holiday, Wild Game, Drinks, Cooking Techniques, Theme Cooking
I will use a hierarchical organizational format for my website. My rationale for this choice is that recipes are usually stored and accessed in categories of some kind. This type of organization is best accomplished on a website using a hierarchical format that allows users to choose and move vertically through the chosen category path to the desired page. There will be three layers to the site.
Every page on the site will have common, unifying components including a logo, consistent title (headings) format, color scheme, navigation menu, and page layout (headers, fonts, spacing, etc.) I will use a template for all the recipe pages. This will simplify and speed up the process of adding new submissions to the site. The recipe page template will feature a consistent presentation of text information and a picture of the finished recipe. I have also requested that the recipe contributors include an email address for users that might have questions about the recipes.
I will use horizontally oriented navigation menus with graphical buttons and the top and text links on the bottom of every page. Most recipe pages will not be very long (likely fitting on one screen). Users will therefore be able to see the horizontal menu at all times or will not have to scroll up or down very far to get back to it. Any pages that are longer than two pages will have links back to the top of the page for quick navigation off the page.
I have asked my potential contributors to include a photo of their recipes. I believe that a photo helps users better understand the finished dish. I also offered the possibility of contributors including a video of them preparing the recipe.
With the intent of adding color, but not making my website to busy and tiresome to view, I will use three or four colors. The colors will consist of a primary color, two secondary colors and a highlight color. I have decided to use an analogous color scheme generated by the color wizard available at www.colorsontheweb.com. My rationale for this decision is based on color matching principals explained on colorsontheweb.com which state that analogous colors often occur in nature and tend to create a harmonious feel to a website. I thought these two psychological effects would be advantageous on a cooking site.
I originally started with a color called "tomato" for my primary color. Since it did not seem to represent the shade of tomato I like to eat, I searched for a slightly darker color that more closely matched the color of ripe tomatoes that I prefer. I finally decided that #DF2200 was more appetizing and a better primary color choice. The heading for this and all the sections preceding have been done with this primary color.
The analogous color scheme generated by the color wizard tool at colorsontheweb.com provides colors that are close to an original color that is entered into the wizard. One of the colors, #FF6245, was identified as compatible with my primary color and is very close to the original "tomato" I was originally going to use as my primary color. I decided this would be a good secondary color choice and will be my first secondary used. If I feature an item on my website that could effectively use another secondary color, I have chosen #DF6C00 as an additional secondary color. Both of these secondary colors are analogous to my primary color #DF2200. The headers of this section use the indicated secondary colors.
I will use color #00BCDF as a highlight color in the event I need to emphasize something on a page. I chose this color as my highlight color because it was generated as a complimentary color to my primary color by the color wizard at colorsontheweb.com. The header of this section and the survey questions above include this highlight color.
Click this link to view an organization chart version of my website map.
