This week has just been a flurry of surprises. Tons of coding to do and now I've also got to learn ASP Server Protocol or whatever it is so I can hook up this psuedo CMS thing. I'm pretty nervous and I also feel like I'm not able to efficiently spread the world load out since I'm the only one who knows how to code at the level that is required at this point.
Kristoffer was really helpful in working with me on a way that I could have Barbara contribute to making my coding go faster. The Word document that Barbara created for me has been really helpful.
Unfortunately, the photos didn't go over quite as well as we liked. Now we need to revisit four... I am so sick of this photo stuff!!! It seems like all of a sudden at the project the client has become a total photo critic. I think it's because we've let them loose on it without clearly articulating our reasoning behind each photo. I knew it was a better idea to include a full copy-supported .pdf! Oh well, live and learn.
Code Code Code. That's the only mode. Yeah... I've got to manage client expectations, orchestrate group involvement, and craft a client manual. Yeah, that too...
I can do it.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Week_013
Pictures Pictures Pictures. They are taking way more time and effort than I thought. Fortunately Barbara and Amy will be on should get some stuff done.
Unfortunately, I won't be able to get much work on coding done this week with my Human Factors final coming up. I have a lot to do on that and with just one class left it is my priority now.
Our meeting with HACER went well this week. We got some good feedback on pictures for which Ivona made a nice print-out for us all to talk about. I'm a little frustrated that Barbara still hasn't come up with clear copy for the home page as I have asked, but whatever... At this point I just want to be done. It's another website and there's a lot of coding to be done. I wish I could sit down for 4 days straight and just do it.
We took some time and got the client manual organized in our heads as a group. These group meetings where we talk through everything together seems to be a powerful tool for everyone getting things done. I'll have to work on doing this more often.
Unfortunately, I won't be able to get much work on coding done this week with my Human Factors final coming up. I have a lot to do on that and with just one class left it is my priority now.
Our meeting with HACER went well this week. We got some good feedback on pictures for which Ivona made a nice print-out for us all to talk about. I'm a little frustrated that Barbara still hasn't come up with clear copy for the home page as I have asked, but whatever... At this point I just want to be done. It's another website and there's a lot of coding to be done. I wish I could sit down for 4 days straight and just do it.
We took some time and got the client manual organized in our heads as a group. These group meetings where we talk through everything together seems to be a powerful tool for everyone getting things done. I'll have to work on doing this more often.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Week_012
Think I'm still on track with the weeks... I hope.
Just picked up some new content from HACER. Haven't had a chance to look at it yet because I've got a million and five other things to do, but I have confidence that Alyssa has things under control. They really have been good clients.
I've been coding coding and have all the pages but Contact and the individual Publications pages finished. My goal is to be done by Monday. It's gonna be hard work, but I can do it!
Saw Jeff Coffey last night at the Ignite Minneapolis / MIMA Spring Social and talked about how much his UCON class a year ago has helped me since. It's serious been one of the most practically useful classes I've taken. Learning about web design workflow and all involved was a really good primer for this challenge. It has allowed me to attempt to focus more on my skills as a leader and project manager than at trying to learn how to design, text, and develop a site. I can already think as a web person, but I've been trying to expand my thought process as a leader.
I've been trying really hard. Is it working? Maybe? Amy has become very motivated, but whether it is partly because of my input is debatable. I think she is just a hard worker and cares. I'm not exactly sure how to approach engaging Barbara at this point. I feel like she wants to do well, but is too distracted by other things in her life to really immerse herself in the project. Ivona has been taking some great pictures lately, so I just hope that she is enjoying what she is doing. I do wish I was getting larger amounts of results, but I can tell she is trying. I don't always get decent feedback when I ask about how things are going for everyone. Maybe I should start reading their blogs for clues... Duh! Why didn't I think of that before?
Conclusions:
> Read group member's blogs for insight into how to bring their interests into the project.
> Get the Vis. program to develop a system of pre-recs.
Just picked up some new content from HACER. Haven't had a chance to look at it yet because I've got a million and five other things to do, but I have confidence that Alyssa has things under control. They really have been good clients.
I've been coding coding and have all the pages but Contact and the individual Publications pages finished. My goal is to be done by Monday. It's gonna be hard work, but I can do it!
Saw Jeff Coffey last night at the Ignite Minneapolis / MIMA Spring Social and talked about how much his UCON class a year ago has helped me since. It's serious been one of the most practically useful classes I've taken. Learning about web design workflow and all involved was a really good primer for this challenge. It has allowed me to attempt to focus more on my skills as a leader and project manager than at trying to learn how to design, text, and develop a site. I can already think as a web person, but I've been trying to expand my thought process as a leader.
