End of Project reflection

Today marks the end of our website making module.
I started out the module knowing nothing about HTML and now I have broadened my horizons and now know about several aspects to HTML designing. I can successfully construct a website with simple coding, style sheets, tables and div tags.


In the end we decided to make our website using div tags which made it easier to place images and text in a position that we had previously designed. We did try using tables after it was suggested to us as it used less code but we found that we all knew exactly what the code was for and where it was on the page so we shouldn't change it and confuse ourselves. I think it worked out better, mainly because we all knew exactly what code was used for certain bits of the website.


I feel my contribution to the project was good, in the beginning I spent a week just making different designs to present to the team on the Thursday. One of these ideas was taken and developed by opinions that the whole team made. The project was a whole team effort as we were able to bounce ideas of each other and improve on other people's ideas, especially for the home page. As for the coding, we found using online tutorials and practising different ways of using it. The practise was definitely beneficial and perfected our website more. 


My favourite part of the project has to be designing my individual pages, I had a lot of ideas that I wanted to use but settled on a train ticket as it was something completely individual to me and different to the other pages on the website. This will make it stand out to the viewers and hopefully make them remember my pages and the information on it! The worst part of the project was implementing the coding and figuring out how to solve problems that it caused. Although this felt satisfying in the end, it was a big pain and made me feel like I was never going to fix it and my links were just not going to work!


When creating the printed artefact, I took into consideration the main theme running through our websites, tube maps. This is why I have created my leaflet based around the idea of a map using a tube map with our page names and other groups body parts on it. I wrote a bio where the key is just to introduce people to the leaflet and let them know about the information I was going to discuss. I think it was a big risk putting most of the main information on the back but in a way it's nice because it isn't too in your face and people can read it without feeling forced to.


Overall, I have enjoyed the work I have done and am sad that it is over, I also feel like in the module I have learnt the most out of all the modules.

Presentation Day

This afternoon we presented our website to Phil and Cassie which was a good opportunity to see our website working altogether and present our work exactly how we want it to be seen. We were all very nervous before the presentation, mainly the idea of presenting but I was more worried about some of the links not working and not being able to show some pages.


Before the presentation, we put all the files onto one computers and found that some of the links were not working and some were presenting pages into the iframe. We thought that we were going to have to check through everything again and make some more changes an hour before the presentation. We then tried it on everyone's computers and found that some links worked and others didn't but they were all different. We decided that the files were just a bit temperamental and put everything onto a CD to present. Surprisingly, everything worked perfectly a part from one link which was only to a diagram. 


We each did our sections of the website taking the full 20 minutes allocated to us and at the end we received some positive feedback and nothing drastic on the website to change. Our concept was understood and liked which is probably the biggest success as everything around the website is based on this.


I'm glad the presentation went well and it is a huge relief for it to be over, now I am just perfecting little things ready to hand in tomorrow.

Preparation for the Presentation

I have been doing some preparation for the presentation ready to discuss with the team tomorrow when we meet up. I decided that i'm going with a strategy of directly answering the brief in the introduction which should hopefully hit the marks.


As for my individual pages, I decided that I should state how my subjects relate to the spine, trains and the Thoracolumbar section of the spine. I will then explain how they all link together and how they can link to other people's pages. After doing this I will take them through my 3 pages using some of the key points as examples for the kind of text that I have in the pages. I think this should last me about 5 minutes which fills up my allocation of the presentation.


Hopefully the presentation preparation will continue tomorrow and we will have time to practice the order and other aspects of the presentation before the actual thing at 2pm.

Adding Sounds

A couple of weeks ago it was suggested that we include some train sounds onto our website.
So today Georgia and I went in search for some sounds and coding to put on the website, 


<embed src="Trainsound.mp3" autostart="true" loop="true" hidden="true" volume="50%"></embed>


We found this piece of coding but it did not work when we put it in. For some advice on this we asked Pete who told us exactly where to put the coding. We found some appropriate sounds so we now have sound on our website! It's a train on a journey which ties into my pages in particular, but is also in keeping with the rest of the website.

