Interactive Design

I have learned from every single project we have done. Each website has been completely different and called for different things. I feel like now I am much much closer to being confident in actually designing a website for myself or someone else. A part I see myself lacking in is organization. I am so used to doing print pieces and having little information to design for and now doing web design there is so much information to consider. The audio tutorial actually really helped me along with the inspiration pieces that were sent. I really noticed how tightly organized they all were and how strict they were to a grid system, even if it is not an obvious grid; everything matches and flows well. I tend to just get overwhelmed when I see a long list of info that I have to design and put on a page. Like this project for example, just reading the list of things the home page needed, I thought there was no way I could put all of it together. But that is a fun and challenging part about web design for me as well. Each little block of information, or menu bar, slider bar, whatever is like an individual piece that has to fit in and match with the overall page as a whole. So even though it is overwhelming for me to think of taking on designing all that information, once it starts to come together I am inspired and excited to add on to the page as a whole. Technically I still have much to learn and work on. It is really easy for me to break away from a grid system at all and just start designing something that i think works. I am learning though and  have learned an incredible amount over the semester. My opinion of interactive design has definitely changed. It still isn’t my most favorite thing to do but I do enjoy it and I want to continue improving on my designs.

For the most part this project made me realize how far we’ve come as a class, and myself as an individual.  The pre-design process definitely resulted in a better final product. The areas I struggled with included how to manage various different levels of content and hierarchy that where of equal importance. For example my design lacked solutions for design opportunities, my inventory overlook which served as a mediator between the sliders and the submit button, consisted of only a list.  I also struggled on certain elements like what would happen to the login bar after you logged in. Some places where i was successful however included the overall visual aesthetic, the needs feed, and the map element. Overall I think working to develop one idea as a class greatly improved our product.

Some technical mistakes I wish I had addressed throughout this process involved use of negitive space, and use of type. I think in the end I was successful in keeping the design clean and readable, however there are a few awkward gaps of negitive space throughout the composition. Some conceptual mistakes I made include a lack of clarity in some of the information given in some of the food bank inventory. I realize there was a lot of information, and I feel that I could have executed this aspect more efficiantly. Some of areas in which I saw improvement involved the overall use of information, and functionality of the website. I’ve struggled in the past on whether or not my ideas for design could actually work for someone using the site. Some improvements in the process include a better understanding of the use of wireframes. There was so much information that needed to be conveyed in this assignment, and I constantly had to refer to the wireframes from direction. After this project, I really appreciate the concept behind them, and will get better use og them  in future projects. I wanted to make a complicated website, with lots of imformation, look simple and organized.

One of my weakest points that I’ve noticed (or maybe it’s an unknown strength) is color palette/texture choice within my web designs. In all areas of life, I tend to lean toward simplicity, often with the color grey and delicate line weights appearing frequently. I chose to go that route with this project in order to effectively organize all of the information but when I saw my work as compared to everyone else’s, I realized that may have been a foolish choice.

A very different aspect of this project was working in teams to establish the timeline/criteria and I think it was very helpful for us to establish which parts of the creative process we deem worthy of group time while still recognizing the need for individual contribution. The hardest part was in creating the wireframes; we are all highly visual/creative people so expecting our minds to all agree on a direction for a wireframe provided some challenges, but also made us more thorough. I can definitely see the benefit of group time but I can say that it would be difficult to do on a regular basis.

This morning, as the sun began to rise and I uploaded my final files to the dropbox, I realized I triple checked it to make sure every aspect of the required content was there. I have a problem with follow through (in all areas of life) so me disciplining myself to not only check, but double check, and triple check the necessary things. This surprised me because I, like the rest of the class, am completely burned out of school. This class was a good experience to enlighten me about the ways of the real world but it also is coming at the end of 8 consecutive semesters chock-full of design that have semi killed my creative spirit. When thinking about it terms of that, I can look around this class and be so proud of not only my work, but the work of my peers who continue to inspire me.

I know that I have a lot to learn in all areas of design and I’m looking forward to pursuing it after graduation. It’ll be nice to finally read the books I spend my life savings on ;)

This project was a little overwhelming to me at the beginning. With all of the other projects and things i had on my plate at the end of this semester it was really hard to start this project. I enjoy designing websites and in the end i always hoped i had put more time and effort into them So in this project i decided to do that. The work with the groups always helps to get me excited and ready to start the project. Seeing everyone work together and coming up with ideas is really inspiring and helpful. As far as the process goes im the first to say that i am not very good at sketching out ideas and wireframes. But knocking out some of this in a group really does help me to get the ball rolling. I felt like i didnt have many technical mistakes. Sure there are plenty of them in my project but compared to other previous projects i was much careful and payed more attention to detail in this project, which took me to an end piece that i was fairly proud of, more proud then any other piece. I felt like i could have spent more time on the websites layout and branding. Although i like where it is headed, i feel like this is just one stop on the way to the final piece. As far as improvements go, using columns and grid structure in this project really helped me out when it came down to the clean look i was going for. I think there are a few places where i broke the columns and mixed and matched but it was all on the same grid. The process in this final was definitely improved because we did it as a group. I enjoyed working on the wireframes in class way more then on my own. In class i can see the website and how it would be used and explored. On my own i am just making squares and boxes. Which could be improved a lot.

