littlejohn class work 03/30
AUDIENCE: specific people were designing for
CONTEXT: overall community and area demographics and beliefs
PURPOSE: be able to explain why everything that’s there is there, color choices, page and paragraph separation, etc…
Our audience… service school age children through adults and the elderly, people looking at the site are going to be parents looking for their children, some children looking up programs or at the pictures or calendar, also some elderly people looking for programs. The site is mostly geared to people not necessarily Internet savvy. To address this we are keeping things simple and consistent. We also are going to add a note at the bottom of the main page which browser our site is best viewed in. We also provide links to download software needed to view the site and corresponding forms.
Our context… Littlejohn Community Center is operated by itself with little affiliation to other community centers. Southern aspects worth noting are religious affiliation (mostly Baptist – idea thought of at a church meeting) Traditionally; Littlejohn Community Center has been a place for low to middle income African American families. Put something on the site to prove we made this site. We are in the context of a college environment and a college town.
Our purpose… The color choices are obvious (appealing to children but not too bright, we have enough but not too many colors). Our word choice and sentence format are simple and not too wordy. We are trying to get people to use the site often and perhaps save them from calling the center where they could be put on hold.
CH 1: GURUS & RULES
This book defines the different types of gurus. Designers who create, critics who analyze, efficiency experts and teachers who give ways of working are all gurus. Theguru on the web is the critic PLUS the efficiency expert - this provides multiple views as well as the best way to show them on the web site. I feel this is important and every site including our own needs these perspectives... Possibly one person looking at the visual aspect, another looking at the technical aspect and another looking at the text and information aspect.
This book provides many rules and suggestions of ways to do something but doesn't give one quick fix answer for every problem. The three goals advise was one part we discussed in class.. These are helpful to determine the direction and the voice of the site. Questions to help with these goals include... The business goals, the engineering goals to maintain and rebuild the site, the sales goals, the marketing goals and the users goals. The book made a really good point regarding the focus and orgizination of the site... "Users don't do the thinking, you do."
midterm goals...
We are going to be working on and completing one of the photos albums pages, the about us page, the calendar page, and the blog page. We are considering working on a group page but we are not sure if it is necessary work for the website.
Littlejohn Group
Goals for midterm draft...
Home Page (with exception of logo and header)
Programs Page
Contact Page
Navigation Bar
About Us Page
Links to all of the other pages (pages not finished but mapped out for testing links)
Wodtke Chapters 1 & 2
First off, I'd like to mention that I find this book much more interesting than the last (Remediation)! This is because I dont struggle to understand or put what i read to use in my website ideas and design. I see the first two chapters as highlights, or keys to success when developing the basics of a website. But the ideas and concepts discussed in these chapters can and do make a world of difference when it comes to producing a product for any given audience. For example, as the designer of a website it is my job to be the navigator or search engine for the audience, meaning anything I want them to know should be presented straight forward, up and simple enough for anyone to get a hold of the information. Also, WORDS, there is a such thing as too mch information! This kind of contradicts the last concept because you have make the website give all the information but be sure not to make that information overwhelming or too wordy for the reader. It is also very important not to have a million links to things on one page then a million more on another page...thats just way too confusing and gives the reader reason to scheme or skip the information presented.