I've been trying really hard. Is it working? Maybe? Amy has become very motivated, but whether it is partly because of my input is debatable. I think she is just a hard worker and cares. I'm not exactly sure how to approach engaging Barbara at this point. I feel like she wants to do well, but is too distracted by other things in her life to really immerse herself in the project. Ivona has been taking some great pictures lately, so I just hope that she is enjoying what she is doing. I do wish I was getting larger amounts of results, but I can tell she is trying. I don't always get decent feedback when I ask about how things are going for everyone. Maybe I should start reading their blogs for clues... Duh! Why didn't I think of that before?
Conclusions:
> Read group member's blogs for insight into how to bring their interests into the project.
> Get the Vis. program to develop a system of pre-recs.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Week_011
Wow... I feel like I've been in a total whirlwind. I went home again this weekend to see my family for Easter. All this driving around is confusing me. Oh well. I'm good at adaptation.
Website click-through prototype is a GREEN for tomorrow's class presentation. No Ivona at the meeting today. I'm a bit disapointed with the progress on her picture choices... I've been asking for testing of pictures and multiple choices for two weeks now, but I've only seen one option and no testing or reasoning behind the choices. Not to mention that the pictures were not sourced from iStockPhoto as we established needed to be done.
That on top of Barbara being MIA in Brazil with very little communication for the last two weeks has put us a little behind schedule in terms of testing and content organization. I'm a little worried.
At least Project Tracking has gotten us started on the client manual with the accumulation of the all documents for our Project Plan last week. It's pretty chunky at 11 pages. I'm proud!
On a positive note, Amy has been super helpful and is doing an excellent job at user testing. Go Amy!
As for myself, I've been working on design prototypes and thinking about how the end of the project will progress. I still don't feel like I've been able to find a viable niche for Ivona to thrive. I wish I could figure out what she could get really excited about in this project... Barbara is really good at copy writing, but I get the feeling that's not what she's really excited about. Hopefully I can find a way to involve her in the design of the final client manual. I bet she'd provide some interesting insight on that.
As a leader I end up being a little disapointed in myself sometimes since I am not always the most efficient about getting everything that is on my mind communicated effectively to the group. I see the big picture of the project because I have done this before and I end up talking with all the group members individually, so I know everything that is going on. However, a lot of times everyone goes off and does their thing for the week, and then there is no time to debrief what has been done for the previous week, as we dive into work for the next week. I've been trying to do a better job of keeping everyone on the same page by doing different things with everyone involved as a group. This seems to help along with just asking general questions to make sure everyone is together.
I'm working on becoming a better facilitator. It's not easy...
Website click-through prototype is a GREEN for tomorrow's class presentation. No Ivona at the meeting today. I'm a bit disapointed with the progress on her picture choices... I've been asking for testing of pictures and multiple choices for two weeks now, but I've only seen one option and no testing or reasoning behind the choices. Not to mention that the pictures were not sourced from iStockPhoto as we established needed to be done.
That on top of Barbara being MIA in Brazil with very little communication for the last two weeks has put us a little behind schedule in terms of testing and content organization. I'm a little worried.
At least Project Tracking has gotten us started on the client manual with the accumulation of the all documents for our Project Plan last week. It's pretty chunky at 11 pages. I'm proud!
On a positive note, Amy has been super helpful and is doing an excellent job at user testing. Go Amy!
As for myself, I've been working on design prototypes and thinking about how the end of the project will progress. I still don't feel like I've been able to find a viable niche for Ivona to thrive. I wish I could figure out what she could get really excited about in this project... Barbara is really good at copy writing, but I get the feeling that's not what she's really excited about. Hopefully I can find a way to involve her in the design of the final client manual. I bet she'd provide some interesting insight on that.
As a leader I end up being a little disapointed in myself sometimes since I am not always the most efficient about getting everything that is on my mind communicated effectively to the group. I see the big picture of the project because I have done this before and I end up talking with all the group members individually, so I know everything that is going on. However, a lot of times everyone goes off and does their thing for the week, and then there is no time to debrief what has been done for the previous week, as we dive into work for the next week. I've been trying to do a better job of keeping everyone on the same page by doing different things with everyone involved as a group. This seems to help along with just asking general questions to make sure everyone is together.
I'm working on becoming a better facilitator. It's not easy...
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Week_010
This past week or two including Spring Break has been pretty hectic. Went home for break on Saturday morning and ran straight to work at noon when I got back to Baraboo. Work work work until Wednesday when I packed up and drove to Minneapolis with my Dad and brother to fly out on Thursday morning and snowboard in Utah for a few days. Got a cold on Thursday and fought it snowboarding the whole time. Lots of meds, high altitude, a lot of adrenaline, and a few cans of Red Bull kept me shredding. 12" of new powder Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Sick.
