question 2

What structure or layout do you envision for your site?

Honestly, I haven't thought much about my site. I want it to look professional and visually appealing. I need to utilize contrast and repetition (as CRAP taught me) so I was thinking it would have a black background and similar design throughout. Also, most websites that have the task buttons lined up on the top are most effective so I will have to figure out what my most important tasks are and build from there.

question 1

What goals would you like to accomplish with your final project site? (Think of three beyond "To get a good grade" or "Complete the course").

I would like to start building my portfolio with my final project site. I would hope that by doing so it will reflect what I've learned and how I've grown as a web author. I also hope that it will demonstrates my abilities as a professional writer. Lastly, in the work place, being able to create and work with web design is becoming imperative so I'm hoping that this project will help me in the future with any career that I may encounter.

interestinggg?

As a writing student, I am obviously always interesting in those who are talented writers. My friend's brother updated his facebook status to this and I couldn't stop rereading it because I found the visual of the whole scene to be so interested and thought he was so eloquent in how he wrote it:

"Today at Andiamo I watched as a pallid old woman smoked a cigarette. She sat at the bar alone, hunched over the edge in way that seemed to perfectly illustrate the weight of her years. Her hair was as white as the smoke that slowly permeated out past her quivering lips. But more then anything else she seemed fragile and unreal; as if she might dissipate into nothingness at any moment. Each puff spoke, "I've tried to quit but now it doesn't matter". At first I felt compelled to reach out to her in some way. But in the end I gave in. I decided she was right. It didn't matter."

Mod 3

I have finally had an epiphany in my mod 3 progress. I started out doing a weird page dedicated to puppies but then stumbled upon Justin Bieber and knew right away we were meant to be. I have obviously decided that he is my target. I'm sure it will be offensive to the millions of thirteen year old girls who are in love with him and visit Justin Bieber fan pages all day while I'm only kidding in my love for him. I'm indifferent to Justin, no love or hate, but I'll have to pretend I'm a huge fan for this project. I think it will be fun and I've already saved some great images of him for the background. I'm thinking of using the website "Face in a Hole" to make it look like I'm his girlfriend and posting that all over my webpage. Also, true to the spirit of his loyal fan base of middle schoolers, I'm thinking much of the site will be written in sticky caps, WhAt Do YoU tHiNk?!

reading wrap up 5

5) How did "Paper Prototyping," "Reading Design," and "Home Page Goals" help you in considering what you might do for your final course project? What do you feel will be the most important part of your planning proess for this final site idea? Explain.

1. Paper prototyping showed me that you don't always need expensive software to work on code. It can help to write it all out first and use post-its, this is helpful to me because I don't have any of these applications on my mac. Also, I have found that I'm a very visual learner so I think if I were to draw out how I want my site to end up looking it would help keep me organized.

2. Reading Design helped me realize the value of design and getting a feel for what works and what doesn't. This also helped me grasp the idea of how design can be used to communicate.

3. Home Page Goals made me realize how important home page's are and the value that can be gathered from working backwards, which ensures that your home page encompasses all that it promises. Home pages are meant to make a good impression and cater to repeat visitors.

reading wrap up 4

4) What do you see as the role of information architecture for web authors? How would you even define this term based either upon the tutorial or your own understanding?

1. I see information architecture as a way to first plan out what you want your website to accomplish and then act on those blueprints. Figuring out your goals and audience are crucial steps in creating an effective webpage because if it is not catered to these, it will fall by the wayside in being an ineffective webpage.

reading wrap up 3

3) Go to: http://validator.w3.org/ Type in the URL for MSU's webpage (http://www.msu.edu) and what results did you get? Now try the address for Jakob Nielsen's site (http://www.useit.com) and another website of your choosing. How do the results compare to one another? What explanations does the validator give you? How does this connect back to the issues that Zeldman has discussed?

1. When i typed in MSU's webpage it showed that ten errors were found.

2. When i entered Jakob Nielsen's page, there were 24 errors and ten warnings.

3. I used Facebook as the site of my choice and found there were 42 errors listed.

MSU's webpage clearly has the least amount of errors. Most of the errors on Facebook consisted of code being in the wrong place, like "does not allow link here, does not allow title here, does not allow meta here". Zeldman spoke about how standards can assist in situations just like this.

reading wrap up 2

2) What are five tips/points of interest you took away from the chapter on "The Trouble with Standards"?
1. Just because one is complying by web standards, that doesn't mean that graphics have to be be poor and suffer.
2. CCS only became popular with the 4.o version of web browers
3. Structurally meaningless markup makes the page less useful
4. For every software problem there's a category and for every category there's a leader (usually Adobe)
5. Flash is helpful because it lead to getting rid of annoying loading screens, but causes problems because it's inappropriate for content and commerce sites.

reading wrap up 1

1) What are five tips/points of interest you took away from the chapter on "Designing and Building with Standards"?

