13 May 2009

Finalized Page
dum-da-da-duuuuum....and it's done....and I'm spent

29 April 2009

OLA... I really thought I put this up here already...sorry about that.

15 April 2009

Mine Pix Prototype...I might have gotten a bit carried away here...I thought we were mocking up our entire site then I re-read the assignment and it was only the main nav links...but I've got all the pages linked up here...I linked the pdf, but it's probably big...
OLA - sheesh... I had trouble making the layout here. I could not get my mainContent div to stay out of my sideBar div.... I must have missed a step but I couldn't figure out what I did or didn't do. I can follow directions pretty well and I got the layout lesson done and the designJENN done with little problem but I'm having trouble with applying them... So what I'm left with is this odd stair-casing thing with my divs and the background color didn't come up... really don't know where to go from here...

06 April 2009

So here I have my webpage comps. This first is the home page which I posted a few days ago, the other is the contact page.

01 April 2009

So I've gotten behind a bit on the Dreamweaver book, but I just finished the last few lessons.

Lesson 5: I got this one done with little trouble but for some reason the links for the city's don't have all the layout. Other wise my tabs and drop downs work.

Lesson 6a: This one was interesting. This has the changeable spreadsheet. This won't quite be useful to me for my final this semester but I can see the possibilities.

Lesson 6b: This lesson was relevant to a discussion in class today on how to scroll with a set footer. It's interesting but I can see the difficulty of loading this with a slower connection.

Lesson 7
: I've decided that I'm very much comfortable following direction but it scares me to do all this on my own! :) Making the choices for how wide and tall, I think I'm just intimidated by all the code. I do look forward to converting our png comps into dreaweaver anyway.
After the discussion in class today, I chose to completely revamp my first comp. The jpeg here is also a link to full sized version. Here is the link to the png version, if you are interested.
I also got a chance to speak to my dad and we went over a few points of the original and discussed what he liked and didn't about it. I took a cropping of one of his images, copied and mirrored it for the masthead with an embossed title (by the way he wanted to change it and laughed quite a bit at the new title). I think the colors work well, I chose to keep the background textured but changed the color to an orange tinted gray tone to accent the title. I'll add real text later but I am excited to get this up. I appreciate the comments in advance (as well as those in class). I can't wait to see everyone's re-designs. Thanks!


OLA Template

I looked at the main aacc page and followed suit.
Here are my main page comps. I'm not sure which one I like best. I took the first one and tweaked it a bit for the second.

One

Two

31 March 2009

After reviewing the WebDesignerWall article, I'm now overwhelmed with column and organizational ideas. So many ways to create organized chaos!

Designing with Grids



I'm beginning to think that typography is pretty important on the web! :) The CSS Typography article certainly think so and highly recommends using CSS before anything else. I'd say this is probably a good idea given that Dreamweaver works so well with it.



This font survey result is a pretty handy tool.



My thoughts on Prototyping: I like the idea of getting my hands dirty, and making the paper prototypes with windows for "scrolling" text and pop up "drop down" menus. I'm thinking that Fireworks is a much more efficient way of mocking up ideas to turn comps into interactive demos for a client.



Adobe Press put out an informative article. I found the tips here to be useful and are keeping them well in mind as I design my site.

12 March 2009

Typography....

I feel so much more the connesieur of characters now.... or not! :) I have always enjoyed playing with fonts but I am now a bit more concious of maintaining some restraint in choice (as far as choising readable/available fonts, and keeping the vairiance to a minimum). I'm also happy to report that I now finally know what exactly serif and sans serif fonts are!

11 March 2009

Here's my attempt at the design comp from class. Working through this and just getting one done gives me more confidence with my own designs.

Design Comp

10 March 2009

Article from Matt Brown of Adobe:

I think these points gathered here will come quite in handy while we build our final pages. Although, all of these tips have individual details the overall sentiment is usability, usability and usability.

09 March 2009

I just finished my animation. It's here. Overall I like the way it turned out. I'm sure there are some things that could be tweaked a bit but I'm happy with the result.

04 March 2009

Here is my animation.




