Side projects...

Okay, so by now you all know that I'm feeling much more confident about the skills I've developed in this class than I ever thought possible--if you're not aware of that, keep reading...I'm thrilled. Anyway, I think I mentioned in an earlier post how I've become the resident web guru at the NYU College Learning Center. As a result of much bureaucracy and slo-o-o-w motion in the Center, I've been awarded the responsibility of maintaining the online schedule system. Well from the time I started this project until now I've played around with the schedules, trying new things and practicing little tricks. Initially the schedule was just copied and pasted from the word format that we use for the hard copy schedules, tweaked a little, and uploaded to the web. Piece of cake. Then I realized that I could create a table and have the students select a subject and the subject link would directly lead them to that academic subject's available tutoring schedule. Well today, I was creating the finals week schedule and I realized that I didn't have time to revise each subject's page individually (it took forever last time), so instead I created anchor links that students can click on at the top of the page to be taken directly to the subject that they're interested in. It seems simple, but it's so much more user-friendly than the plain schedule list, and so much more designer-friendly than creating the individual pages for each topic. I was tickled with my discovery.

So why am I telling you this? I think it's just another example of how we can apply what we're learning in class. I've commented on some of my classmates blogs about how this course has instilled in us the confidence to play around and try new things, and I feel that my latest mini-accomplishment proves just that. It's very exciting if you ask me.

Oh, and by the way, I went to an NYU website today and paid attention to the buttons/links. It was crazy when I caught myself analyzing the way the page moved and figuring out how the style was created to make the images appear the way they did. At the risk of sounding like a big nerd, I was totally into it. Who'd have guessed?!

All the little pieces...

So, I've spent some time today reading everyone's blogs and it seems like we're all finally in a very similar place--things are coming together. I'm very proud of the achievements that I've made so far in this class. I'm sure I've said this before, but I never thought I'd be able to create a website, publish it online, and be able to edit and improve it with ease before this semester. The concept of the internet, though very appealing from a user-perspective, always seemed to be this obtuse, intangible thing. All of a sudden though, I understand (at least basically) how things work and I'm confident that I can contribute to my profession with the skills that I've attained through this course.

That said, as I'm working on my final project, I'm still a little bit overwhelmed by what I'm doing. I've (happily) created, adjusted, and attached my very own--with some help from two little boxes--css style sheet that I feel works for my site. I've written a design document, drawn a flow chart and worked with my storyboard. I've researched design information and content information (I had totally forgot that I'd need to research the content for the site until just recently...it adds a whole new dimension of work to the project) and I feel that overall, I've made some strong progress. That said, I still have a TON of work to do. I know that Jim's said that our final site doesn't need to be a FINAL final site. As with most sites, it's a work in progress. But with the things that we've discussed, I feel like I need to incorporate so many interactive ideas into the work that I don't actually see an end in sight. For instance, right now I have 8 wikis attached to the site that function as my message boards. The good news is they're attached. The bad news is they're not pretty. So now, not only do I want to make sure I include good design and informative content on my site, I feel I need to improve the appearance of the external components as well. It's a situation where I'm not sure when good enough is good enough--and for a girl that's graduating in not so many days, I've got to figure it out sooner than later.

Anyway, I just needed to get that out. Hopefully after class today I'll have a better sense of what NEEDS to be done and what I can continue to tweak long after the semester comes to a close...

Quick Question about Forms...

Okay, so after this week's class (and some playing around), I've created and linked a form for my final project to my website. That said, at the end of last week's class, Jim was talking about linking your form to a database so as to collect the information that you're soliciting from your users. Now it only makes sense that this is something we'd want to do, considering that the only reason to ask someone to fill out a form is to use the information they provide for something--unless you just like to make people fill out useless data, in which case, you're in business! So anyway, I'm wondering how we actually do that. Should we know already or will we cover this more later? I'm just throwing this out there and if anyone has any ideas, I'd love for you to share them. Also, since my form isn't currently connected to any database, where exactly does the information that you submit go? Hmm...

And all of a sudden, it's come together...

Over the course of the semester I've posted about how I thought I was understanding things in class and how frustrated I was when I realized that in the comfort of my own home/office/futon I couldn't for the life of me make what I thought I'd learned work. Well, within the past two weeks, something has clicked. All of a sudden my mental block has evaporated. I see clearly, I link style sheets with ease, and I've been able to apply what I've learned at my job. Can you believe it? I'm actually the resident web design expert at my internship (okay, not Study Abroad...we've got professionals over there, but at the College Learning Center). I realize that it might sound crazy--I've been enrolled in a web design class for what, 9 weeks now and I'm the resident expert? Well let me tell you, when you have a staff of 3 and two of them don't know the first thing about creating a webpage, you're in business! So, I took it upon myself to create some (simple) style sheets and post the tutoring schedule at the CLC online for all students to access. This online posting had originally been done by someone in the advising center (and we hadn't had access to our own website...ahhh the bureaucracy...) but since his departure, we've finangled our way to the World Wide Web. Anyway, enough back story, as of Friday, March 31 (I'll document it because it's quite a momentous occasion) I have created my first functional website for all the world to view. I am especially proud because, not only is this one actual and useful, but I used a lot of the skills that we've discussed in class. In addition to using style sheets, I created a table, linked several different pages within the site, and manipulated the links so that they would appear on the actual CAS Learning Center site (while we've managed to get our hands on the schedule sites, we can't actually make any changes on the main CLC site. Baby steps people, baby steps.) To top it off, as I was creating the site, I was considering many of the cognitive load theories that we've discussed in class. I realized how important it was to make the site dynamic by allowing students to select a specific topic rather than only allowing them to view the entire schedule. I created a table because it allowed the information to be orderly, and I relied on style sheets to make the pages consistent.

In my excitement to create the page, there are some things that I overlooked and that I'll have to go back and improve. For example, I didn't create a link back to the index page from each of the subject specific pages and as a result, the user has to rely on the browser's navigational tools rather than internal links. Additionally, I hadn't taken into account the way that different browsers would present the information and, while I probably won't make any changes at this point in the game, it's interesting to see how different something as simple as a table appears in Firefox versus Internet Explorer (neither of which look like the Dreamweaver view).

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the practical application of the skills that I've developed so far. Don't get me wrong, the site that I've created for the CLC is super simple and could be taken much further, but the fact that I'm able to see what to do next, identify how to improve the work, and understand how and why what I do in Dreamweaver is represented online is very satisfying. Woo!