Team Win!

Team Win: Louise 'the face' Evans
James 'cannibal' Cook
Lizzie 'madwomen' Mchugh
Ray 'Dr Dangerous' O'Brien
and myslef Steve 'the warrior' Woollard

Objective: Rescue workers from their murderous boss and form a union to ensure better pay and conditions for all. Um...not really, think ive been watching too much A-Team over the the party house!

We have been set the task of interviewing two project managers or eqivelant, to try comprehend the production process and then present the findings to the class. This is a quite a cool assignment as we get to go into the 'real world.' (Im scared thinking about it!)

Louise has got better contacts than Specsavers so she has set up a meeting with Ceri L Davies at the BBC. Ceri is executive producer for BBC Wales Education online so this should be a good chance to discover how the BBC machine works.

James has also suggested that all we go up to the Pop Factory and see how they make the TV show and other Pop realated stuff they do!

'Once you pop you can't stop!'

Late Night-Early Morning

Alrite?

Been working into the night on my site and started with a little bit of artwork, which will hopefully lead to the overall theme.

Tell me what you think?

Cheers
Steve - www.woolofsky.co.uk

Better out, than in...

Discussed the imminent arrival of the personal project with Wendy earlier. Told her that Lou and I are planning on a collaboration for the project because we believe we could have a more successful outcome if there were two of us working on it.

Wendy thought this is a good idea as often the best work is produces in collaboration, BUT we have to ensure that there is a clear line showing who-did-what.

Also, spoke to Stuart about my grades for the UCD module and overall I'm on for a B, (2.1 to a 1st) which I am pleased about really, but not going to stop until I get the big one!
Brief 1- C
Brief 2- B-
Presentation- A

Keep trucking...

Roots bloody roots

Another website which I have had the misfortune of analysing is Root Media.

This attempt at a flashy homepage falls short in everyway. Its visually uninteresting , usability is terrible, buttons move away from you when you rollover them, to name a fewof it many flaws!

If you would to read on about how bad this site is and learn not to do these things then here it is >
Root Media.co.uk Analysis


Also,

a few of us have been having a chat, and thought it would be cool to have a formal theme for our Christmas party. We were thinking 'suited and booted' for the boys and 'best party frocks' for you ladies. Does anyone else think this would be a good idea, or any other suggestions?

We just thought after months of wearing 'whatever was on the floor from the day before' it would be nice to dress up smart for a change. This doesn't apply to Stuart however who is always dressed to impress!

Anyway, it was just an idea.

Steve O

Production Processes

Today we started a new module, Production Processes. The first part of the brief asks us to analyse two websites of local multimedia agencies. To start I have choosen Mosleywebb and written an evaluation of their homepage. Found here> Mosleywebb.com Evaluation

The second site I will evaluate is Root Media. Hope you can join me for that.

It's my mums birthday tomorrow so I've gotta go back to see her.

Keep warm x

Not the Friday feeling...

Got up from my lonely bed to go to uni. Finding it really hard the moment to get up because it feels like everything I held dear has been lost. Sorry, to put you on a downer on a Friday but its just the way the land lies.

Anyway, Debbie's lecture was based around research and different forms of it. Notes will be posted asap for anyone who actually reads this.

Gonna make some Spanish chicken for my tea, hope it gets the bitter taste out of my mouth.

Be safe.

Black Wednesday

Well, for anyone who hasn't heard my girlfriend has left and gone back to Leeds. After a few months of her being really unhappy due to a luckless job search and not having her friends around, she has gone. The relationship is in limbo at the moment because we both want to be together but she couldn' hack it in Wales.

Now, I'm living on my own for the first time in my life. So please be patient with me if im snappy with you. Two years is a long time, unless your a neutron star, in which case its the 'bat- of- an- eye'.

Thanks

UCD Presentation

Presentation day today! I've worked really hard on this one, because I really wasn't content with the C grade I got last time. I'm usually quite good at presentations but for the last one I just went to pot!

Anyways here is the Powerpoint presentation : UCD Presentation

Afternoon, I stormed the presentation this morning and thought it went really well. I spoke clearly, didn't lose my place at all and answered all the questions everyone had.

Think Debbie really like the HTML user testing environment also.

Good job!

Few drinks tonight maybe :)

The 'Links' Effect

Got a new book today called "Web Design Portfolios" , and so far, its really good.

As a treat for you all I thought i'd put some of the best sites on here:

http://www.springdigital.co.uk/

http://www.wave-wheels.ch

http://www.comcastic.com/

http://www.3am-design.com/

http://www.808inc.com/

http://www.howdesign.com/

http://www.3rdedge.com/

http://www.417north.com/

http://www.777run.com/

http://www.aaronjasinski.com/

http://www.acht-frankfurt.de/

http://www.aeriform.co.uk/

More to come...

UCD Brief 2_Complete

All finished!
That was a bit of an ordeal actually. Just didn't seem to be able got get motivated because I believe this brief is one too many on this subject.

I used Nielsens DUE method to evaluate my prototype and have developed a hybrid. The changes I made were a result of the user evaluations and heuristic evaluation tests I devised.

You can take a look at the testing area I made here:
User Testing Area

Results showed that changes still had to be made and I have taken these on board with the redesign.


1. Online help/ getting started option.
2. Visual feedback when errors are made, not just sound feedback.

If you would like to read the report it is here : UCD Brief 2

Start planning the presentation now then...

UCD Brief 2

Today Debbie gave us our new brief, the 2nd in the UCD module .This time we have to use Neilsen's Discounted Usuability Engineering method to analyse how effective our re-designed protoypes have been. This is another 1000 word report, but we also have to present our findings to the class in the form of a public presentation.

To be honest I'm not really looking forward to starting this essay because I feel like it's already run it's course. We evaluate something - fair enough. We redesign to hopefully make it better -fine, but now we have to redesign the redesign. I think that if this was a website we were analysing and redesigning that would be acceptable, because we would learn skills the same time. However, we are not a product design course, and I believe this is a brief too far.

Steve

Design for Interaction Notes and Briefs Updated

Hello,
thought this might help someone.

Briefs and Lecture Notes
All notes and lectures from Debbie's Design for Interaction Module

Enjoy

UCD Brief 1_Complete

After beavering away and analyzing the problems of the Oregon alarm clock I have developed a low-fidelity prototype.
I used some of Norman and Faulkner's theories on usability and developed a design I believe would fit in well with the users mental model of the design.

On the left here is the new design and as you can see there have been quite a few changes. To read more into the redesign process and how I got there please read my evaluation.
User centered Design Brief 1

Soda-get busy with the fizzy!

Hello, today Matt Gould from sodaplay.com came into class to give us a little presentation. I was really impressed that the uni was able to get someone with so much experience and knowledge in this field. My last course wouldn't have been able to get the bloody cleaner to come in!

Matt discussed how the most prominent feature in soda's porfolio was just a trail and error piece from one of the designers. Now they have thousands of members and coupious images in their 'digital zoo'.

The soda constructor, the main aspect of the project is build with Java (not coffee beans or the island) and is so flexible and interactive that loads of people want to get involved.

If you have a spare couple of hours to spare have a go...

UCD Brief 1

Started the first brief in the User Centred Design module today. I've decided to enchace my alarm clock because I reviewed its faults in the previous module. The clock is easy to carry around, unusual and I think it would benifit greatly from a bit of usability TLC.

I will analyse the product firstly using congitive process theories and HCI models. Then, using the objective of "learn once - remember forever" I will redesign the product keeping the users mental model firmly in mind.