I revised both of my designs, I still like the raining one better but after a few tweaks the one with the flowers isn't too shabby. Here they are, with the mini's:



Rain



Rain-mini




Flowers


Flowers-mini





























02 March 2009

I just read the articles assigned for this week. Here are my reactions:

Blasting the Myth of the Fold

I have to say that I'm astonished of the thought that users don't scroll. I remember the first few websites I visited as an elementary school student, they wasn't much to them and no opportunity for a scroll but other than pages that don't have the content, I love a good scroll. As an historically dial-up user (it has only been two years since my parents house was able to get anything faster) I hate having to click on a link to get more information or to wait for a site that is so jam packed with information that it takes forever to load.

However, the best comment Milissa made was, "The biggest lesson to be learned here is that if you use visual cues (such as cut-off images and text) and compelling content, users will scroll to see all of it." So if your page is boring or too complicated no one is going to want to decipher it. But if you have a good clean presentation with interesting and relevant content who cares about a scroll.

Search Engine Placement Tips

This article brought up some points that I haven't even thought of yet. I am still trying to figure out the design portion of my site. :) I can tell that it's not going to be easy to find appropriate keywords that will boost my rating but it'll be fun to play around.

Five Principles to Design By

Josh brought up an interesting perspective on design. By making a web page we are not only satisfying our clients, but their potential clients as well. He essentially said that users are customers. This is something that has been implied but seeing it so implicitly put is a light bulb for me. :) Duh! I'm going to have two masters to serve so to speak.

I don't necessarily agree with him about the relationship of art and design. I think that good art elicits an emotion or experience from a viewer. Art is all about what the artist is trying to portray and won't be successful with out good design. I think the two go hand in hand. You can't have a good design with out evoking some sort of emotion. Good design takes art and uses it, it's a form of art. Maybe it's because I'm a believer in the "art is life" philosophy. I will concede that you shouldn't overpower your designs because of some self-ish/altruistic vision that completely undermines the purpose. But art should be integrated throughout your design and when done successfully can enhance your final piece.

8 Web Design Tactics

I loved this article. I have used a few of these tips myself (walk away, sketch, absorbency..)
I do find the hardest one to put into play is learning to let it go. I'm stubborn, and when I want something to work it's hard for me to give up. It is detrimental and I've ruined a few pieces because I couldn't walk away and just let it go.

25 February 2009

Classwork...

Here's the link to my navbar.

I thought I had breezed right through this but when I actually viewed it once it was ftp'd, I was wrong! :) My buttons weren't aligned properly, but as George said, "It has an artistic appeal to it" Alas, I fixed it, no artsy here just practice! :)
Texture, according to Jason Beaird.

Overall, I really enjoyed this chapter. It gives thoughtful insight on how to use layering effects and pixel gradients to make a page stand out and direct the movement of the viewer's eye around the page to specific focal points. The example images he chose gave justice to his topics. I liked the bouncy feeling of the whimsical style and freshness of web 2.0. Also, I'm particularly glad he took us on a step by step process of how he created his background layer in photoshop. It's always nice to have some insight on how others work and create so you can pick up tips for yourself. I'm always looking for little bits to add to my toolbox. Great chapter!
This one was entertaining. Rollover images. Much easier I'm sure because the images were pre-made and half the work was done for us. But it useful stuff, though I think this is something that should not be used willy nilly, a good tool for the box but not right for all pages, I think, or maybe all this walk of what NOT to do has influenced me a bit too much at the moment. :)

Rollovers
Here are my banner designs.... first drafts of course. I'm getting quite comfortable with fireworks. It's fun to play around in. Though perhaps a bit too addicting, I'm going to miss the sleep I could be getting.

The first one is pretty. It has to do with flowers and pastels, that fresh perfume that seems to overtake the air on a nice spring day when the flowers are blooming and the wind is blowing them around just enough.


The next one is for the wetter part of spring. Those days when you wish you had your umbrella and galoshes. Luckily I've supplied them for you.



I'd be happy for your feed back and can't wait to see what everyone else came up with!
Vincent Flanders and his site that teaches what sucks!

