Website Games - Drawing

The actionscript was a lot more complicated for this game so I'm glad that I grasped the more basic scripting in my previous two games. I decided to add a drawing board onto the ICT section of the website as it will help to increase mouse accuracy skills in primary school children as well as being a bit of fun.

Website Games - Healthy Eating

Website Games - Environment

From the actionscript I created for my first attempt I was able to build the first of my games in full, I'm really pleased with the result. I realised when testing the game that I needed some sort of timer on the 'well done' message. The 'try again' message stays until the picture is moved and but the 'well done' message now only stays viewable for a few seconds.

Website Game - 1st attempt

I've always struggled with actionscript but I decided to create a few simple Flash games for my website. I think this will make the website far more interesting and appealling. This has also given me the chance to challenge myself even more with this website as I want it to be the best it can possibly. I started by getting some help with basic actionscripting from my tutor and fellow interactive student. This is my first attempt at a game.

Final Page Designs

I am really pleased with these designs, using my designs in Photoshop as a base I have started building my website using Dreamweaver. After discussion with my tutor I adjusted my design slightly; by moving the buttons slightly further down and to the left more room is created for the information and images and by lengthening the button bar under the header it becomes an underlining tool also and the page looks more structured.

Further Design Ideas

I got some great feedback from my tutor David and friend Camilla about my first website design. We discussed loads of different aspects of the design and just by changing small things such as the buttons it can make so much difference. I am so much happier with my designs now and am confident that these designs will work well for my website.

Website Design Idea

This is the first design idea for the homepage of my website, I do like it but I think it is too boring and lacks inspiration. I don't really like the background colour or the buttons so I think some playing about is needed with those. I do like the use of the colours from the logo for the buttons as this will make each section in the website clearly divided up. I like the header with the logo to the left and the size and font of the title, I think it needs to be separated from the main body of the page a bit more.

Site Map Changes

I received some really useful feedback during my proposal presentation. I discussed with my tutor David how the website would be better if it were less about a mass of information and more about the quality of the website. I have decided to adjust the site map as I think this will make the website far better. In the old site map the website contained three sections named foundation stage, key stage one, and key stage two, and then within each section having information on Literacy, Numeracy and ICT. In the new site map (please see below) the website will have just three sections named Literacy, Numeracy, and ICT, these sections will be less detatiled but will contain general information, hints and tips, and either links to games or an interactive game I have created myself. I would also like to make a Flash based game to be included in the PSHE section, such as a drag and drop recycling game. Time allowing, I would also like to have a healthy eating game and a interactive map fo the Newcastle section. I feel this will allow me to spend more time on the design and production of the website rather than taking a long time to source detailed information. The website will become far more interesting and will show the depth of my skills and knowledge in web design and interaction design.

Live Client Project Proposal Presentation

Project Proposal

The brief for this project was to produce a piece of multimedia for a ‘Live Client’. The client I will be working with is Gosforth Park First School in Newcastle upon Tyne, in particular, Head Teacher, Jini Sara. I have been asked to create a website for the school aimed at the parents of the primary school children. It is vital that primary school children have help available to them at home as well as school in order for them to get the most out their education. The problem that arises is that many parents and/or guardians are not aware of how they can help, the website I will be creating will help tackle this problem by giving parents easy access to information that can help them to help their children. By creating a website my audience will be able to access a wide range of information from one site rather than having to trawl the Internet for various topics. A website is also accessible at any time which is useful as many parents have difficult working hours which can be a problem if they are unable to communicate with the school on a regular basis.

The concept for my project is to help parents learn about how to help their children in an interesting way. A website is an effective way to accomplish this as the parent can navigate around the site themselves, look at the different areas in their own time, find useful tips and gain confidence in helping their children to learn at home. A website could be accessed from the home or workplace which makes it accessible to the majority of parents and/or guardians.

The main advantage the school will gain from this website is the ability to target all parents to help children with learning especially parents who are not available on a daily basis who would find another way of communication very helpful. The school has informed me that the vast majority of the families involved with the school have their own computers at home which makes the website even more accessible. The website will not only focus on the main subjects of Literacy, Numeracy, and ICT but also other areas of education such as healthy eating and recycling schemes. It is very important that the information given is accurate, for example I would like to include tips on guided reading and I will find this information out first hand from teachers and classroom assistants who spend a lot of their time doing this. The site will also include useful information and links to adult learning, as well as contact information for local child minding services and medical centres. I would also like to include an ‘ideas for the weekend’ section which would give parents information about days out in the city and surrounding areas which may include links to museums and art galleries. It would also be useful for the website to contain links to online games and websites that parents can access with their children to encourage a fun way of learning together.

The website will be easy to navigate around as my target audience will have a variety of differing computer abilities and it will ideally be accessible to everyone. Continuity is important in the colours so that the audience can quickly grasp which colour will take you where, the school I am working with has an existing logo which includes a rainbow, I plan to use this as the base for my colour scheme, possibly for colour coding different sections, this will not only personalise the website to the school but also make navigation of the website simpler for the user. The school would like the website to be quite visual, not too many long paragraphs of information, keeping information sharp and to the point, it was suggested to display information in bullet points which could work well and break up the information effectively.

