Laura Rogers

Web Design Student
Millikin University

photo of Lorin Glazer
Laura Rogers

Learning Review

My USER knowledge has developed immensely. This is true in 2 cases. One with becoming more proficient with mac computers, because they were foreign to me, and one with learning about the Dreamweaver book. I have gotten very good with learning each chapter and using it with building websites. My user knowledge has become more than I expected.

My DESIGN knowledge is somewhat the same. I have learned how to fade an image to make it become a background image. I have learned how to manage tables well, but what I have not learned that I wish I would have is how to make a table look soft or make a page look catchy with flash media. This probably would have boosted my confidence when designing a layout.

My PROJECT DEVELOPMENT knowledge is very different from when the class first started. How I plan to make a page look and the time I put into thinking about the design and what colors blend best have changed a lot. I realize that font cannot look over sized on the page and the colors must look soft or that they blend well together. When developing ideas for a page layout, you must consider these things, and this has helped me very much with each project I've completed.

My TUTORING knowledge is hard to say. I haven't really had that much help with making pages, but from what I have seen others do, I have tried to imitate. I would have loved to talk one on one with other students and get some ideas from them, but then I felt bad always asking a hundred questions. I did my best at reading the book and figuring things out for myself, but I wanted to do so much more with a page and there just wasn't time. I wish I would have had a mac at home so I could work much longer on my projects, but what I got accomplished in class was good enough. All my projects had a purpose and meaning and the time I put into them reflected this.

Hands On Training Tutorial Responses

client case review

This is explaining the website in full detail and gives the reason for everything. We enjoyed making this page, and overcame some boundaries. We were trying to advance this site and make it look more professional, however when we did so, we failed and were not able to figure things out before the due date. I hope this explains everything we needed.

Election 2008 Informative Website
by Laura Rogers and Krista Jones

Title - Stars and Stripes Election 2008
Site Colors – Red, White, and Blue
Site URL - http://students.millikin.edu/~lmrogers/electionwebsite.html

We wanted to achieve an easy one stop information site where the campus and community can be informed of the happenings with the Presidential campaign.
We chose the colors we did obviously because they are patriotic. The title we gave the page clearly states where you have entered with a welcome overview as the first thing you will see.

The pages we offer on the side of the page are: When and Where to vote, Presidential candidates (clearly stating Republican and Democratic), Contact Info and Questions, and links. The user will always be able to return to home by simply clicking the home button.

When and Where to Vote

The intent, with the creation of this page, was to ensure that every user understood the age requirements of voting, and exactly where in their town the voting ballots are located. It is very basic and soon to be updated.

Presidential Candidates

This page is offering the user the chance to get to know the candidates on a very basic level. We know that it is hard to keep all of them straight and this offers an easy access to finding out who each individual is. Each name on this page is its own hyperlink and when clicked will take you out into the web to the official site of the person clicked. Also listed, in each category, is the political party they are affiliated with.

Contact Info and Questions

When the user comes to this page, they will get exactly what they expect; how to contact you both and questions they may have regarding the page as a whole. We will also include our e-mail addresses so if they have particular questions regarding the site layout, they may feel free to ask.

Links

We wanted to create a links page because we know they are so many other websites that are more professional looking and have lots of neat graphics and flash media that we simply didn’t know how to create. By giving the user other examples of election pages to view, we are letting them know if they haven’t found what they wanted exactly with our page, they may refer to others possibly covering other issues we have not mentioned.

We hope this to be of some assistance to curious onlookers concerning the presidential election and to satisfy all their needs however, our intent is to keep working on this page and updating the look and feel of it as we learn more. This is just an example of how to inform locals and the community of Millikin and help them to be aware and up to date with Election 2008.

Magazine Case Review

Our mayfly presentation was successful. We explained about the colors we chose, what we had in mind when we were designing the page and the links we included. Overall, we tried to keep the layout very simple because we wanted a less is more approach. We kept with the Mayfly colors and keep the white, gray, black, and red scheme. We gave an explanation about the intention of the site. We included a contact us page for more helpful info also. The submission info and the published examples were also so that the reader could be more informed. The art work we displayed on the page we altered and I think that was a wrong move. We realized that Lydia may not be completely happy about changing the artwork size, as some of our fellow students informed us. Another improvement to be made would be simply changing the text. We wanted it to look artsy but realize it may be a little difficult to read. If we were to also change the order form from the one we found for Brooks Books to one solely for the Mayfly website, we may simplify things for our users. They will not be confused by the two. Since our group was combined of the three of us who are maybe not as experienced as some of the other groups, the layout was generally simple and not as complex as other groups. None the less, we worked hard and diligently on the site, and put the time and thought in to small details. I feel our site was effective and with small improvements could be ready to go for viewers.

