Critical Evaluation - David

Well, we've reached the end of our project.

My initial reaction, is that this was really tough. Our excursion into online journalism last year with Jim, I now realise, was a heavy molly-coddled affair. Jim created all of the templates, site layout, cascading style sheets, and navigation maps. All we did really, was tweak things gently as part of a fine-tuning, generate content, and insert it into the templates. This time it was literally all down to myself and Fogg. However, just because it was tough, that does not mean I do not think we did well.

The site is aesthetically appealing. We went for a simple and subtle colour scheme and design, which I think suited the content well and was implemented in an effective way. In terms of scrolling, we wanted content to fit on one page, but found that this was a little limiting, so there is a little scrolling on a few. However, I think it is so minimal that it could barely be classed a hindrance.

In terms of navigation and site maps, I find the site easy to navigate, though I am a little biased as I designed it and understand how the map works. That said, we asked other students to 'road-test' the site layout and they found it clear and easy to understand.

The one question that did repeatedly come up, was if there was a way to return to the homepage. There is not, however, I do not think this is necessary. All the links on the homepage are present on all pages as a main nav bar. Furthermore, many popular sites online do not feature a link to return to the homepage.

In terms of original content, I think we came up with a fairly substantial stockpile of content, bearing in mind it was just 2 of us generating content, whilst developing the site at the same time. We drew from our own knowledge and came up with what I think are some well written and devised pieces. The content uploading, as stated in previous posts, did become quite limiting due to the lack of a shared drive, which brings me onto the subject of BlackApple Hosting.

BlackApple Hosting is, in theory, a really good way for us to sidestep our sharing issues. However, it came too late for us to make any real use of it. By the time it was developed to a point where it was useful, we had practically finished the site. This meant that if we were to then use BlackApple it would be impractical as it would at this point actually hinder our progress, rather than assist it. For future group projects though, if lacking a shared drive, I will take full advantage of this tool.

One regret I have regarding the site is that we could not take as much advantage of Web 2.0. In terms of the site being an interactive platform, we wanted to include comment forms for the gallery pages, and we considered a forum. However, as discussed by Fogg in an earlier post, we felt that a forum would be unsuited to the aesthetic of the site and would detract from the overall value of the site. Comments would have been nice, but we got so delayed by the slow progress of content uploading, that it also became impractical to try to incorporate it. We wanted the site to still be interactive though, so incorporated a user contribution feature and a contact section. Given time, I think we could have implemented an RSS feed for site users, but that would have required additional downloads and software updates which I think would have added little to the final product.

Considering re-purposed content, I feel we made successful use of the online domain, editing exhibition briefs and adding our opinions and comments into the mix. We also downloaded images from exhibitions in order to incorporate into our profile pages as examples of the artists/writers work. I will stress that we did check before hand that the way in which we did this would not be infringing on any copyright.

In the end, we decided upon an informal, conversational writing style. The reason for this was to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. We didn't want to alienate ourselves from a potential reader by using too many technical/artistic/literary terms so as to make it incomprehensible to a 'layman'. That said, we tried to strike a balance, as we didn't want the points made to be too simple so as to put-off a more 'educated' reader.

In terms of promotional and marketing strategies, we utilised links to other sites in order to attract return viewers (one of the ways to get site authors to view and link to your site is to link to theirs first). However, the results of this are obviously limited as the site is not fully live. Had the site been fully live, we would have additionally posted comments on other art sites, using either a blogger profile or incorporating our site listing into the comment. This can be a cheap, easy, and effective way to increase site traffic, though we did not pursue it because without the site being live it would have been redundant.

Regarding implementation of a regular schedule of updates, I feel that this was achieved. We were limited by single person uploading, as discussed above, but still managed to generate content consistently over the final few weeks of the project. This in turn led to new content uploading and the archiving of previous content, which was still live, could still be accessed by site viewers, and was still actively linked to within the site.

If I were to take on this project again, I think I would do so making full use of BlackApple Hosting from the beginning. The ability to upload individually instead of as a group was our major hindrance, slowing the project down far more than I originally anticipated. I think our design could also be tweaked a little, potentially incorporating more comments to go alongside gallery images. We had originally wanted the art side of the site to be viewable in two distinct ways. Firstly, with reviews and images, and secondly with just images. The idea being some viewers may have just wanted to see what artwork we were looking at without wanting to be bogged down with information and analysis of it. However, I think we could have included a small brief with some of the images and still kept our minimalist and subtle aesthetic. The only other issue worth considering is potentially the clarity of links. It was occasionally a little obscure as to what was a link and what wasn't. This was due to a strict adherence to the site's colour scheme which I think may have held us back in that regard. However, I think the site navigation was kept consistent throughout and it became clear as a result what was a link and what was not.

