Debi Terry

Internet Studio was a class that really interested me as I foresee myself going into Web Desin/Front-end Development. This class was a good introduction to all the things that go into creating a great website.

By the beginning of the semester I had already dabbled in WordPress, which I find to be a very useful tool. WordPress takes a lot of the back-breaking work out of Web Design. The themes provided make it easy for about anybody to create a website.  My favorite part of working with WordPress is the ability to easily edit content. The problem comes when you need to edit a site’s structure and in comes the coding part.

I hoped to become more competent in writing HTML, CSS, PHP etc. This class introduced them but I feel we did not quite go into as much depth as I would have liked. I would have preferred to do more assignments on these, instead of just one each. However, I feel that the class was a good kick-off to learning more through our own practice. Hopefully there will be more coding lessons in the Internet 2 class which I plan on taking next semester.

The part of the class that I gained the most from is the planning phase. The lessons on the Website goals and objectives, personas etc showed me that planning in the beginning can save you a lot of time in the end. I  began my website with a clear idea of what I wanted to do. The communication established with my clients at the beginning eliminated the guessing game through the process.

The other lessons on usability and accessibility were also very useful. I learnt that there is a whole lot more than a pretty site. As much as the aesthetics matter, the content and the ability to use the site well are key.

I am inspired to modify some websites I have created in the past, using my newfound knowledge. During the summer I will build an commerce site and right now I am planning it using all the great pointers I learnt from this class as well as advice I received from my class mates. I usually sell my textbooks after the semester is over, but the Website Owner’s Manual is one I plan on keeping.

Write Two Articles

I thought this would be the easiest task but it turned out to be the most difficult. It is sometimes hard to write about a subject that you are minimally educated on. I had to rely on the business owners to feed me with the information since they knew best what it is that they do.

I had intended to write an article on the service Alternative Family Living. Right now there is some restructuring going on in the company and they may do away with this service altogether or assimilate it into other services.

In lieu of writing articles myself, I edited the content that was provided to me in the form of a brochure. I cut down the content drastically to make it more palatable for an online audience.

Install 2 Form Plug-ins (Installed 1) √ Kinda Done !

I hoped create at least three different contact forms; one for general contact, a second for complaints and comments that went to a confidential address and a third  for employment.

One of the company’s goals in creating a web presence was to offer clients a place where they can voice their concerns as this is required by the governing board. So I wanted to have a form on the homepage but have encountered difficulty with that and may have to settle for a separate complaints page.

However I was able to put a general contact form and another one for employment using Contact Form 7, which enabled me to have more than one contact form on the website. Some other contact form plugins I had looked at previously were not as generous.

Create Design in Photoshop  Install WordPress and Genesis √ Done !

Before I started working on my site I had intended to create my custom theme in photoshop and then translate that to WordPress. I realized this was going to be more involving than I had initially anticipated and so I settled on going straight to WordPress and in addition installing Genesis for greater flexibility.

I was impressed to see the various websites that my classmates had created. Even more fascinating was the process it took them to attain their goals. The difficulties they faced while building their sites were similar to many I faced such as making a slideshow function correctly. It was amazing that the greater majority were able to overcome these difficulties.

A website that particularly stood out to me was Eric Dybala’s Re-Orientation Website. The amount of work and research that went into this website was massive. His website is meant to educate students on college related matters. To solve the  “I wish I knew” of campus. His website included a video of a student saying the things she wished she knew when she first came to UTD. He potentially hopes to add more video in the future. The geo-mapping that he included on his website are a valuable asset. Students can potentially find out where the nearest ATM that takes credit cards is etc. This website has so much potential to grow to be used at other universities and even to be created into a mobile application.

Another website that I really liked was Julie Chambers’ shuichon.com which showcases her interest in doll making. I have followed her websites progress for the mere fact that it is a new topic to me and I found it very interesting to look at the different types of dolls. The site appears pleasantly clean with a lot of white and different shades of pink. I also liked the gallery that she used to display the dolls. It makes it easy to pick a doll and retrieve its profile.

Last but definitely not least, I was impressed by Kristin Patterson’s website and the other one she showed in class. She used jquery to create them and this is a skill I would like to attain this summer. I really like the concept of a one page website. It makes for a more stylish yet user friendly website. I like the background image on the website that she showed in class. It subtly displayed her artistic talent, which is also evident in her paintings.

Gone are the days when you would have a website and not engage your audience except for the brochure or business cards advertising the website. What many web owners and developers are learning is that an engaged audience will keep coming back.

Of the two ways to communicate with your audience, I feel that Paul Boag unfairly downplays the importance of broadcast tools in favor of community tools. I think that a combination of the two is the best way to engage with your audience. While community groups serve their purpose of stimulating the audience, there are times that the audience might want to only hear from the Web Owner without the noise and misrepresentations common to community discussions.

Either way listening to the users is a very useful way to improve your website or product. The user is after all who it is all about and therefore their opinions should be taken seriously. One aspect, user to user interaction, helps people discuss and get knowledge that sometimes the owners may not even be aware of or may not want to promote such as hacking their product. Sometimes hearing from fellow users who are not trying to sell you anything is more reliable. The book partially attributes Apple’s success to its fans. A great product creates a buzz from happy clients and they are more than willing to share their great finds in community forums. This feedback can be viewed as more trustworthy than what a company might say about its product since it is on a mission to sell it.

A vibrant community also means that your website will be visited repeatedly. This is what Paul Boag refers to as “stickiness”. You want to give the audience a reason to keep coming back. This is especially valuable in ecommerce sites where purchases are usually made by repeat customers.

