Critique explainations

I got a lot of comments on the nav bar and “color scheme” which I will admit is random, and a few on my writing skills but here’s why:

I didn’t have everything linked up on the nav bar and ‘Copyright’ wasn’t a link yet. I tried to get as much linked as possible last night before class but I didn’t finish.

I know my “color scheme” was random but I was more concerned about contrast and not as worried about a color scheme. Part of it is because I have to see what I’m working on and sometimes color schemes don’t have a great contrast so I have to tweek them sometimes for the sake of visibility.

I also generally don’t think of them right away. I usually think of a theme and choose colors to fit that theme before I ever think of a color scheme (if I think of them at all). I know it’s usually the other way around but it’s worked for me so far.

And I apoligize for the animation being small. I’m going to try to make the animation bigger but I don’t know how much bigger I can make it without it taking too long to download.

This may sound strange but the images were full size. A lot of the pictures I had up were either on Polaroid 500 or 600 film and usually with something else which is why some of them were small.

It also wasn’t finished yet and the color and text will be different when I accually publish it. For the sake for time.

Link to final project

I’ll work more on this later but this is a link to the homepage as it is right now:

Homepage

One exam to go…

I’m still working on the little details of the final project but I have pretty much done. I planned for it to be a whole lot more colorful but I’ll deal with color changes later. The templates are a little annoying since I planned for each page to be different color wise. I’m still trying to figure how to get my animation to playback but I’m looking for help on the internet and hopefully I’ll find answers. I don’t remember which assignment we learned that so if someone could tell me which one or give me directions I’d appreciate it. I’m going to ask my dad but I have a feeling he hasn’t done that before since he learned how to use Dreamweaver on his own.

I’m still not sure what I want to be on the text pages or the text field on the contact page but I’m sure I’ll have something on those pages by tommorrow. I’m not a good writer and my grammar stinks.

Week 14

I’m not feeling great so I’m going to make this quick.

I did templates but I don’t completely understand what I’m doing. I’m ahead on the final project so I concentrated more on my final project for art. And Thursday I’m definitely going to take a break from school if I can and enjoy not having exams.

Links:
Ola Template

Week 13

I have been working on my site and put most of the pictures on it. I didn’t see the module so I didn’t know what else to do but I’m sure that was included so I did part of it. I don’t know if it’s an Angel problem or not but I did something which is better than doing absolutely nothing.

I had made a template already so making the pages was easy but choosing colors for the pages was a pain at times. I have some hex code charts and it’s not easy sorting through that many colors.

I’d say more but I’m getting tired so I’ll head up to bed and see you tomorrow (And I hope it won’t be that hot in there).

week 12

The builds were pretty easy but it was more than a little annoying at times. Some of what I did was attached to a style sheet and it took a few hours to fix that. I still need to figure out how to make it so that I can change the Spry menubar but I have time to figure it out.

I got some web design tips while I was over at Grandma’s house for a group April/May birthday party. It turns out Uncle Jack also designs websites (I love having relatives that are good with technology) and if you have a style sheet for something on a website that will change like a nav bar that will be different colors you can change it. I don’t know how you’d do that but it’s good to know.

There’s also a site like browsershots.org but it shows what the site would like to the color blind. I don’t know what the address is but I’ll post a link to it on my ADA post when I do. I don’t know how useful it would be but it might not hurt to at least look at the page.

The Ola layout was annoying at times and I had to try again and it worked. I don’t know how it will show up on the school computers since things are bigger on my laptop but I hope it isn’t that different.

The articles are interesting and could be useful (I’d comment more but I think I hear thunder).

Links:
Ola template

Week 11

It wasn’t hard to build the Digital Jenn comp and Ola template but it was annoying getting the sidebar and page content div to do what they were supposed to. The Ola template didn’t turn out the way I designed it but I wasn’t going to mess with Dreamweaver anymore than I had to and after maybe 30 minutes I said “I’m not going to fight with this thing anymore” and left it the way it was since it was pretty close to what I wanted.

