I think this is the point where the panic sets in. My project is a fine concept thus far, but it has failed to move from the concept stage to anything resembling something some human being would want to use. I've scrapped two graphical concepts, one visual metaphor, and a few thousand lines of actionscripting to end up where I am right now, which is nowhere. Yeah!
In one bit of good news I am finally scheduling a recording session this weekend to get the music done. I am using my friend Ian Darken, who
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Desk Crit: Lenrose Fears
Project Name: Dan's Gym website
Creator: Lenrose Fears
The project is looking great so far. In fact, you are much farther along than almost any project I've seen thus far. I really think you should work to contain all of the information in a stable container. On every page, there should be the same navigation bar and graphics. This allows for much easier navigation and it certainly looks more
professional. It should be easy to accomplish...you just use the "save as" function on the index page and rename the page as something else and then add the content to the template set forth on the index page. It's hard to explain here, but I think I showed you how to do it.
Also, I like the graphics in the health tips section. Are you getting external content for each one of these health tips? Since you are so close to being done, you might want to create some more interactivity in some of these, perhaps a Hot Potatoes quiz or something like that.
I might shrink the graphic on the left side to give the content more room. The guy on the left flexing his muscles has a little bit of digital artifacting going on, suggesting that he was maybe smaller and has been upscaled. Shrinking should take care of that.
Creator: Lenrose Fears
The project is looking great so far. In fact, you are much farther along than almost any project I've seen thus far. I really think you should work to contain all of the information in a stable container. On every page, there should be the same navigation bar and graphics. This allows for much easier navigation and it certainly looks more
professional. It should be easy to accomplish...you just use the "save as" function on the index page and rename the page as something else and then add the content to the template set forth on the index page. It's hard to explain here, but I think I showed you how to do it.
Also, I like the graphics in the health tips section. Are you getting external content for each one of these health tips? Since you are so close to being done, you might want to create some more interactivity in some of these, perhaps a Hot Potatoes quiz or something like that.
I might shrink the graphic on the left side to give the content more room. The guy on the left flexing his muscles has a little bit of digital artifacting going on, suggesting that he was maybe smaller and has been upscaled. Shrinking should take care of that.
Desk Crit: Fred Zimmerman
Project Name: Alternative Energy
Creator: Fred Zimmerman
It's a good start. I understand that the project is early.
Right now, the flags are activated by rollover. The text that pops up is huge and it stays there in a separate window afterwards. It would be great if it showed a small preview text that could then be clicked to bring up more information. The pages shouldn't overwhelm the map.
There's an awful lot of content, so make sure your scope is fairly narrow. Take care of the bulk of the project and then start to expand to the accoutrements! I like the animation of the graph, and a few more of those would be nice, but don't get too bogged down on them without finishing the map and the basic page.
It's a little hard to read the United States tag. You could consider changing the colors or adding a border around the text. Perhaps you could use a box with alpha transparency underneath to set that area apart. It's important to keep colors consistent in web applications, so that the user knows what each element does every time.
It needs some sort of introductory or explanatory page or text, of course, but it is early, like we've discussed. I like the Flash movie at the beginning.
Creator: Fred Zimmerman
It's a good start. I understand that the project is early.
Right now, the flags are activated by rollover. The text that pops up is huge and it stays there in a separate window afterwards. It would be great if it showed a small preview text that could then be clicked to bring up more information. The pages shouldn't overwhelm the map.
There's an awful lot of content, so make sure your scope is fairly narrow. Take care of the bulk of the project and then start to expand to the accoutrements! I like the animation of the graph, and a few more of those would be nice, but don't get too bogged down on them without finishing the map and the basic page.
It's a little hard to read the United States tag. You could consider changing the colors or adding a border around the text. Perhaps you could use a box with alpha transparency underneath to set that area apart. It's important to keep colors consistent in web applications, so that the user knows what each element does every time.
It needs some sort of introductory or explanatory page or text, of course, but it is early, like we've discussed. I like the Flash movie at the beginning.
Oops.
So this post should have happened the week before Spring Break, yet somehow it slipped my mind, even though I know what I was going to say. Mea culpa, perhaps? Let's had back into the Wayback Machine...
The Musical House metaphor seems to be something of a fools errand at this point. It's an idea I would like to explore in the future, but, for now, I need to keep things simple. What I'm afraid of is how much time in general my project will take, as the recording of the music and generation of the art has been a major portion of my activities thus far. I'm rather ashamed that I have nothing to show for my project yet other than a bunch of failed actionscripting.
I am going to probably do more of a musical themed project wherein people turn the instruments on and off by dragging them onto a "stage," so to speak. That's the plan anyway.
My roommate (aka my artist) is very, very busy right now, so I've decided that I might do something with photographers or clipart. To be honest, the latter is a last ditch effort. I mean this as no offense, but I see too many educational projects that make use of really bad clipart, the same stuff that Microsoft has been peddling in PowerPoint and other Office products for a while. I'd like for my project to have original content if at all possible, but I know that's a difficult proposition.
The recording of the music is actually going pretty well. I hope to have something finished up in the next few weeks. I think it's gonna be pretty simple two chord stuff with a lot of percussion, which is not unexpected given the fact that I'm a drummer.
The Musical House metaphor seems to be something of a fools errand at this point. It's an idea I would like to explore in the future, but, for now, I need to keep things simple. What I'm afraid of is how much time in general my project will take, as the recording of the music and generation of the art has been a major portion of my activities thus far. I'm rather ashamed that I have nothing to show for my project yet other than a bunch of failed actionscripting.
I am going to probably do more of a musical themed project wherein people turn the instruments on and off by dragging them onto a "stage," so to speak. That's the plan anyway.
My roommate (aka my artist) is very, very busy right now, so I've decided that I might do something with photographers or clipart. To be honest, the latter is a last ditch effort. I mean this as no offense, but I see too many educational projects that make use of really bad clipart, the same stuff that Microsoft has been peddling in PowerPoint and other Office products for a while. I'd like for my project to have original content if at all possible, but I know that's a difficult proposition.
The recording of the music is actually going pretty well. I hope to have something finished up in the next few weeks. I think it's gonna be pretty simple two chord stuff with a lot of percussion, which is not unexpected given the fact that I'm a drummer.
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