From previous readings it was interesting to see how some companies have their employees involved in their communities. This serves the purpose of offering a professional opinion in addition to the public’s opinion. I have been on sites where my question has been answered by a staff member and have felt assured that the information, especially technical, given is correct since they are professionals in the given field.

Depending on what kind of site you are running and your audience, Facebook and Twitter can be very engaging. This is getting the audience where they already are. Many people who would generally not sign up for a forum are comfortable conversing on Facebook.

I think the most important thing to keep in mind whether engaging with your audience on a blog, community groups, broadcast tools or even email, is to maintain consistency. Involved users will want to be able to rely on your blogging schedule so that they can keep up with it. Consistently responding to emails in a timely fashion tells the users that you value them. Whatever you choose to do to promote you site, make sure that you can keep up with it.

That’s my reflection y’all!

When I began my project I was determined to make my project a real one. I did not want to do an assignment that would end with the end of the class. This website kind of fell in my lap, when my aunt asked me to do it for her. Not only did that add value to it, it inspired me to do a good job for her.

What I have learnt more than anything is the steps before work on the actual website begins. An effective website takes more than just opening WordPress and going to work. It is the result of good planning. For example, examining the company goals and talking to the stake holders gave me the information that helped make the website a reflection of the company. Researching and determining the aesthetic before-hand saved me a lot of time compared to constantly changing the appearance. If there is anything I have learnt from this class and designing this website it: is plan! plan! plan!

After the planning phase, I began to gather all the necessary material I would need such as photos, logos, bios etc. This was somewhat challenging. I did not get as many photos as I would have like and wished that I was closer to the company so that I could take the pictures myself.

Technically, this was also a good practice in using CSS and PHP. I also found it helpful using Genesis as it gave more flexibility and access to editing the CSS. It was good receiving responses from my classmates, they served as some form of usability testing. Based on that, I was able to go back and fix things that did not work quite right.

Overall, the website turned out more successful than I had initially anticipated. I still have some things I need to work on, such as adding some content, articles and photos. I hope to keep working on this website. My clients were pleased with it and that is an added benefit.

The Workshop with Stephen Anderson was extremely enlightening. In Mr. Anderson’s opinion, Seductive Interaction Design involves drawing people into your website and keeping them there. Even though we all interact with some form or another of seductive design, it is interesting the way we can apply it to our our designs. The biggest takeaway I got from his presentation is to think outside the box. We tend to do things the way they have always been done, for example have the navigation as either a bar at the top or on the side. Realizing that there are other possibilities is a huge part of creating memorable user experiences through suspense, humor, visual diagrams etc.

Stephen Anderson pointed out the danger of giving opinions in  a list format. On websites people tend to read the entire list before they make their choice. An illustration or a grid makes it easier for them to make a mental note of options they may want to pick.

For the University of Texas at Dallas graduate program in Cognition and Neuroscience page, my group came up with very interesting ideas about how to inject some Delighters / Humor. One of the ideas we had was having the page start of with a small mental quiz that included something like “preschoolers were able to get this, can you?” This essentially challenges the audience to engage with the website and then hopefully continue with the process of finding out more about the Neuroscience program.

One principle that he mentioned that I was already using on my final project, knowingly or unknowingly, was Curiosity. I have always like pages that have excerpts of other pages on them as I am more tempted to see what is on the other pages once I get a taste of it. I have employed this at the bottom of my homepage.

The point that came across strongly for me is that all these principles should never come at the expense of usability. While we want to tease and mesmerize the audience, it should never make the website harder to navigate but rather more enjoyable to the user.

In keeping withMr. Anderson’s advice, I will finish on a high note because that is what you will remember most. Don’t forget to go to Mental Notes website to view your mental notes on-line when they are released soon. It will save you $45!

For my fourth task, which is actually my sixth task on my list, I have tweaked the CSS that came with my theme. This is a task that I probably will never be done with as there is always one more little thing to do.

The first step in this process was making a copy of the original CSS because I did not feel confident enough to alter the CSS without completely screwing up my site.

I am enjoying the full access to the stylesheet and have been able to modify many things including the fonts, the text color, the margins and the placement of some elements. Below are examples of some of the changes in the CSS I have made:

On this one I changed the padding and margins to 0 so that I could have a page that “bleeds” off the edge instead of having a white border.

#home-top
{background: url(images/home-frame.png);
width: 960px;
height: 350px;
margin: 0 auto 0;
padding: 0px;
}

I also changed the body font from Arial, Helvetica (sans serif) to Georgia. I would like to change it to “Fertigo” and downloaded the web font from myfonts.com but I am having difficulty installing it. I have had better success with using Google Web fonts as the installation process is easier and comes with a line or so of code that is easy to incorporate into the CSS.

In the process of editing the style, I have run into the problem of not finding where the html is. In another theme I am using for a different website, I have had access to access to some html. I have, for example been able to place the reference to a separate CSS file in the <head> tag. It is not a big deal right now, it would just be nice to know where to find it.

Renewed Services Inc Website

Well, in my last post I talked about the way I have now installed and am using Genesis for the first time. I am slowly discovering what Genesis can do for my design. Frankly I think I need a lot of time to really delve into Genesis and this semester is not sufficient. I plan to really work on it during the summer. So much to do, so little time!

So far the features I have effected are: the ability Genesis has to place the logo in place of the blog title, fancy drop down menus and a customized layout. I will also use “breadcrumbs” which are a useful feature to help one navigate through the website. I have also been able to modify the header and footer using Genesis.

I am reflecting on just how much time it takes to create a website and a client who told me that someone was going to design his entire website for $100. I think the only way that is possible is if the designer (and I use the term loosely) has a standard web template and just throws in your logo and text without customizing a single thing.

You can see my site here.