Blog 3 – “DotA 2 Hub”

One of the final task of the semester is to design a website about something I like, the website I have decided to make is a simple ‘Dota 2’ information hub that has guides, hero information, item information and a forum. ‘DotA 2’ is a free-to-play ARTS/MOBA game created by Valve, the game has multiple ‘heroes'(units) that you can choose from which utilize many items to make the ‘hero’ stronger while fighting it out with players against players.

Target Audience
‘DotA’ 2 is a game which has a huge player base and within the player base there are different levels of players, this website is aimed at new players of the game and average-skilled players. The website will be made with easy navigation with most of the content to be one click away from the index page, this allows new and moderately-skilled players to access information on items quickly when they are looking for a quick look up. The website will be multilingual and interchangeable to cater for major languages.

‘DotA’ 2 is played globally and played by people of all ages, it is not limited by sex. Although a lot of the information on the website will be available through the ‘DotA 2’ client, this will allow for players to look up information if they are not on their computer which has DotA 2 installed and check out guides while they are out and about. Specifically speaking we’re targeting gamers aged 12-35.

Blueprints
As stated above, the website is designed to be easy to navigate. This allows information to be accessible quickly off the index page, if they want additional information a few more clicks will take them to where they want.

Users are able to navigate the whole website from any page of the website using a global navigation bar. On the index page it will have ‘Latest News’ which will generally be just latest DotA 2 news, everything else will be 1-click away. Navigating the pages which have a high amount of data (Heroes, guides and Items), users will be able to use a search function to close in on exactly what they are after – the website supports polyhierarchical browsing.

Wire frames
I have included some wire frames below to give you a better understanding of how the website will look like and how the navigation will be used, specifically the ‘index page’, ‘heroes page’, ‘guides’ and ‘about us’.

Index Page wire frame

A index page which has a slider which transitions after a set time, has basic information about the latest news and a side bar with newest guides, heroes and items if there are any. Ability to navigate the website on all pages thanks to the global navigation bar.

About Us wire frame

  A standard information based page which allows the users to get an understanding of the website if they wish to read about it, otherwise it just explains the websites and its purpose.

Heroes page wire frame

Heroes page has side bar functionality, allowing heroes to be categorized and searched easily. There are many heroes in the game of DotA 2, which is why splitting into categories is a must.

Guides use a Google-look-a-like results page, for familiarity, guides are categorized to the left just like heroes which allow for easy searching.

Controlled Vocabulary
Here are a list of Accepted terms and variant terms for my controlled vocabulary, this allows for results to be shown for certain things even if the accepted term wasn’t used (using the variant term instead). Very useful to have and is used in search engine optimization.

Accepted Term	Variant Term(s)
Hero	Champion, Character, Unit
Health	Life, hp, Hitpoints
Mana	Energy, Rage, mp, Mana points
Creeps	Monsters, Mobs, Minions
Strength	Tank, Melee, Bruiser
Shop	Secret Shop, Outpost, Base shop
Roshan	DotA Baron
Intellegence	Caster, Magic User, Control
Agility	ADC, Carry, Assassin
Jungle	NC, Neutral, Woods
Gold	Money,
Mid	Middle, latif

Below  is my Metadata Matrix.

Vocabulary	Description	Examples	Maintenance
Heroes	A character with unique abilities	Dragon Knight, Tidehunter, Shadow fiend	medium
Items	Items used to boost the capabilities of a hero	Daedalus, Butterfly, Ultimate Orb, Force Staff	medium
Hero Type	The primary stat of a hero	Strength, Agility, Intellegence	low
Creeps	Units that can be killed on the map which provides gold	Neutral Creeps, Summons, Lane Creeps	low
Skills	Skills are abilities that heroes use	Normal skills, Ultimate	low
Page Type	Type of site page	Information, Guide, Forum	low
Author	Author of the guides	Thomas, John, Dendi	high
Audience	Audience visiting site	Favourite guides	medium