Team meetings are always successful

Whenever we meet as a group I always find that we make good decisions and really test our design.
Today we decided that the design we have at the moment,

should be changed to this design:

After a second opinion from an expert in the area we decided that the title looked unbalanced on the page so we changed to the meet where the edge of the iframe is. We also thought about changing the box so that those pages that scroll across have a more finished look. This is the approach I am taking with my pages and I think they look more professional placed within this box.

Second idea for the leaflet

Today I was brainstorming ideas with my mum as she has to create a leaflet for her diploma and wanted my help to get some ideas. We were looking through leaflets and I came across this one:

It reminded me of a map which gave me the idea that I think I am going to use for my own leaflet. I thought maybe I could design a tube map with the spine parts and other human body parts. I thought this would be a nice big illustration for the front with the proper information on the back of the leaflet.


Firstly, I had to figure out how it would fold using A3 as the leaflet was only A4. After a few tries I found a way that would work like the other leaflet. I am now in the process of designing the map and the back of the leaflet. 

I've nearly finished all the writing for my individual pages, although I do need to add some more information and edit some not as useful information out. I have been working on the everyday journey section and making some images in Illustrator to go with the text as finding images to match the statistics would have been hard.


Here is an example of what I have created:

The statistic was that there was an increase of 40% more passengers with only a 10% increase in trains. I think this image I created gets this message across clearly and is a visual representation of the statistic.

Hopefully finished the webpages!

Tonight I have finished coding and putting together my pages of the website, what a huge relief!
Here are some screen shots that will be used in the navigation plan to show how my 3 pages look:

Problem with the iframe

For the last few days I have had problems aligning the text in the iframe properly so that it aligns in the actual webpage. At the moment it looks like this:

With 2 days until the deadline this is not good.

So tomorrow I am going to try and fix this by inserting some tables using what I learnt in the HTML lessons. Hopefully this will allow me to arrange the text where I want and not be restricted by the iframe boundaries.

I have printed and folded the artefact which is out of the way now. The only things left on my to-do list are finishing the HTML coding when it is fixed and finding/making some images for the Everyday train journeys section.

The Last Discussion Day

Today was the last formal discussion day for our websites.
Phil wasn't in today but we did get help from Mark which was particularly useful because it was like having a new set of eyes on our website. In a way he sort of acted as an outside critic, he didn't know anything about our concept or design so his advice was really useful.


It made me realise that the route I was going to down for the website was more providing the information. I think I had forgotten that it is meant to show visuals and be quite artistic, so he gave me a few ideas of what I could do to bring these ideas back. Like last week some little changes are going to make a huge difference to the website. It made me remember how useful advice can be, think i've forgotten how to take advice nowadays!


So now i'm thinking more about what's going to go in the iframe, Mark did not like the idea of us using iframes purely for the future. Apparently it affects people with visual impairment, so I might test my pages on my dad when he hasn't got his contacts in. I might test my pages of the website on a few people thinking about it, will be good to get some feedback to post on here.


Now it's 6 days to go before the hand in, I'm really feeling the stress of finishing this and how frustrating HTML is! Tonight it has taken me an hour to realise something that I probably should have realised in 2 minutes - I thought it was time for a break and now i'm back working on it and feel more positive. I actually had a dream last night that it was the presentation day and we'd forgotten to put links to the other pages of our websites so everyone could only see one page of each section. I think i'm thinking about HTML too much! Today was a good chance to see where everyone else was at too, most people were only just filming their video which we have had done for a few weeks now which made me feel better and realise how organised our team was.


Also, after last weeks discussion with Phil we decided that we needed to re-create some of the effects that we put into the video. So we have been experimenting with different crumpling effects, tea stains and photoshop edits. In the end we have all agreed on this style:

Now we are deciding whether we want the crumpling effect inside the iframe, some of us like it and others don't. But we have said that if it doesn't suit the design then don't use it, I say that whatever is in the iframe is our own design so we should do what we want. I think it will create a good variety of designs within the website which will make it look more interesting.