Unit 6 Critical Approaches

Learning Outcome 2 Questionnaire and report on a website of your choice

The website I have chosen to analyse is https://www.tumblr.com/.

Tumblr Questionnaire
(Please circle or write in answers)
1. Are you male or female?
Male Female
2. Please specify your age group.
10-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61+
3. What is your occupation?>
Student Unemployed Office Worker/Teacher
Doctor/Professional Retired
4. How did you discover Tumblrs existence?
Word of mouth Propaganda Through internet advertising
Other: _______________________________________________________________
5. How often do you use Tumblr?
Once a month Once a week More than once a week Once a day
More than once a day Never Other: ___________________________
6. Out of ten (10 being the best), how would you rate Tumblr for its appearance?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
7. At what time of day are you most likely to browse the website?
Before 9am 9am-11am 11am-1pm 1pm-3pm
3pm-5pm 5pm-7pm 7pm-9pm After 9pm Doesnt apply
8. What are some features of the website that you find useful or fun? For example you
might talk about the Activity feature or the Explore tool. What is it about these
features you enjoy?
_____________________________________________________________________
9. What does using the website make you feel?
_____________________________________________________________________
10. Do you feel the website could cause insecurity in young people? Why?
_____________________________________________________________________
11. Are you of the opinion that the website promotes false ideals to its audience? Please
give any examples.
_____________________________________________________________________
12. Do you feel that all content on Tumblr is appropriate for young people? Explain your
reasoning.
_____________________________________________________________________
13. Should the content being shared on Tumblr be restricted? Why?
_____________________________________________________________________
14. Do you feel that the level of advertising on the website is appropriate, or too
intrusive?
_____________________________________________________________________
15. Overall, do you like or dislike the website?
_____________________________________________________________________

In general, the website is an image blogging
tool. One can post images from ones computer,
or reblog images they like that another user
has posted. Users are not limited to images;
they can send questions to other blogs by using
the ask function (and post answers to
questions they receive), as well as being able to
upload videos, audio tracks, hyperlinks, quotes,
pieces of text and can use the chat tool as well.
Users can follow other users blogs and this
means everything that person blogs be it
whatever they please from the list above is
then visible on the followers dashboard (the
homepage of Tumblr - a seemingly infinite
downward-scrolling list of everything blogged by
those one follows).

Tumblr is also accessible by multiple social classes and groups. Because there are no
subscription fees anyone can access the website as long as they have a computer and
access to the internet; which nowadays is almost everyone. This means that Tumblr
appeals to the working and middle class, as well as the higher class. The blogging site
could be used for countless reasons: from promoting a sole trader business products; to
posting images of memories from a trip abroad that one might wish saved on the
internet proving its versatility as a tool.

Being a blogging website, its aimed at a massively wide audience covering male and
female and a very large age group, but particularly by teenagers and young adults.
Having such a wide market of users means the website needs to be neutral in
appearance, and this is supported by its simple theme colours (blue and white) and clear
layout. One might state that the colour blue is a male colour and thus the website is
aimed at male people, but I would argue that Dulux Paints conducted a survey and
found that 42 percent of males and 30 percent of females have the same favourite
colour. The most popular colour in the world is blue. The second favourite colours are red
and green, followed by orange, brown and purple,
1
and I would add that although the
male percentage is higher than the female percentage, a user of Tumblr is able to
customise their own blog to suit their tastes; and could probably find it within
themselves to forgive the websites choice of theme colour if they enjoyed the actual
service it provides. The fonts used in the website are completely neutral: simple but
stylish; and of good, clear size. They are designed so that information of higher importance is
in larger font e.g. the links on the side panel in the image below. More detailed instruction
based text is smaller and simpler, as seen below.


1
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/the-most-popular-color-in-the-157991

I created a questionnaire to discover what other peoples views are regarding the
website.
Here is some of the data feedback, condensed into pie chart format:
8
7
Gender
Female
Male
9
3
2
1
Age group
10~20
21~30
31~40
41+
13
0
2
0
0
Occupation
Student
Unemployed
Office Worker/Teacher
Doctor/Professional
Retired

1
2
7
1
1
3
Usage
Once a month
Once a week
More than once a
week
Once a day
More than once a day
Never
11
1
3
Discovery of Tumblr
Word of Mouth
Propaganda
Internet Advertising
3
1 1 1 1
2
1
5
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Appearance rating
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10








After conducting my research I was able to find out that an even mix of males and females
use Tumblr, but since cross-referencing the questionnaires to show who answered what for
to each specific question would be too complex, I have included some of the examples I
received digitally.
I was able to see that, of those who use Tumblr, the average usage was more than once a
week, between the hours of 7pm and 9pm. Looking at each individual questionnaire I
noticed the correlation of younger age with higher usage. Though some from older age
groups did outline an interest in the website I feel a sense of empowerment, like Im
changing the world for the better the majority of respondents to my questionnaire were
students and this pattern is in accordance with my hypothesis that younger people use the
website more than older.
Due to Tumblr being an image sharing website, there are places on the website where
random images from
random blogs are
shown to the user.
These are of course
regulated so that
nothing pornographic
or explicit shows up,
but the general idea of
this is to expand each
users followed blogs.
See here:
1 1 1 1 1
5
2
3
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Time of use
Before 9am
9am-11am
11am-1pm
1pm-3pm
3pm-5pm
5pm-7pm
7pm-9pm
After 9pm
Doesn't apply