Got an email back from Elise yesterday pretty much approving the major direction of the visual design. I feel like they may come back and want a thing or two tweaked though... Wish they'd understand that there is a point at which changes can't be made anymore. I told them the deadline was this coming Monday. Maybe that was too late... but I really didn't have any other choice to ensure a quality product. Oh well. It'll work out.
Christine Daves was informative in class as usual. Etiquette was pretty common sense, but a good refresher.
Presenting in class got us some good feedback and helped me define direction for the next week to lead up to prototype presentations.
I will be completing the visual design, creating the prototype, and hopefully starting to code.
Ivona will be compiling pictures and doing testing looking into which ones identify most with our audience the topic they describe.
Barbara didn't return from spring break.. lol! But she will be auditing content as soon as she gets back.
Amy will be doing lots of user testing. Yay! We need more hard data...
Good stuff. Look out next week!
Got an email back from Elise yesterday pretty much approving the major direction of the visual design. I feel like they may come back and want a thing or two tweaked though... Wish they'd understand that there is a point at which changes can't be made anymore. I told them the deadline was this coming Monday. Maybe that was too late... but I really didn't have any other choice to ensure a quality product. Oh well. It'll work out.
Christine Daves was informative in class as usual. Etiquette was pretty common sense, but a good refresher.
Presenting in class got us some good feedback and helped me define direction for the next week to lead up to prototype presentations.
I will be completing the visual design, creating the prototype, and hopefully starting to code.
Ivona will be compiling pictures and doing testing looking into which ones identify most with our audience the topic they describe.
Barbara didn't return from spring break.. lol! But she will be auditing content as soon as she gets back.
Amy will be doing lots of user testing. Yay! We need more hard data...
Good stuff. Look out next week!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Week_009
Got quite a bit accomplished this week. Class gave us a bit of time to hammer out some more group ideas and progress/wrap-up before spring break.
I met with Alyssa and Elise on Friday. Overall they like the visual design and we all pretty much agree on content and organization. I received pretty much all the content and reaffirmed that we would not be able to deliver a fully coded Spanish side to the website. We defined the detail associated with that quite well.
Sent out a few visual design tweaks on Friday night. Pretty minimal changes. They said that the design went over better with the staff than any other design has before. I'll say that is good news. Alyssa and Elise are totally on board.
Surprisingly, the brown we used in the design was received with a cautionary stigma of reference to latino people/skin. Alyssa said that Rodolfo reacted this way to the use of the color and doesn't want to see brown used in the color palette. Not a big deal, but kind of a weird surprise.
I met with Alyssa and Elise on Friday. Overall they like the visual design and we all pretty much agree on content and organization. I received pretty much all the content and reaffirmed that we would not be able to deliver a fully coded Spanish side to the website. We defined the detail associated with that quite well.
Sent out a few visual design tweaks on Friday night. Pretty minimal changes. They said that the design went over better with the staff than any other design has before. I'll say that is good news. Alyssa and Elise are totally on board.
Surprisingly, the brown we used in the design was received with a cautionary stigma of reference to latino people/skin. Alyssa said that Rodolfo reacted this way to the use of the color and doesn't want to see brown used in the color palette. Not a big deal, but kind of a weird surprise.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Week 008
This week has been pretty eventful. Since last class we have been working hard on Visual Design and working out all the kinks.
Alyssa got sick this weekend, so we weren't able to have our meeting to talk about Visual Design direction on Monday, which has been a bit frustrating since I really wanted to get some feedback before everything went to their staff meeting on Thursday.
I was really thankful that Kristoffer was available (and kind enough) to come in and meet with our group on Thursday morning. It really helped push our critique in the right direction and got everyone more unified in what the website needs to be visually.
After Kris left, we pulled together, did some group designing to come up with a cohesive Visual Design direction, and made a whole site map and wire frames on the white board together. It went over really well and gave us another good push in the right direction. Hopefully we can continue this momentum!
Alyssa got sick this weekend, so we weren't able to have our meeting to talk about Visual Design direction on Monday, which has been a bit frustrating since I really wanted to get some feedback before everything went to their staff meeting on Thursday.
I was really thankful that Kristoffer was available (and kind enough) to come in and meet with our group on Thursday morning. It really helped push our critique in the right direction and got everyone more unified in what the website needs to be visually.
After Kris left, we pulled together, did some group designing to come up with a cohesive Visual Design direction, and made a whole site map and wire frames on the white board together. It went over really well and gave us another good push in the right direction. Hopefully we can continue this momentum!
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