Website 2

After some deliberation, our group has chosen to improve on Troy's first website: Noe's Construction for homes. We will be adding more pages and photos; as well as, changing colors and layouts. As of today, the storyboard is complete. This was accomplished by meeting Feb. 23 (the day we had no class) to discuss what we wanted to do and what the website would look like. Alex was in charge of bringing the completed storyboard today (Feb. 28) in class. 

Also, we discussed ideas for a logo and decided to brain storm during the weekend to come up with something useful. I was able to come up with the design that we will be using. Therefore, I'm going to be mostly in charge of future designs. 

Troy has been in charge of contacting the business owners and discussing the aspects of the website pages. This has helped a lot because we know what needs to be stated and what we can work with such as photos.

When it comes to further decisions on who is in charge of what, we decided to collaborate on everything from design to writing--collaborate on the idea to form one consensus and have one individual work on it from there. Personally, it's easier to get the next assignment from Dr. Rice and decide how we are going to work on it. 

Since we have completed the storyboard and logo, we will be working on the proposal March 1 and complete it by March 6. Once that is complete, we will start working on the page layouts. The pages will be done by March 8.

Those are the deadlines we have established so far. As we get further into the assignment, we will mark more deadlines.

Website1 Improvements

If I were to have more time to work on my website, I would’ve made a few things better: alignment, clarity, and proximity. 

On alignment, I would make the lettering in the table cells all the same. For instance, I would make all the headings, such as name or sanitation, aligned in the center of the text after it. It would make for good repetition, seeing that everything would look the same. Also, I would make sure that the alignment of the graphics on bio and studio viewed the same on different computers and browsers. They're both aligned to top on my computer, but the bio graphic is not on others.

On clarity, I would make the graphics clearer. Again, the graphics view differently on computers other than mine. I would view these graphics on computers other than mine to make sure that all the graphics are clear. Also, the words and sentences need improvement. For instance, the bullet list on the studio page should use parallelism. This would make it easier to read and follow because it provides a guideline of what to expect next than not knowing what to expect.

On proximity, I would make the bio and studio pages more interactive by making the lists such as drawing, tattooing, or sanitation into links. Instead of having so much text on one page, the links would let the users decide on what they want to view. Also, removing the text and placing it under the links will make the user feel less overwhelmed. This could keep them on the page longer.

Likewise, to increase viewer interaction, I would look for a better portfolio javascript--one that allows viewers to pause/stop the photo they want to view longer. 

I think doing all of these things will increase the interactivity with viewers, which would bring more clients.

Repetition

The main purpose of repetition is to make a series of different items cohesive. It brings together different elements, such as website pages, come together as a whole. There are several ways to accomplish repetition within a website: typography, color, tables, placement, space, size, etc. I've used several elements of repetition throughout my website. For instance, I used the same table placement for my menu links with the same background color, font, and font size. I not only used the same menu table, but I used the same font size and boldness for paragraph titles. Also, the pictures I placed throughout are the same size. By repeating these elements, my website will feel whole; it'll bring it all together making it feel like one element.

Website Design Program

When I was in high school, I took a web publishing class and used notepad to design a school website. I've never used anything other than notepad. So, coming into this class I was ready to see what other programs could be used to develop a website. In turn, I downloaded web expression in hopes that I would be able to use it for my website. 

Before I downloaded the program, I had already started my website on notepad using basic html. I knew the basics from before and googled what I couldn't figure out. This has been working well for me, but I decided to give web expression a try. It was confusing for me because I wasn't too sure if I loaded my previous work correctly. Though, I continued to mess with it. I liked how it had tool properties to build tables and such, but that was as far as I got to understanding it. 

I decided to use notepad because I'm familiar with it, and I like how it is a blank page with the html I place into it. I didn't like web expression because I'm unfamiliar with it, and it has many different tables going on. Also, my laptop's screen seems too small to use split view. Mostly, I was overwhelmed with all the information that's suppose to help me out.

Perhaps, in the future, I will be able to use web expression when I have more time to learn how it works.