I enjoyed watching the video excerpts immensely. I wonder sometimes if designers don't get caught up in the "look what I can do" state of mind. I think that basically what Flanders (and Nielson for that matter) was trying to say is that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. I really liked the site he showed for Ear Shades I think it was, it was a completely black screen and your cursor acted as a flashlight until you clicked and the whole thing came into view. I thought that was neat but he was right, if I went to a site and it turned out to be a black page I would think there was something wrong with it and go somewhere else. Internet users are not a patient group. We want innovation that is going to make our experience cleaner quicker and easier, not some flashy coding that is used so the designer can pat himself (or herself) on the back because he is so clever. Web design, especially commercial web design needs to make sense for the end user. Flashy razzle dazzle is meaningless and a waste of time unless it is going to enhance the user experience without sacrificing speed and ease of access.

24 February 2009

So about our final project. I've had an idea for my project since I signed up for this class. :) My dad is a photographer (amateur only because he doesn't get paid) and he really needs a comprehensive website where he can share family photos with those out of state and can truly show off his amazing ability to capture these random odd and sometimes extra ordinarily every day scenes. There is so much to add on here and I know that I'm going to have to do a lot of this work by pulling teeth but I'm up for the challenge. He really deserves a good site to display his talent. Obviously there would be a content page showing his different galleries and I was even thinking of having an access controlled section where he can safely put up pictures of our family and have the rest for sale. If anyone is interested in checking out the work he currently displays at a thirdparty site: the greatest photos ever!
Perhaps a bit late but I still wanted to comment on Nielson's articles.

Firstly, "Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design". While all of these things are good to keep in mind, as an internet user I am apt to agree with him most on the points of numbers 7-10. I make a rule to ignore anything that looks like and quack likes an ad. Consistency is key; he puts it nicely in his "Jakob's Law of the Web User Experience". People definitely get their own ideas of how things should work based on other sites. Another point, which harkens back to #7, opening new browser windows is crappy. :) It reminds me of those annoying netflix popups at almost every site I visit. And if I hadn't disabled the pop-up blocker on my work pc, I wouldn't even see these things. Besides since the amazing implementation of tabbed browsing, I don't need anyone opening up new windows on my computer, I know perfectly well how to do that on my own, thank you! :) Also, I HATE when I can't easily find information on a site. For example, I do data entry at my full time job (so exciting) and I need to verify addresses of clients, so I naturally go to their websites. There are more sites (all doctor's offices or clinical research sites) that have their location links/pages hidden or in an obsure location under some strange heading. (an interesting market to approach if anyone is looking to design sites, most are truly awful, but I digress).

In the article "Guidelines for Visualizing Links" I found a few points to be highly useful. Color is so important when making links. It's not something I would initially think about from a design prospective (except how it works with my ideas) but as a user it drives me nuts to see blue underlined text that is not a link or for that matter any text that is contrasting to the main text, especially in the body that is not a link. I find his point on making visited links a dull "used" shade of the unvisited link color very useful, a good way to denote a link, without commanding the presence of a new-to-the-user (unvisited) link.

As far as the "Breadcrumb Navigation Increasingly Useful" to put it shortly: I heart breadcrumbs! (of the hierarchal sort that is) I completly agree that historical breadcrumbs are repetitive to the the back button and history drop down of most browsers (and a bit redundant I might add!). I really think that breadcrumbs are so useful, especially when I'm at some site shopping (when I should probably be doing the above mentioned dataentry) and I utilize the search box and find my self in the middle of a site and don't know how to get back. The breadcrumbs allow me to show the page logic, how things are organized so I can use the site better next time without having to search again, maybe I'll find something else I didn't know I couldn't live without!

I like Neilson's writing style, blunt and unflowered. I chuckled throughout the articles as I recalled many a venture into the internet unknown.