There will be three main areas for the curriculum subjects on the website, these are; foundation, key stage one and key stage two. It is important to make these sections clearly divided as information for a parent of a key stage two child, aged between eight and eleven years old, would be useless to a parent of a foundation stage child, aged four of five years old. I will be gathering the information from websites, schools, and educational specialists. To make the website accessible to everyone I must be careful not to use too much ‘jargon’ such as educational terms that not many people will understand. Although I have been asked to gather my own information for the website I have been informed the school will be on hand for any areas where I may struggle and I will always double-check it with the school before committing it to the site as I want all my information to be correct and accurate, if it is not the site becomes useless.

Ideally I would like this project to be completed by the end of March in order to be able to submit the finished product to the school before the beginning of Easter holidays, this will also allow me time to concentrate fully on completing the evaluation stage of the project. I have divided up my time effectively for the design and production of this website. I have allowed time for testing of the site and also extra time in case any unforeseen problems arise. I am hoping to have a working version of the website completed in time for the second meeting with my client towards the end of February/ beginning of March. The more I am able to show the client the more feedback I will be able to gather for final alterations to the site. Although only three meetings are required with my client during this project, I plan to keep in regular contact via phone and email throughout the production of the website in order to create the best product to meet the client’s requirements.

Production Plan

Site Map

This is the proposed site map for the website I am creating for the client project. It is more complicated than any other websites I have produced in the past but I am confident that I will be able to do it and possibly even add in some more pages further down the line.

Meeting With Client

I had my first official meeting with my client today and it went really well. We talked about what she hopes to gain from the website I will be creating and the different requirements she has. The website has become larger than I initially anticipated as my client would like it to not only contain information on the main curriculum subject but also information about adult learning, things to do in Newcastle, and PSHE topics such as healthy eating and helping the environment. I think this will make the website better, it will be more challenging to create as I also have to gather my own information but overall the website will become more useful and interesting. I am starting to put together my proposal, time plan and site map and this is making it a lot clearer in my own mind what exactly I'm going to be doing over the coming months and also where to start.

Evaluation

I started work on this project straight away after being given the brief; this made me more confident at the start about what I was going to be doing and how I was going to do it. I defined a clear objective from the beginning and because of this I was able to organize my time effectively for the production of the product.

The website I created was kept simple but not plain in design. After looking at other websites I decided that colour coding would be a good way to make the website easy to navigate round for young children. Each button that linked to another page was a different colour that matched the colour of a picture that represented the topic without words. I felt this was an important aspect to the website because it makes the website accessible to the young target audience I was aiming for.

In the website I used bold and bright colours to attract attention, large text that is easy to read, and big images that clearly represent the topic of each page. There is a clear sense of continuity throughout the web pages which important so the children know they are staying on the same website and have not accidentally navigated away.

Throughout the production of the website I received peer feedback and made adjustments to design and function, for example I added a simple logo to the pages which doubled up as a second homepage button which made the navigation even simpler. If I had more time I would have liked to test my website on my target audience but as I found out that primary school children are a vulnerable age group I would have needed permission from both the schools and parents and this was not feasible in the time frame given.

Overall I am very pleased with the product I have produced to fulfill the brief given. I feel that it is an effective use of multimedia to support a public information campaign about climate change. I would have liked to make the site slightly more interactive but due to a lack of skills in that area it was not possible in the time given. The website could easily be used in schools as it complies with the key stage one national curriculum, at the same time it is not too complicated for a child to use at home. I am hoping to continue with this website in my own time to experiment and possibly add more interactive elements.

Adjustment

I decided to make the pictures on the homepage, that are colour coded to the buttons alongside, alson link to the appropriate paes as this will make the website even easier to use and navigate around.

Final Page Designs

I'm really pleased with these designs, the site is easy to use and not too overcrowded. The pages have a good sense on continuity between them and are kept simple. The large writing and colour coding makes it suitable for the young target audience.

Live Client Project

When we were first told about the live stage of the client project I was really anxious as I didn't have a clue where to start looking for a client. I am also not very confident in my abilities as a multimedia designer so I was concerned about finding a client and letting them down along the way by not meeting their expectations. I recently spoke to Deborah about this and she made me feel so much better about it and together we came up with the idea of asking a head teacher in Newcastle, whom I had worked with over the summer, to be my client. I decided I would really like to design a website for the parents of primary school children to help them help their children outside of school and when I spoke to the head teacher about she was very excited by this idea. It turns out that there is a lack of information available to parents to guide them through helping at home, especially for parents of children with special needs. I am now really looking forward to starting the next stage of the client project and also feeling a lot more confident rather than dreading it.

Further design adjustments

I adjusted my original home button slightly so it would tie in better with the other buttons, i did this by adding a layer of yellow under the picture.



I think adding this simple logo to the all the pages apart from the homepage would increase the sense of continuity through the site. I then decide that this button should also link to the homepage as some children may be click on this one rather than the home button at the bottom of the page and this way they can use either option.

Design adjustments

I decided the title on the homepage didn't really tie in very well with the rest of the homepage or the other pages so i thought putting it in it's own box similar to the buttons would make it look better. I also thought the other titles would look better if they looked like larger versions of the buttons they had linked from.

The background on my pages seemed a bit too simplistic and plain so I decided to add a series of footprints across the page.

Website design

I have started to design and create my website and it's going pretty well. I have decided to use bold bright colours and a colour coding system for the buttons. Here are the mock ups of the first couple of pages.