Overall, I think the site was conceived, designed, implemented, and updated effectively. We overcame obstacles as and when they arose and adapted as and when necessary, making a good final product despite difficult circumstances.

Session 12

So, we've finally reached the end.

Things started to look up last week as Steve introduced us to the world of Blackapple, which allows us to upload all of our content and store it.  This was a suitable way for  both Dave and I to edit the website in dreamweaver, which, as you can see by my previous post, was the main issue slowing us down.  

In theory it is a great idea, but realistically it has been slightly redundant, as we have already finished the majority of the site.  It is something that would have been really useful if we had thought of it sooner.

So, in today's session it's just a matter of cleaning up all the loose ends.  Spell checking, fixing links, checking styles...dotting the "I's" and crossing the "T's" as it were.

10th session

Another week, another update.

Moving as slowly as ever. It's still the same situation at the moment. I am sending David the work, and he is doing the tedious job of uploading them. As I said last week, it would be a much quicker job if I could help.

For me, at the moment it seems as though I'm a spare wheel. I am writing the content, but that is all I can do, until we decide to occasionally change roles, so he can have a break from staring at DreamWeaver.

We met up early last week in the library to add more content to the site, which went as well as it could have done, and I have been writing more content.

One issue we have discussed is the user-bility of the site. In the rational we talked about having comment boxes, and we have even discussed including a forum for the site, but we came to the conclusion that because of the nature of our site, a forum would be quite redundant, as a forum would be a place for people to discuss continuous news, whereas our site is a place to attract attention to artists or writers that aren't necessarily in the news at this time. We also felt that it wouldn't suit the aesthetics of the site, as it is very difficult to create a forum using the same design of website, instead we would have to link to a site generated by an external client.

One option we did discuss was comment box, and we feel if we had more time then we would attempt to include them on our site, especially in the gallery. However we have instead incorporated a 'mail to' section on each page, this allows people to get in contact if they wish to.

So, things are slowly moving forward.

17th November 2008

We’re finally down to the final weeks and things are getting tense. Ideally with a full team of people we would have been up to week 3 of the weekly updates, realistically, with just two people the workload is just too much.

Because of the lack of a shared drive, it also means that just one person can do the tedious job of uploading and linking each page, which has reached a total of 50 pages, whilst the other adds to the pile of content that is waiting to be uploaded.

Though things have been quite tedious and frustrating, progress is being made, albeit very slowly. David and I have met on numerous occasions outside of class time to work on the project, but due to other commitments, the meetings have to be cut short. Though, we have both been working on the site in our spare time. I have written a number of articles as has David, and because the website is saved on his drive, he has been working on the site in his free time.
So, things as they are, we have a full gallery with 33 pages, one Spotlight page, one Art page, one Lit page, one Blog page and one About Us page, so there is one page of each, however, we have the content for up to 3 pages of certain sections.

The main issue at the moment is the lack of shared drive; at this stage both David and I should be uploading content, which would speed up the process. As we can’t both access the files, I’ve been adding to the pile of content going onto the site, without the manpower to actually put it on the site. Which is frustrating at best.

We’ll have to see how things turn out. We’ve definitely got one page for each section, and in some instances, we have more.
Fogg

5th Sesssion - Content Creation

The templates are almost complete with only fine-tuning left to be carried out as and when necessary. Content has begun to be produced and this in turn is being transferred into the site.

In addition CSS rules have been set up and are now being utilised throughout the site.

There are currently no major issues regarding site design, and the new focus is on content.

4th Session - Site Construction

Site construction has begun and general templates for index pages and content pages is being built. When the templates have been finished these can then be utilised throughout the site to easily transfer in content.

Layout was the big issue this session, following the site sketches as accurately as possible, seeing how we could overcome certain obstacles, and if all of our ideas were feasible. Additionally, we found that though some plans looked good in premise, on screen it was a completely different affair.

3rd Session - Post-poned

Regrettably, due to family problems on both mine and Fogg's side, our 3rd session (October 6th) was unattended. A catch-up was planned for the Tuesday (October 7th), but matters on my side became worse and this went unattended as well.