Top Ten

Link Visualization
Breadcrumbs

16 February 2009

I've just read the chapter on color. In comparison to another class I'm taking... Color.... it's interesting. Colors are extremely complex and very subjective. Colors schemes really do need to appeal to the target audience and we might not agree on what colors are appropriate... Reading the chapter was very similar to my most recent lecture... Red is this and blue is that but don't think about it too much because it's different for everyone. The traditional color wheel (first drawn out by Newton in the 17th century, though I was sad that Da Vinci wasn't mentioned...) is the best starting tool, and it's always best to try different color combinations out for yourself. There is no mistake better than the one you make yourself.
I got through the classwork easily enough, only a few minor glitches... operator errors or somthing like it :) I kept using the same names for different pictures... and linked two of the girls to the same page... oops I got it all worked out now though.

week 4
Lesson 4
I'm not sure if this was an easy chapter or I'm getting a better hang of this Dreamweaver/Photoshop thing...

Chapter 4

10 February 2009

Here's how Chapter 3 turned out. I had a bit of trouble with this one, more like, had some trouble following direction! Stop, slow down, read the WHOLE sentence, go!

Chapter 3
Classwork, week 3! This was fun, I played with the colors and such, kept them pretty uniformed for the whole site. I think I should have played a bit more though.

Kona's Page
I read the first chapter of Jason Beaird's The Principles of Beautiful Web Design. It makes one feel that they could create any site for any body, ever! Then you realize that it's just the first chapter and you still haven't quite figured out how to work all these programs he was talking about! I think I'll just take a deep breath and learn these things, one chapter at a time.

04 February 2009

Creating a Site... (ooooh, ahhhh)
Here is the result of making a site with multiple pages... I feel so accomplished! :)

Kona
So I've covered a lot of ground this week... as all of us have in CAT274... Woo Hoo!
We watched quite a few video demos, which were all informative and I'm sure I'll be using them and sending people their way....
To Get Started (in Dreamweaver CS4 that is)
For Workspaces/Views
On Defining Sites
Text/Images
Manage/Upload Sites
Holy Cascading Stylesheets Batman! (to format text)
So about these sites we're experimenting with..
I seemed to have little trouble in class working on the assignments. It's always when you're at home at an un-godly hour and in a stubborn "It's the computer's fault" kind of mood when you have trouble! I figured out what my issue was though... I had trouble viewing my pages through the web browser and couldn't for the life of me figure out why. Then I realized that I was missing a part of the URL... what I had entered was: http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/CAT02/page2.html however what I should have entered was:http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/CAT02/week2/page2.html. Notice the red text... oops! My bad sorry for the frantic string of words I threw at you computer!

My Page2 with links!
I actually finished most of this sometime last week and I don't recall any particular trouble with anything I read in Chapters 1 or 2. The only real trouble I had was with some of the wording, or locating toolbars/icons. That is until I tried to view my creations in FireFox and I.E. I think I need to FTP the photos they use as well. I'm not sure. Other than that I've thoroughly enjoyed working in Dreamweaver.
Below are the links to see my handy work:
Chapter 2
Chapter 1

26 January 2009

DW CIB: Lesson 1

I have used Dreamweaver exactly one time before this class. It was a mess. When I have succeeded in creating a web page in the past it's usually been through another site like angelfire.com (from about 10 years ago!). Those sites are nice but they are extra limited.

This time I had fun when I used Dreamweaver. It's amazing what instructions can do for new software! I'm excited to learn more so. The versatility of the software is convenient and user-friendly. I just hope everyone else had as much fun as I did!
"FTP: For the People" an article found on Webmonkey:
http://www.webmonkey.com/02/36/index4a.html

I think I read this article twice, maybe three times. I understood most of it (after the last time). The concepts seem easy enough, it's the execution that I don't exactly get. I'm going to try this when I get home. (I've just gotten a new computer *sigh* I had to give up the pretty MacBook for a not-as-pretty Vaio. The Mac wasn't mine but my mom's, we do computer swapping quite a bit in my family, nonetheless I was still sad to see it go).

I feel pretty confident with my ability to pick things up if I try (and fail miserably a time or two). I'm sure I'll have all sorts of questions, but it sounds like fun to surf around and find new things to get into.

22 January 2009

Hello! Welcome to my blog site! Take a look around, there's not much here yet but I'll be updating shortly with an array of posts mostly for school. I will also hope to change the look of the page. Keep it interesting. I'd love ideas and suggestions!