Chapter 10

missing

Chapter 8

Tables, was such a long chapter it felt like!! With creating our Web Resumes and now our MayFly project, we are always dealing with tables, and I already feel pretty efficiant with them. The first couple examples were pretty step by step and showed me things I had already begun exploring. Adding color to table is pretty easy as you simply fidget with the properties tool bar. I liked the format table tool because this is nice contrast for our example. I really liked the rounded-corner tables because this is what we just talked about in class yesterday. It gives a softer feel and depending on what the website is promoting can make all the difference. I enjoyed this chapter because of its importance and helpfulness especially with our current project.

Web Design
Links Page Critique

Krista's Bookmarks

The Orientation is lovely! When you first open her page the colors are rustic and remind you of Italy with the opening picture. She has easy to access links that take you down the page easily to the section you are interested in.

The Navigation is also easy because under each category are the listed websites that she recommends . She has easy to read descriptions on each website helping the viewer realize what they are going to be seeing.

She has done a wonderful job with this bookmarks case and I already want to go back to Italy just from looking at her site!

resume critique

http://www.eresumeiq.com/Kent-Jasperson.html

I love this resume because of it's simplicity, and still creativeness. It's easy to navigate and I think it is a fine example of a resume!

http://www.nelsonjobs.com/CareerCenter/ResumeBad.aspx

This gives a clear example and states everything wrong with this person's web resume. Picture, and too much personal info are just two examples of what not to do.

Review of Bookmarks

Krista's Bookmarks Project.

She has clearly organized all her websites into the proper categories which will aid the viewer in the right direction. The pictures are also an eye attention grabber that make this dummy proof to navigate.
She has done a wonderful job with this bookmarks case and I already want to go back to Italy just from looking at her site!

My bookmark page

Chapter 7

Well my initial feeling on this chapter was not too difficult. I'm feeling very comfortable with the fonts, styles, and pixels. The property inspector is becoming second hand. Although something I don't understand, is why size 10 and 12 font is recommended for normal font size, when on the web it appears so small. I think 14 and 16 are very comfortable for the eye, but that is just my personal preference. Something that bothered me was changing the css rule .style1 because manually going in and changing something is just room for error with me. I am afraid I am missing a space, or a dot, or something minuscule. However, this is the only way to alter this and therefor is necessary. Most after this was pretty much step by step basic as the book shows. Flash text was neat and interesting to learn about because it is very popular in websites these days. I am very anxious to start chapter 8 even though I am beginning to feel very natural with tables. We'll see what happens.

Chapter 6

In this chapter I felt very frustrated with CSS. I know this is a common response from most of us but the step by steps that seemed so simple in other chapters, were not so simple in this. It took me a while just to figure out that CSS meant every style of the webpage is in code under the CSS styles category in dreamweaver. While completing this chapter I was so confused by this and was hoping for a more clearer definition. In class we discussed embedded and external, and while I am still a little fuzzy I think I understand better. Embedded is what our index.html pages are because the styles are only applied to the page itself, until we make it external with just a simple click of a button, we cannot duplicate the same styles without recreating the process all over again? That sounds rough and maybe that is because I understand it roughly, but I am hoping I am making progress with this definition.

Also, something that sounds so simple has become so hard to figure out. You are supposed to make colors for the background, the text, the links, the used links, and rollover links but I have found it so hard to keep all the colors straight and readable. It's like I need a preview button before I make it happen. I hate choosing colors for this reason and I might decide to always make a background white and the print black. Other than that, the issues were minor and I hope in chapter 7 it is not so complicated! I want to get this CSS thing down!

A Favorite Website:

Web Address: http://www.Facebook.com
My favorite website plain and simple is www.Facebook.com it's simple and easy and fun to use!

