Concept Statement

.Create a list of all users that may visit your site (not from the WWW but those you’d invite).
-Future employers, family members and friends, people who I would give my business card to, colleagues.
.What will each of those users want to see in order to enjoy their visit to your site?
- See some of my work, an easy to use site, contact information.
. Name your intended audience (the person(s) you need to persuade.)
-Most likely need to persuade future employers or people who look to hire me in some way.
. Describe what you need to inform and persuade them of:
-Inform and persuade them of my skills through pictures and credentials.
Promote my:
-Promote myself and my skills. Plus have easy way to contact me if they like what they see.
Goals of the site are:
- Make it easy for prospective people to contact me and impress the people who are aren't aware of my skills.
My ultimate message/philosophy (about who you are):
-Create products that are more user and earth friendly while making them appealing and fun.
What is the story you are telling?
. Write a 200 word concept statement based on the user, your persuasion, navigation and the assets.
. List the assets you need to persuade the user: Which 7 (minimum) projects? scans of what?, photos of what objects? images from what computer graphics program? what descriptive text? list them.
- I haven't made too many things in the IDT department yet. I could include pictures of my wooden box, my multimedia flower, gauche painted fish, gauche woman painting, my large clay coiled pot. I can't really think of more things to put in there yet.

Concept Statement:
Ever since I was a very young I have been interested in arts and crafts. Over the years my mediums have changed, but my love of all things creative haven't. I joke with people, name a craft project and I have probably done it or something like it. I didn't always know what I wanted to do with this passion. I stumbled upon the Industrial Design department at the Art Institute of Seattle and finally found my niche. Along with a passion for art, I have always been concerned with the earth. I plan on creating products that are more user friendly and ergonomic along with safe for the environment. I feel that the relationship consumers have with products is more positive when they are ergonomic and having them good for the earth gives them a good feeling too.

My Logo

Good and Bad Assignment

Good Design features:

Text: In a good website the text should not be too small or too big. This way it is easy to read for all age groups. There should be a balance between too much text, which is overwhelming, and not enough text, which is boring. The text shouldn't be one big paragraph or stretch all the way across the page because that is hard to read. Instead it should fit on a standard 600x800 screen and be easily scanned.

Navigation: In a good website the navigation should be easy to understand, clean and simple. It should tell you where you are, where you have been and how to get back to the home page. Color changes easily aide you in this. The navigation should also be the same throughout your whole website, keeping things consistent.

Links: Links should easily take the user to other pages in your website. The links should be easy to understand where they are taking you, should actually take you where they say they are taking you, and should be a useful destination. To know where you have been before, it is a good idea to have the links change color after the user has traveled there. Useless links break the flow of the user, potentially sending them elsewhere.

Graphics: Graphics should be relatively small, because if they take forever to load, the user will just move on. They should be relevant and not distracting. Flashing lights or graphics distract the user and we have learned to ignore them. The internet population has also learned to ignore anything that looks like an ad or banner.

General Design: Websites should be designed for the purpose of solving the users needs. The site should reflect the purpose of the site: a site for SAM should look museum like, not like YouTube, etc. In order for the user to easily read the text on your page, there should be high contrast between your background and your text. The website should be clean, no useless graphics or text. All the pages of your site should have similar aspects so they work well together and are cohesive. Keep it simple!

Notes: A good IDT website is Anthony Garzzona's. http://anthonygarzzona.com/index.html . His site is clean yet classy, his navigation is very easy and the same throughout the whole site and I really like how he displayed his work. Instead of leading you away from his portfolio pages, it was a popup slideshow, which is really easy to navigate.

Bad Design features:

Text: Huge type, or super tiny type. Similar hue to the background so the contrast is low and you can't read your type. The type is in skinny long columns, really stretched out paragraphs, formatted like a book-with all type one solid paragraph, ALL CAPS, all bold, all italic, or any combination of those.

Navigation: Mystery Meat Navigation where you have to scroll over blank icons to find the link. Confuses the user because they cant figure out what page they are on, how to get to where they want to go, or how to get to the home page. Navigation isn't the same on each page.

Links: The links aren't clear as to where they take you. The links are dead, meaning they don't lead you to anywhere. The links should have a color change so that the user knows they went to that link already, thus not going there over and over again.

Graphics: Large graphics which take forever to load. Too many graphics. Flashing graphics. These all distract the user, or they just ignore them.

General Design: Poor contrast between the background and the text, making it hard to read. Distracting background image. Too many focal points on the page, drawing their attention in too many directions. No sense of cohesiveness between the pages.

Notes: So I wouldn't call Aaron Sim's website terrible, http://www.aaaronic.com/index.html , but there are aspects about it that really turned me off as a user. When I navigated to his portfolio work and started looking at his images, the navigation bar went away. I tried to go back to the homepage but didn't find the link for it. The link I thought was the home link, actually led me to sending him and email. So the navigation was confusing and off putting.

skills inventory

Name: Emily Seel

Department: Industrial Design

Are you Graduating this Quarter? no

If not, current graduation date by Quarter/Year: WI 2011

Online Social and Professional networks: Facebook

Website URL (if already developed): no

What software experience do you have? (explain all that apply)

Photoshop: basic skills

Fireworks: never used

Illustrator: lots of experience. wouldn't say a high level of skills though.

Flash: learned basics in high school but thats the last time I used it.

Dreamweaver: never used

HTML: no skills in

InDesign: used briefly 5 quarters ago (before I left graphic design)

Other:

Tell what your objective for the class to the best of your knowledge:

I would like to create a fabulous website and do so by learning iWeb. If my resume needs sprucing up, do that as well. I would like my website to be something I am proud of and feel comfortable showing family and friends along with potential clients/employers.