1. Having upfront information is more important than burying content beneath welcome banners and mission statements.
2. Complicated HTML can lead to websites having difficulties with screen-readers which can be a disadvantage for the visually impaired and lead to disability discrimination.
3. Make your site so that simple text links can be added and it can be easily updated instead of having to redesign graphics and HTML which would lead to high costs.
4. When code like HTML works, it is an advantage to the workers because they're able to concentrate on the writing of their website and not just wondering why it doesn't work and spending time and money trying to solve constant errors.
5. Standards based design is much more efficient, websites like alistapart.com promote the benefits of standards.

mod 3

I'm unsure what I want to do for Mod 3, I was thinking of doing one for an organization, school, or perhaps an animal so I can try to live up to the beautiful standards of "I love wolves". I'm not sure how to add things like music and videos so hopefully we learn that soon. Since the two websites I made are not very impressive so far, I'm sure it won't be hard for me to create something that isn't particularly appealing (unfortunately).

MOD 3

We started module 3 today. I am happy to be done with Mod 2 and starting something new; I think this module will be fun. Teagan and I chose to look at a "I love wolves" website and some strange Denmark page (we assumed it was from Denmark because it the link ended with .de but we still aren't sure). Both were hideous, to say the least. The wolves website was part of a bad website contest, but unfortunately, I think the Denmark website was real. Both were so cluttered and had an overload of flashing images. The worst aspect was probably the separate set of images that had its own scrollbar on the left side. The wolves website had this as well, but it was at the bottom and the box contained images. However, the box was so small that when scrolling through you could only see about an eighth of the image at a time. Overall.. not visually appealing. At all.

DONE

I'm thrilled to say I'm done with Mod II. Even though I had to completely log out of facebook (which I know is sad) I was able to crack down and finish my powerpoint. I was worried about it being too repetitive, so I'm going to read through it a few more times and make sure it looks like a good final product. I've put a lot of work into it and am officially sick of looking at code so I hope I don't find any errors. Hallelujah!

MOTIVATION!

The goal is to finish mod II tonight! I've been working on it all week and will be going up north this weekend so I look forward to being relieved. I only have a few more topics to cover in the slides but I have a feeling that I (so thoughtfully) left the most difficult ones for last. At first I really didn't know to interpret this project but now I realize the point is to make it understandable to someone who knows nothing about code.. much like myself. Let's see if I can deny the allure of facebook for a few hours and actually accomplish something.

module 2

I am having some difficulties with module II. I didn't think it would be this confusing when I first started but by now I've really confused myself. It's hard for me to grasp what the important aspects of HTML are, and how to compare them to other works of HTML source. When I look at the source view for both websites, I just see a bunch of random code that I don't know how to compare to the other or interpret at all. I decided to make a Powerpoint so I could utilize screenshots because I didn't know how they would look in a Word document, but I'm not even sure if the screenshots I'm using are valid or helpful. I want to finish Mod II by tonight so hopefully I am feeling motivated enough to make some serious headway. I'm looking forward to being done with it!

published!

I am officially published on the web! I created a website in CSE 101 last year but if I remember correctly, it was just a picture of Sparty. I am excited that I now know how to create a website with customized colors and content. Also, I don't think we used dreamweaver in CSE, I remember using WordPad to write code but I'm not sure how it actually got turned into a website. It will be interesting to see what other websites I create in this class and how they have grown from the simplicity of my first one. I found dreamweaver very easy to use which surprised me.

wednesday

I always seem to dread wednesdays when I have class from 11:30-6:20, and they seem even worse in the dreary wintertime. However, I'm happy to be in my home and I should probably learn to appreciate winter a little more considering I'm stuck in Michigan, at least for a few more years.

Teagan and I made our powerpoint during Tuesdays class concerning the main points in Zeldman's article. I am interested in seeing how these points will apply to the Viva PW website. Now I guess it's time to start my readings before tomorrow morning's class!

monday

I just started the readings for this week. I found them interesting, which seems to be unusual for me since most readings I have to do for class are painfully boring. Maybe these are better readings though since they are aimed at increasing internet ease and how to make things better for the reader. However, I have the say, the "A List Apart" article immediately lost credibility in my opinion once I saw the author spell "pouring" as "poring". This caused me to google it and see that you can spell it either way in the context, so maybe I was quick to judge, I've just never seen it spelt that way. Anyways, I continued to read the article and found that it had some good advice and pointers concerning how to make your website learner friendly.