Ok this might sound a little goofy but http://www.mcdonalds.com is a very interesting website for a couple features. I stumbled upon it one day and found it so interesting. This is another website that I like to fool around with.

"Site Analysis"

My Site Analysis is of mcdonalds.com. Now I know this sounds kinda weird but this is a really interesting site!

First of all The Orientation: is immediately directing you to pick the country you live in so it can take you there. I found all different kinds of McDonald's offer all different kinds of food! It's not just one McDonald's, one menu! You automatically know what's going on because of the most recognizable emblem in the world, the golden arches!

The Navigation: is easily recognizable because of the links that are straight forward and take you where you need to be. You always know you're in the McDonald's website unless it specifically says, you are about to leave the secured website or something along that line. This I have found when I wanted to go to the China McDonald's website.

The Interactivity: I love this feature in particular for one reason. You can bag a meal. This simply means you select from their menu items that you would normally eat in one meal setting, or whatever you choose to buy. It will then make the sound once you've clicked it that it has entered the paper bag and when ever you are done selecting items, it will give you the complete nutrition analysis for the meal you just bagged. I found this to be amazingly helpful as it gives fat content, calories..ect. This is important also because over the years McDonald's has been increasing their healthy menu and giving the consumers the smarter decisions if they choose.

I would poke around on this website for some good ideas to maybe think about when managing our own websites!

Chapter 5

My thoughts on Chapter 5 were very positive as I was doing this chapter. The creating anchors was really neat and handy since I've not known how to do that. In my bookmarks case I didn't know how to do that so maybe now I'll see if I can't make my page more user friendly. Creating Email links was also very handy because this is a took so commonly used. Not really much to say about this chapter because overall I didn't encounter any problems while working on this.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 mainly dealt with designing the web page welcome to teacloud. This creating the web page from scratch had many details to work with and it would take me a very long time to memorize these steps. Inserting text was very simple and just repetitious. I thought so far, this chapter had the easiest steps to follow and made the most sense yet. I loved creating links to the words I typed up at the top of the web page. That was so cool to see what I created and that it actually became a link.

Inserting meta tags is simply letting search engines know your site exists. This is really simple just to type in some words to link the website to. That's all really that there was to this chapter, and I found it simple and easy to navigate.

Chapter 3

I am doing this a little backwards, but in many ways, I find it easier to approach a response after I have completed the task. I read this chapter, but only after I actually worked it out in class on Tuesday. This way I now see what I have accomplished and I can relate to actually going through the motions with each exercise instead of reading a bunch of codes and trying to remember what I read the next day.

I'm finding now that this book is very easy to follow step by step for the most part, but again like I said, it is taking me extra long to figure out how to accomplish an exercise only becuase I am not fluent with mac's. I liked the activity when I created the Welcome to teacloud website. Only a few times I was lost becuase of something I just could not find easily, but I also think that I was overlooking details such as logo.png and index.htm. I need to remember to create new files and folders as I finish tasks. Again, when I am working with creating a site from scratch, there are minor details that I can overlook when I'm not completely focusing. Telling the local root folder for example where the chapter is or whatever, is something I have to constantly remind myself.

I hope as the chapters go on I become more fluent with the mac style and navigating this dreamweaver program. As of right now, I am still brand new and hoping to pick up more as the weeks go by. Chapter 3 was a great introductory chapter for my learning.

Chpaters 1 & 2

I am a music student, and I love how completely diverse this class is from anything I have ever taken at Millikin thus far.

This reading assignment was overwhelming and wordy is all I can think of how to describe it. There is absolutely no way I will ever be able to memorize letters that mean a thousand different things. I highlight major points that stick out to me, but this book will be next to me at all times ready to be read, and re-read, and then maybe read one more time. I will try and not get to caught up in the complex wordy explanations, but I do hate coming late into a class and playing catch up! Now I'm going to try and get on board with the rest of the class and see if I can't manage being a computer person for a semester. Speaking of computer people, I can't do mac's and I do not understand them in the least. I hope to further my knowledge of this foreign object and dig into the extensive HTML and DHTML world. These first two chapters were much like other's responses, but I will refer to them always and use them as guidelines. I hope chapter 3 serves me better. That is all!