Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Week_014

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.

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.

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.

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...

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!

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.

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!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Week 007

Shoot! I hope I didn't actually miss Week 007... Or maybe I just need to journal Week 007 before class of Week 008. I always confuse myself with these things, because homework for a class is done as homework for Week 001, but is due on Week 002.... Bleh. NEXT -->

Okay, so here's the real journal. We got a bit done last week. Barbara created an awesome color study for us, Ivona went on an exploration of a library to find out about usability in obtaining information, which drew some nice conclusions for us, Amy finished our Competitive Analysis, and I snagged all the code off HACER's website and made into something we can actually work with on my computer.

Kristoffer gave us some great insight into our next research steps this week and was great about helping us with options.

Kris - Not sure if you read my journal from a few weeks ago and changed something because of that... If you didn't, well it doesn't matter because you were great this week. If you did, then thank you and I have the utmost respect for a teacher who listens to their classes opinions. Thank you.

For next week Barbara is continuing in color and developing a color survey we can give to people to further test our color ideas for the site, Ivona is writing up some usability survey questions, Amy is preparing a SWOT Analysis, and I am working on a status update and meeting agenda for HACER to make sure everything we are doing and communicating with them is aligning with our goals, objectives, and HACER's mission. I also want to clarify what our visual design goals are. I've got it down to a T:




Fresh & Professional
Friendly
Multi-cultural (without looking like a Mexican restaurant)




Tomorrow (Monday March 16th) we will be meeting with HACER to do some consultation on their content edits as well as present our color and usability research. Wish us luck!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Week 006

Good things progressing things this week. We had a very productive meeting with HACER on Monday that got us to some good conclusions with content. We even gave Alyssa and Elise the assignment of making a visual map of the content with some print-outs we gave them and then editing all the content for us then to come in a consult with them on their changes in two weeks. Very happy about this.

I've got a few concerns still about coding etc, but I think I can work it out.

Still trying to figure out how to fit everyone's skills into the right slots to benefit the project the most. I really want to create a great product, but I'm a little skittish about how it will all go down, even with careful planning.

Speaking of planning, That's something I've been doing a lot of. Project Management is a lot of work even though you aren't necessarily composing the components of the project, there really is a ton of organization and thought goes into keeping everything on track and utilizing your resources to the highest benefit of the project. I've consulted a number of professors on the workings of my calendar. It works well for me, but there are still revisions to be made on a weekly basis.

Aside form that, I will begin coding this week.

I'm also pretty happy with the little mood board we all made at the end of class this week!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Week 005

We made a decent amount of progress this week. Amy and Ivona have been putting together some great Competitive Analysis, Barbara's been taking a lot of good notes on site content structure, and I spent a lot of time on our Gantt Chart, Budget, Timeline, and Internal Calendar.

I'm still a little numb to the project though. Right now I'm feeling like it's just another website repeat. I've gotten kind of burned out of websites, but hopefully we can learn some interesting things to apply to the HACER website through our research. I really do want to make it a good project.

Class now. Here we go!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Week 004

Quite overwhelmed with all my work, but I've managed to pull through with the proposal and getting the WBS, draft timeline, and budget done. Ended up slacking off on Human Factors and Reading for Ideas in order to get those two accomplished for the week.

Barbara and Amy switched roles, which I am quite happy with. The more I started working with the two of them on the proposal, I began to feel like Barbara would be a great Content Editor and Amy would be great at Information Architecture since she is more artistic her Design skills will be really useful.

Hopefully next week will be less stressful. I feel like I got a lot of work done ahead of time with doing a lot of work on the timeline and budget. However, we do have the Gantt chart due in Project Management which will take a while.

The one thing I am a little worried about is that Kristoffer picked on our group hardcore during our proposal critique without making much mention of the Sparke group's sketchy wording, grammar, and design. I feel like he pushed us away from what we were doing, but gave us very little idea of what would be better. It was really a critique of "This is good and this is bad" without any "what would be better."

Luckily, Ivan was there as usual to clarify things for us and get us rolling in a good direction. I have heard from anonymous sources that Kristoffer tends to pick one group and give them considerably more criticism and attention than other groups over the course of the semester. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing I am not sure. I like the attention, but I don't appreciate the harsh criticism without suggestion of what would be better. I understand that Kristoffer wants to be somewhat vague so as to leave the creativity up to the group, but I feel that it is better to generate options and let us run with them than do nothing and leave the group frustrated and confused.

Well, I'm out of time. Hope that covers enough. I'm confident in the project. i will succeed.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Week 003 - Scope. It keeps your mouth clean?

So, week three has passed. I was a bit stressed out (and still am) about the scope of our project and what our final goal will actually be. I Emailed Alyssa about talking on the phone on Friday about it to sort things out, but unfortunately because of MCAD's tightened email security, the email that she sent to me at 10:00AM didn't get to me until 6:00PM. In that email, she had told me that she would be able to talk with my on Friday at 1:00PM, but since the email didn't come til later, that unfortunately was a lost cause. We are planning to talk tomorrow at 1:00PM, so hopefully things will get worked out then, and I can put the finishing touches on our proposal and timeline.

Other than that, things are going well. Our team has Barbara working on taking in the whole site map and looking for bugs and Ivona is looking at visual design and starting our competitive research. Amy and I had a meeting today to put together the best of our four proposals into one master proposal, which I will be completing tomorrow. Good stuff. Now lets design a website! Not code one...

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Week 002

So, week #Deux!

We got to meet our client from HACER. Rodolpho and Alyssa were both super nice and pleasantly prepared! They've obviously dealt with website people before and I was pleasantly surprised by receiving a wonderful bible of all thing HACER Website to help in our endeavor. Not only were they prepared, but they were realistic and understanding of us just being students with only 15 weeks on the project. However, students and 15 weeks aside, we're gonna make a kick ass website. I know it. Ivan Nunez, our team coach, is also a great guy. He seems super knowledgeable and asked some really insightful questions for us at our meeting. Lots of information to digest and a draft proposal due next class. I'm started and prepared.

So, here's to the next 13 weeks of my life in Vis Studio. Let then be productive. I am determined to create one serious website. Clean, sharp, and communicatively direct. GO!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Week 001

Welcome to my Visualization Studio Journal. This will be my place for weekly updates on my thoughts about Vis. Studio.

I'm super excited about this class. I'm happy with my group, happy with my project, and happy with Kristoffer's layout.

The only thing that I am worried about is what our client will be like. I have faith in Kristoffer having found us a responsive client, but what will their picture of the project be like and how will it match up with what we think? I know this is only blind speculation and there really is no need to worry at this point. We'll see how it goes.