Evaluation

Evaluation:

I started my optional module by analysis and critique of my former website, so that I could make a completely new one, that I felt would be more fitting and more importantly would be easier to use. When I made my old website, I was learning the basics as I created, as a result, it took a long time to load (because it was made of lots of jpegs layered up), it deflected attention away from my work and because the jpegs were just layered, on different computer screens they appeared in different places.

So, I looked at a range of website that I felt worked well (such as drawn.ca, timfraserbrown.com) and took advice from them.

To make things easier I learnt how to manipulate images in batch in photoshop, and how to properly optimise images ready for wed, so that this time they wouldn’t take so long to load. I also found somewhere new to store my files on the net, as my old server began placing adds on my site!

I learnt how to create animated gifs in photoshop and imageready, something that I have used since to ‘advertise’ my site, on my various other web pages.

From looking at other sites, I decided to have a pretty neutral aesthetic to my site, and a navigation area that remained constant throughout. The idea of a constant design made my site, I worked on the basis of shapes and how the pages looked going from one to another so that it was easier to read. I also found the scrolling on my last webpage a pain, so I kept my site small, so there was no vertical scroll and on most computers there should be no horizontal scroll either.

I added a hit counter on my splash page because I realised it was difficult to know if any of the things I was adding were working to get more traffic, e.g. my links.

During the course I also learnt how to create hotspots in dreamweaver, which I didn’t know before and although I haven’t used this in the sites I have created it could be useful in the future.

This time I looked at CSS codes, which I used more in the website I created for someone else. I found this made things a lot easier, to create a common aesthetic between the pages.

I also have gotten a lot used to using the coding and understanding it, I think that without this I would have found the CSS completely baffling. It also made it easier to differentiate between elements in the html area, so that I could copy and past codes into different pages.

In my gallery, I decided to have it so you only have to click on the thumbnails to see them in the bigger screen instead of previously when I only knew how to make a rollover one. This time I have also (for very detailed images) made it so if you double click on the thumbnail they appear very large in a new browser.
I also learnt how to create a scrolling news box! This took quite a while but it is easy now I know. This also helps to keep my page scroll free, and keep text to the relevant only.

I then made a site for someone else. In comparison to mine, I made the basic page in photoshop. I found it difficult sometimes creating something for someone else (who didn’t know a lot about web) because they wanted things that would be difficult to do and perhaps frustrating in a site, in the end I just had to learn to do it because it wasn’t my decision to make, I do like the site though! And of course I got a link to my site on it.


All in all i have become more familiar with web building, and feel much more fluent in coding and problem solving. I found my new site much easier to work with, i have been updating it with new work that i create and am finding it simple to do so.

I have other sites (e.g. flickr) that showcase my day to day work, i feel that this is more of a portfolio of selected work, that i can show people should i need to, to get a feel of it. I think my site will be easy to maintain and easy to change, as my work progresses, i think it will be invaluable in the future!

gif

I made a gif to advertise my site, and act as a kind of 'button' to my site, when i put it up in different places.

For some reason blogger wont let me upload images and things today.

Scrollable navigation bar

So i have seen a lot of websites that create their navigation bar by having a scrollable section to the left. I like this idea because it basically links to one page, so you can update, add new pages, change it around really quickly and easily, and means that if your list goes on a bit, the whole page doesn't have to.

I've also had a play around with some CSS, I am however unsure how you can split things into seperate areas, whether that is just positioning of tables or what?

outside links...

From creating Josh's site, he asked to have a link to my site on his 'friends' page, he has also got a few links to his, so i might gain a bit of traffic this way too.

links

using this code:

p align="center"a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmVsZWFub3J3b29kYnVybi5jby51aw"==" target="_blank"My Website.(CLICK)/a/p

i have been able to make a link to my site to post on different pages,

My Website.(CLICK)

i have added it to my myspace to gain a little more traffic.

Linking my website.

I have added a visitor counter to my website, so i can check how many people have visited my site. I got the free counter off a website, then just pasted the code into the indx page. They wanted to link it to their site, but i got rid of that code too, sneaky!

nearly finished second site

After a LOT of work today and yesterday, I have nearly completed Josh's site, save for a few lumps of text here and there.

It works a bit differently to mine, which is to be expected as it isn't my site! Josh wanted all of the images to be quite small and sporadically spaced around the page. He wanted them to all work so that once you click on them the much larger version appears, so this is what i did for all of them, which was pretty annoying for me, but you know.

For the videos section this is also how i made it. On the main page there are stills of each film and the title to the left of it. When clicked on they appear in a new to fit browser and play .

This website, like mine does have the navigation bar that stays the same, but unlike me the page is actually quite big, so might not fit all size screens, i don't really like this in websites and find it irritating having to scroll when unnecessary, but Josh wanted it to work like this.

I do like the site a lot though, i think the design works nicely with the images, and learning a bit of css has made editing text much quicker. I think it has also opened my eyes up about creating things for other people, i found some of the choices a bit frustrating, but in the end it wasn't my site and i was creating it for someone else who had their vision of what they want it to looks like, i guess i just had to alter my priorities a bit.

here it is: www.josharmitage.co.uk