Christmas is soon

For last week I had to create a usability test for the designs, but it’s not like you can test the ease of the use of something that you can’t do anything with a part from look at. So the testing was more getting feedback on the designs. This is still a good thing because testing and feedback continuously thought the projects can only benefit the project. I did find it difficult to make up the testing for the design, as there is not a lot of questions I could think of for the designs.

I do think I could have done better with this testing but most of my attention was on my presentation this week. Now I think that I should have evened the time out between the tasks I had to do this week, as I have to re do the presentation so really it seems like I wasted some of my time putting my effort into the presentation, has that time could have been used better toward A10.

Wednesday I enjoyed getting to do the creative things but when I got my feedback for my presentation it kind of upset me so that took the focus off the creative work and made me lack confidence in the work I had to do. This year is so much harder than last year, and seems to be getting harder. It’s not just college that’s hectic at the moment, Christmas is soon so everyone’s stressing about that and it’s really busy at work, but at least I have my birthday to look forward to this week.

Surface Design Photos

Here are the pictures I took on Wednesday; I have saved the best one for last!

My designs..

Here are my designs for Chris at Wakefield Studios. There are more designs to come, but these two are the ones that are fully completed so far.

This first design is a clean and simple layout which tries to keep all emphasis on the photographs on display:

My second design is something more graphical, sometimes when photographs are on display, you need smart looking website so to help sell the work on show and this is what I have tried to do in the design below:



I am still coming up with ideas for Chris and will also add Bob's ideas during the remainder of this week. It's nice to be designing for something while being the developer too, but I think I have slight designer's block at the moment which needs snapping out of. My sketchbook has helped a lot with this and doodling lots of mini ideas is better than having none at all.

--
Suzanne Hullah, Developer

Chris

Home Page


Portfolio/Gallery
The last image on this page will act as a link to the next page of thumbnails. On any page after the first there will be a similar link to go to the previous page (top left square).

Light Box
I have tried to keep this design quite simple to let the images do the work. A light box EFFECT will be used to display the images, which will cover the textual content on the portfolio page.

I have used blues which were mentioned within the brief.

Design 2

Again I have kept this page quite simple. I really like the very structured look of the thumbnails in this design. I also like the denseness of the content surrounded by a clean background.

Comments would be appreciated.

I will post Bob's Design's when they are at a suitable stage.

Preparing usability testing

I got quite a lot e cards designs sketched in my sketch book with week but I did have a problem sticking to the contemporary theme. Also not been able to use religious ideas or traditional things I associate with Christmas, even though they we asked to do a Christmas e card they didn’t want it to have hardly anything to do with Christmas. It seemly like anything you do will somehow offend someone.

I didn’t get many designs on the computer but that was because I felt like they were appropriate for the design brief. Also my experience with Illustrator is basic, so I didn’t know how to do a lot of things I wanted to do, but with some help I got a design done and you could tell what it was meant to be so I was happy with it.

This week I have the presentation for the design icon. I wouldn’t say I have a big interest in phone boxes but I am looking forward to doing the presentation. I like researching the topics for presentations and make the presentation, it’s just the presenting I am not good at but at least I am getting better at it.

This week I am preparing the usability testing. When I did the summer assignment and we had to learn about usability testing, I found it quite interesting as it’s something different to what we normally do. So I am pleased I am getting to have a go at actually doing the testing.

eCards submitted
Following much frustration caused by my limited experience using Illustrator and Photoshop, the eCards have now been submitted for review.

Overall, I am pleased with the results of the team & I though I feel given that the next time such a project arises that we would all have a much better understanding of what is required.

We now eagerly await to find which (if any) are chosen.

Westgate Studio's Progress
The team is progressing well (from what I can tell) with the design tasks that were assigned during last weeks meeting; though I am as yet to see any of the designs.

The paper based usability testing that we will participate in next week is quite exciting for me as it will be the first time that I have conducted such a test; though it will be Viki that manage the testing from beginning to end.

Presentation Preparation
I am really pleased that I was permitted to present on the mini for the culture vulture task. I have a genuine interest (and dare I say passion) for the mini from times past and present. The research has filled in many gaps in my knowledge about the timeless classic that is favoured in the hearts of many.

As part of my research I watched back to back the 1969 & 2003 versions of 'The Italian Job' and thoroughly enjoyed every second!

The presentation & handout is coming together well though I feel that some 'trimming down' may be required.

Dog Bite & Poorly-itus
Monday saw a 5hr trip to Barnsley General District Hospital, Accident & Emergency Department after splitting up a fight between two of the three dogs in the house where I currently live. Butterfly stitches and a pile of tablets later I was on my way back to base. My hand wasn't in any fit state to computer based work; although that didn't stop me making major updates to the 'Pi Creative Team Area'.

To add illness to injury, I have been suffering a stint of man-flu for the majority of this week & have been my usual 'wussy' self when dealing with it. The additional medication I have been taking to combat the near fatal illness that is the sniffles that I have been taking means that I rattle when I walk with 29 tablets per day in my system; roll on Tuesday when they run out!

In Closing
This week is going to be full of mixed emotions and enough work to make the entire week pass like a blink of an eye! Stay tuned...

Shaun Bellis - Project Manager

Pitch

Ok so we didn't get the pitch but I think it was a success. It was a vast improvement on our last attempt. I felt quite confident and this time I didn't want to run out of the room. I think the learning experience was worth the stress.

I think it helped just taking one design in to pitch, it is hard to say "This is the solution to your problem" then the next completely different design "This is ALSO the perfect solution". I think having just one design which was very polished was a good Idea.

I think Friday took a lot of pressure from the team as a whole. We now know where we stand for Games Design, also we are able to start work on Bob, Things are starting to move along with Chris, we now have the images.

I wasn't sure what to expect with Chris. I was kind of worried it would turn into a disaster, like Bob's project. I am quite confident that it will be a nice little site to work on. Chris' images were totally different from Bob's which is a great relief.

eChristmas Cards
I am currently working on some designs and mulling round how to display them. I am considering Steve's comments about it needing to be obvious that it's interactive media. I have been having problems with GIF animations due to the image quality and lack of colours. The only other alternative is Flash, which requires pulg-ins and is an accessibility issue.

At the moment I am thinking about HTML eMails to distribute them.