Prototyping wasn’t hard this time around but I put a couple slices than I needed. But it’s a couple so I’m not worrying about it. I’m not sure if the Update page needs an image but I thought I’d put it there just to see what happened. I’m also not sure if I’ll stick with the color choices but there’s a good contrast which I wanted.

As for comments I’ve gotten good ones so far and some tips on what to put on the pages. And both of the people I asked know about web design and have built sites. My dad has built sites and teaches workshops on the subject as well as other subjects dealing with technology and computers. I don’t know if Julie has a background in web design but she has built a portfolio site for her husband and knows about design.

I can’t post the comps because of space but I will put links to them. I have look through what I put on this site and see what else I can take off.

Homepage
This is pretty much the same as it was but I changed the footer color and changed the background.

Bio
The top picture of me needs to be edited a little but I have an edited version for the actual site. I didn’t put a lot of color in this one but I wanted that one to be mosly purple (which is my favorite color).

Here are this weeks links:
Lesson 10
Ola build
Site _prototype
CSS Zen Garden site

Css Page Layout Basics
ID/Class Rules

Here are this weeks links:

ADA

I had been debating on using a top navigation bar and I asked my dad who is currently designing a website for 4-H which one would be better from a usability standpoint. Then we got into a conversation on ADA (Americans with Disability Act). I’m not posting this to make building sites more difficult but I thought it would be useful to at least put it out there for you to look at.

There are a lot some could have and accomidating for all of them but there are some general things you can do.

Give users the option to enlarge type.

Gradients are not good to put type on. In most cases it’s very hard to see what you wrote.

If you want something to show up use colors that can’t easily be mistaken for each other. For the visually handicapped it’s better to have a high contrast but make sure you can easily tell the difference between them (It’s also nice if doesn’t blend in but that’s another story).

Red/Gray and green/gray are not good color combinations. There are times when it’s alright but generally it’s not a good idea (That isn’t really an ADA tip but it can be really hard to see red and green against gray. That’s why I couldn’t read any of the comments on the Websites That Suck website using the default color settings).

There are also some things you may not have known but are useful to know:

Right sidebars can be a problem but for screenreaders it’s better to have them on that side.

Screenreaders can’t see Javascript toolbars (including spry toolbars).

Dreamweaver has a feature where you can check if your site is ADA compliant using the green arrow on the site report window (It’s under results).

If you’re interested here some links to sites on the subject:
ADA.org
ADA standards

Week 10 revised comps

I know I’m posting late and haven’t been on all week but I have a reason. Prototyping confused me. I was also retouching pictures which took longer than I wanted it too. And I got sick which didn’t help matters.

I’m still not sure if I need a logo on the final project but I thought I’d put it in there and see what happened. It’s only a comp after all.

I did lesson 10 and 11 this week so I could get that out of the way. They were easy but it took a little bit of work.

Here are this weeks links and incase the ones for the lessons don’t work I’m having problems getting files on the server but they should by there by tomorrow. I’ll do what I can to make it earlier but if not I’ll make sure to do it after class.

Lesson 10
Lesson 11The Complete Design Process
Creating Interactive Prototypes
Rapid Prototyping
Info and Interaction Design
Quickly Transform Photoshop Layouts
Dreamweaver Integration
Tabless web design

week9

The module was very easy. I had trouble getting stuff to delete but it wasn’t a big deal. And I apparently didn’t look hard enough at the modules because I’ve been doing the lessons in order and I did lesson 9. Lessons 6 and 7 are in the blogs for Week 6 and 7.

The homepage comps were easy to do but I had to work on the color configuration so I used most of the colors that will be on the site. I’m still not sure what I’ll call it but for now I’ll stay with this one.

It’s two versions of the site homepage. I have more homepages to do comps for but I didn’t finish all of them.

Here’s some links:
lesson 9
homepage comp1