My biggest issue on this project was time. I only really played around with one layout. I think I should have taken more time to sketch out general layouts, like thumbnails of the entire page. Everything on my site seems very crammed in, not to mention too big. I always design things too large for web. I think if i designed on a bigger screen where 100% in photoshop took up less that the whole screen I would have a better end result. For example my footer is an eyesore and I didn’t notice until we put them on screen to turn them in. I think I also put a lot of effort into the group activities, so I was happy with all of the interactive elements that we decided on, but I didn’t have enough time or energy for the design portion. Like I said earlier, for some reason the layout I used was stuck in my head from the beginning and I even notice until I walked around and realized how different, yet functional everyones projects were.

As for positive things I did, my proficiency with photoshop are much better. I had a lot of fun building all of the details up in my design. It got pretty technical, and that is something you don’t realize until you start making some of those details for yourself. I feel like I only really just got started on this project, kind of like a first draft, so it is good that I see areas to improve in and if I had more time you know what I needed to do. I believe my project had a lot of potential, but designing always takes longer than you initially think it will. This gets me a little worried about my freelance work, because clients won’t always understand all that goes in to the process. I will be outlining everything I do to calculate how much work time I will need, I think it might be good to share that with clients too.

This project was definitely the hardest one I had to create for this class yet. I worked on just the home page for about a week and was still tweaking and adding content with how much material was required to be displayed on the site. Once I built the logo, icons, and choose a color scheme the rest seemed to fall into place. But this time even with the wire frames, task lists, and user scenarios all laid out for me when I started designing, the concept was difficult to picture as an end result. Designing however, has become easier since the first project that we were required to work on, and I have a better sense as to where things should be laid out on the page based on my own browsing behavior.  This time around though I felt I had to sacrifice more of the design qualities to the page to try and work on the over all functionality. Had I had maybe a few more days to move the pieces around and really get into the design, I could have come up with a really nice design, but I was focused so much on the technical. During this process I fell behind by trying to establish a mood for the piece even after I already had a mood board picked out. I should have kept trying to push my  artistic side into coming up with more ideas of aesthetics versus the mechanic. The previous assignment I had a clear view of what I wanted the end project to look like after doing the mood board, and was able to easily design various buttons, icons, and pins for the web, but with this one and no clear direction where this was going in my head I let the program decide where the pieces should fall. On the inventory page, I had plenty of space to add the twitter section but not enough to go into full detail on the sliders, so I decided to cover it all up once you clicked on the menu. It was a poor choice and many of similar decisions were made simply because I could and not because it looked good.

I really really enjoyed the team based planning at the beginning. I had always wanted to work on a concept team like that and I really like how it worked out. I think that bouncing ideas off of each other ended up helping everyone’s project a ton.

My biggest weakness in this project was probably the fact that I did not create a new style for myself. I wish I could have pushed my creativeness more and created something with a different style than everything else I have done. If all my stuff in my portfolio looks the same, even if its good work, it won’t count for anything.

My most improved area was in the conceptual stage. I think this was probably largely due to the group work but during that time my brain just started going overboard. With other people’s idea’s I had things to spark my own. I felt like I was talking a lot while we were in there (and I probably was) but I just had a rush of ideas come to my head (a lot of which I ended up using.)

I would still very much like to improve on just about everything related to web design. During this project I feel I did a lot better in the conceptual work but can I do that on my own in the future? I have no idea. There was comments about my website being clean and having clear hierarchy, but I don’t feel it was so different from some of my other work (like my AIGA re-design) or very original. Can I work on getting good clean work and be more original at the same time? again, I have no idea. I would like to eventually be confident enough in my skills to easily assure clients I can both come up with creative concepts and an original creative final product.

This project helped me get a little closer to both, but there is always LOTS of room for improvement.

loved the team based stuff that we did in the learning studio, its nice to have multiple heads wrapped around the same thing. i thought it would make the design process go much smoother tho, but it didnt. not for me anyways. this project presented many many problems, as each seems to. Time management is a huge issue still…maybe ill work on that tomorrow. haha. this project must be my worst though, not only was it rushed, but there were just too many ways to screw up, and i found them all. On the brightside, this leaves a whole lot of room for improvement if i ever revisit it, which i might because there are a few elements that i enjoyed making. at some point i did lose focus with the whole web aspect of the project, i dont know why, but it disappeared. i felt like i was designing something else.

when i think back to the beginning of the semester when i knew nothing of web design, i realize how far ive come. used to i would just avoid an ugly website because it was ugly, not i can look at it, see improvement, and this makes me really appreciate good websites, its funny when im looking for sports scores and i notice how much improved the website is, ill even show people! ha. Also television looks completely different, i see it as web now. especially sports center. and TNT must have an amazing design team working for them, their Inside the NBA show has some ridiculous graphics. but back to my reflection, each project has been a let down, which perhaps is good, because improvements are noticeable, yet i also loathe each creation. the design world frustrates me, perhaps i can make it better WOOHOO!!!

I think I started out on a bad foot with this assignment. For me that was mostly the time frame it was assigned in and the fact that I’m just burnt out. I think it’s definitely not good for me to feel so completely unable to contribute good things when I’m this burnt out, it’s something I need to improve on in life in general. I think the main thing that got me motivated through this project was working in groups in the Learning Studio that couple of days. Hearing ideas I liked and didn’t like sort of helped me build a picture of what I wanted to go for in the end.

Since the beginning of the course I definitely think it is easier for me to build a web page. I understand the process and run through what I need on the page. This project I honestly didn’t do a great job with that, but if I was sitting down getting ready to build a website for a client, I feel confident that I could get everything I need to get in the site in there. This project was also helpful for working in a group setting. I feel like my ability to contribute to and benefit from a group has improved.

I will definitely continue to practice web design to see that I get better at it. I will also work on that whole getting things done when I’m not motivated to do it thing as well. Thanks!