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Follow this link to see the final website that I designed for Spaceforyourself.com on behalf of the client - Clare Byrne.
Major Project Proposal
12 - End of 511 ↑This has been one crazy week that I will be glad that will be over, I have continued working on the Space for Yourself Website for the wednesday deadline, but what was more important this week was to get stuck into my Major Project Proposal (MPP) that is due in on the 9th January 10:00am. For the MPP we have to write a proposal of 1,000 words, and we have to include our branding for our Major Project. Create Wireframes and Sitemaps, present our research, and produce a Gantt Chart. Also for our branding we have to create a Mood Board, something I never heard of before but I'll have read over CSS Artistry for some guidance.
Step by Step Guide
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Chris and Nick ask us to create some wireframes and site-maps, and they showed us some examples. One of the examples was a frame by frame sequence or storyboard, and as my Major Project was an iPhone Application I felt that I could create a step by step guide that will highlight the layout, the functionality of the application. I create a lot of wireframes (15 in all), with a basic lay out of the application would work. I used the iPhone PSD Vector kit from Smashing Magazine, and the iPhone GUI that I had downloaded from previous weeks research. With each step, I have written an explanation of what's going on in each screen. Unfortunately, I couldn't upload the PDF of the guide as it was much too big for the web, so I have added in some screenshots below. This process really got me thinking of how I wanted the app to look like and the users experience. Also allowed to think of programming issues I may, such as offline storage, and file sizes could slow down the app's performance.
Browser Testing
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As it's the last week, it was time for some tidying up, so I did some browser testing, and I tested my blog on the following browsers:
- Firefox
- Safari
- Opera
- IE 7
- IE 6
I had some problems but that many and I was able to fix most of the errors although, the site breaks a wee bit in Opera as the footers' background color doesn't cover the top of the footer between the grass, and unfortunately no Conditional Comments for Opera. sIFR also breaks in Opera, as the transparent background behind the font is not supported, and displays a white background instead. In IE 6, my twitter bird and follow me image doesn't appear. But from them small errors, the rest of the site functions just as it was designed.
Self Promotion Techniques
12 - End of 511 ↑In the lecture Chris and Nick discussed Self Promotion techniques, such as business cards, stickers, buttons, pens and pencils. I really liked how Chris put it simply as:
People like to collect things...
Source - Chris Murphy
Although I originally didn't get what Chris meant, but thinking it over putting myself in other shoes, if I paid for something to find that I got free Pencil, with my name on it I would think this is class. It would also give me good sense of the company as they took the time to do this for me at no extra cost. Leaving me with a much better and happier experience with that company. These are the touchpoints I want to look at for my Major Project.
On another note of Self Promotion, this week I setup Performa Sports twitter page, and you can follow the latest developments of my Major Project on twitter. I am also planning to create a launch page (coming soon), with the twitter integrated to keep all visitors as up-to-date as possible.
FOWD London
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I am really happy to finally get myself a student pass, this time, for the Future of Web Design (FOWD) in London on the 30th April. There was a rush in the labs that day to get the tickets, and I believe there are a large number of IMDers heading over to the event. This is great for the class, and should be good opportunity to drink and network at the same time and for the first time.