Drew Says Relax

First of all I’ll just say sorry to fans of my work for this late entry, I’ve been off track with it being half term.

There isn’t very much to report I’m afraid, the half term meant that I had Wednesday free as I wasn’t attending college but the rest of the week I was working so it wasn’t exactly a major holiday for me. (Drew complains that he has a job… again)

This is a busy time of year for birthdays for me so I have felt like a bit of a factory producing birthday cards for my friends. I can never decided if its because I like the praise I get on having made a card, an opportunity to steal the limelight, or if I’m just too cheap to pay £2 to buy a card. Either way I enjoy drawing so it’s a good thing.

I haven’t had much to do with website design; I did have a look at the website for my dads company which he has been asking my opinion on. I don’t think I’m quite at this level yet http://www.teigreens.com/ Grass Roots Computing is slightly less in your face without all the flashy bits.

I generally, on Wed, did some relaxing and started playing around with my site, beginning to make the changes that were outlined in my user feedback tests.

Speed Data... ing

This week at college was our user test for our website so far. I thought that I was going to struggle to get this done on time and even thought there was a possibility at one point that I wouldn’t have all my pages done.

However with a good long session on Tuesday and some MSN help from Dreamweaver Dr Dean I managed to get it done.

I was quite nervous about showing it to everyone as I have spent too long looking at it and playing around with the site. It has got to the point now where I find it hard to be objective.

The way in which were to assess each others site was to produce a questionnaire and have it ready for Wed, we would then leave a stack at our computer where we would open up our web page.

This was a task in itself I hadn’t successfully been able to upload my site to the web and so I had to show my site off the USB stick. This was a bit of a disappointment as I think everyone else was running theirs from the web.

So we all stood up and moved to the computer to our right, looked over the site and completed a questionnaire, very much like speed dating.

We then got to read through our questionnaires and collate all the information we had gathered.

I was pleased to find that my peers had liked my site and felt it was of a good standard, this was really reassuring.

Some of the concerns I had had about the site were whether I should have an image for each category on the site and the way in which I had laid out the information. On my site I have mixed in the images and text together. I could see most people had formatted there site to have images on a column on the left and all the images parallel on an equally sized column on the right. This was a way I felt, when building my webpage, that I should have done it too.

The feed back I received was mixed and six people commented that I should have formatted my site in this way and six people commented that it should stay the same. The was the main point that was raised with my sight and one that I will consider.

In the afternoon we then got on with our assignments and making any changes.

Overall I came away from the session very happy with the work I have produced and I’m looking forward now to my week off.

My site has made it onto the internet now so check it out in case you didn’t get enough before. www.drewellis.co.uk

Don't chat about what you don't know!

This week had a different feel to for me. During the week I had received an email from Steve saying that the group who had attended the Design Mechanics were to give a presentation first thing on Wednesday.

At the time of the visit we were told this would be the case, but to be honest, I’d forgotten.

This resulted in many emails going backwards and forwards between the four of us; Ben, Craig A, Craig B and me.

Eventually we decided on a format and who would discuss which points. We never got chance to rehearse our presentation so I was quite pleased when it all went quite well. Apart from a few of us stepping on each others toes regarding our subject matter… sorry Craig B. It seemed much easier talking about a subject that was of my own experience.

So that went well and we got quite a good response from the rest of the group. This made me feel great that I hadn’t been too nervous and much more confident in my presentation skills.

We then had a task in our groups to talk about what questions we will have on our user test questionnaires.

The 3 Amigos (me and the HNC group) decided it was best practice to ask open ended questions that began with; How, Where, When, Who, What or Why.

It became quite a hot topic for debate when it came to the big reveal and everyone was putting there proposed questions on the big screen. It turns out that we should aim for a medium of Qualitative and Quantative questions. I felt that this was great that as a great we were able to have a discussion like this without it getting petty and immature.

Following this we were then given a lecture on how to build a Form page on Dreamweaver. This was really interesting and Steve made it look quite simple and straight forward, later blog entries may reveal that I have changed my opinion so don’t hold me to it.

In the afternoon, after lunch, we worked on our projects. I always appreciate this opportunity as it gives us chance to see where everyone is up to and get advise and opinions from each other.

I this week got some help from Dean as usual but also Ben and Craig A lent a hand. I ironed out some problems I was having and I now have my home page finished so please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

www.drewellis.co.uk/index5.html

That concludes this weeks broadcast presentation.

Capital Drew

This week was the week we made our group trip down south to London. I had been really looking forward to the trip as I really enjoy London as a city getting around on the underground all the big landmarks and places to go and things to do.

Unfortunately the reason that we were going; to visit the Tate Modern, was not a success as when we arrived we found that the exhibitions were all closed. This was a big disappointment for everyone.

The exhibitions that were on looked really interesting which was like a double blow as I have visited the gallery twice before and the exhibitions had never been oh as much interest as these.

However we had the opportunity to go on the big slide which was great fun, I’m not sure I would call that art but then we are all entitled to our own opinion. What I would suggest is that the artist try to make the ride a little bit smoother, I felt like I’d been gone down a flight of stairs rather than a slide.

In the afternoon we did our own thing so being the expert on London, having visited twice in the past two years, I set off with most of the class in behind and took us round So Ho and then with a happy accident to Oxford Street. Once there I was straight into the shops so most of the others hit the pubs.

Later on after the shopping we met in the pub and decided we would try and go to Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden but after a long walk round the block trying to find the tube we decided to split up as there wasn’t much time. Again we found ourselves in Covent Garden which was lucky.

Overall I did really enjoy the trip unfortunately though I didn’t get much culture or shopping but then you can’t have everything. At least it was a good bonding experience for the group.