How did your final projects differ from the initial storyboards?

My final project on Expressions looked almost as on my storyboard.  The only thing  different was the photo gallery which in the original storyboard was a slideshow and I also thought about having a bigger picture as my background image on each page.   On Wix was exactly what I envisioned for my web site all together, maybe better.  Another difference from my story board was that I added another page, so instead of four I had five.  I wanted to achieve a clean, simple and sophisticated look to my web site.  With neutral colors and making only the photos shine.  It was perfect on Wix, it was exactly what I wanted.  On Expressions was also good, I had achieved most of what I envisioned for my web site.  My colors were neutral (from the template, cream), even though I had no courage to change them on the code side, still it looked great. I was happy with both results.  I cannot believe how close I got from my storyboard.  

Compare/Contrast the 2 websites you created. How are they different and how are they the same? What adjustments did you have to make from the first to the 2nd site?

The first main obstacle I had to face was not to be so afraid of try to do anything on Expressions.  I was extremely hesitant to make a mistake.   The template I choose was the Organization #3 with only four pages.  While on Wix, I was not so hesitant of making mistakes and even made a big error in which the result was that I had to start all over again.  I picked a template that was not for a home sale but it was for a photography web site, with five pages.  It worked great!  There are two major Comparisons and Contrast for Wix and Expressions:

Photo

On Expression I had to resize each picture to fit the appropriate space (W- 292, H 220) and each page had its special picture, not all of the page like I originally wanted but it worked.  For the Photo Gallery page, I made a collage of each room of the house.  Each picture was linked to a bigger size of the original image.  That was a tedious job, having to upload each picture and make it a hot spot and link each and every one of them.   I was not happy with the options I had for my pictures from the template I choose.  My pictures are extremely important to my web site, since it has to do with the sale of my house, I was a tad disappointed.   Even though I changed the original template to accommodate my pictures, still I was not happy.  On Wix, I also had to resize my pictures, but it was much easier because the template was exactly what I had envisioned.  My pictures seemed to just flow from each and every page, making it look fantastic.  On the Home page I had a big size of the front of my house, the exact way I wanted.  My Photo Gallery page was amazing!   Even though I came across a problem on the photo gallery in which I had to starch the whole thing from scratch.  The help they had on Wix was good, but it was really “trial and error” for me to achieve my desired photo gallery, once I figured it out it was easier than I originally thought. 

Content

The template I choose for Expressions was great with the content.  I was able to open my word document and copy and paste my content to my template in Expressions.  I had no problems in this area; it was easy to change the heading size and maneuver the content to fit each page.  As for Wix, I was amazed with the size of the template for my content.  It was modern and looked sophisticated.  One of the pages that were extremely different from Expressions was the Photo Gallery page.  The pictures were on a carousel of photos and once you had your courser on the picture, the image would darken a little so the information about the picture would be legible.  There I was able to put each room size and anything I wanted about the picture so the viewer would have the information right away.   That is one of the biggest differences between Wix and Expressions.  Wix is modern, slick and sophisticated with many different choices of templates to choose from.  My contact page also looked better on Wix, because as for my background I had another picture of one of my rooms.  The information content was exactly the same on both, but it looked much better on Wix. 

Meanwhile my Home Page on Wix was just to show the main picture of the house (which I used the same picture on the home page for Expressions) and all of the labels were on the bottom.  The content appeared on the About Page, on the upper right.  On Expressions, the labels were also on the bottom of the page, and the Home Page had information about the site and the house.  The Map and Area pages on both were fairly the same, the only oblivious difference is the size of each picture and the information on Wix is on a transparent background, which allows the viewer to see the bigger picture. 

While both of the programs had its ups and downs Wix seems to be the correct program for me.  Expressions looked great, clean good colors, but it lacked on the photo gallery department, and it had a clean/conservative look to my web site.  Wix was fun and the pictures looked great, making my web site modern and sophisticated.  I am extremely happy with both outcome but Wix hit my web site out of the water!! So cool to see!!!

Reflect on what you have learned in class and how this will help you in the future. What will you take away from this course?

Boy, where to start?!  I have learned so much in this class: modems, modulate, demodulate, bits, search engines, browsers, pixel, JPEG, HTML, to working with programs such as Photoshop and Expressions.  The terminology alone was incredible to me.  Being able to put a name to things or actions I have been doing for years was not only exciting but it was an awesome feeling!  I am grateful that the books were great to read, especially “The Non-Designer’s Web Book,” it was funny and saturated with good content. 

Photoshop was awesome to learn and the book was not so bad.  I enjoyed learning the various ways of cropping, fixing pictures, making pictures look artistic and of course changing the images to be fit for the web.  I have to be honest, I did not think I could be comfortable enough to be able to work with this program, but what do you know?  Not only was I able to get my fear down, I became more “courageous” about trying things out.  Now I will be able to continue using Photoshop outside of class to fix my own personal pictures.  Knowing Photoshop is an asset to have in my college life, because I am sure I will need it again for my future classes.  Although there is a lot of good programs out there for designing your own web, this class showed me how much work it is to make a good web site.  I will always remember CRAP and how many people out there do not follow those important rules.

Nothing of my work could have been done without the immense help that the instructor gave me.  She had the patience and the knowledge to drag my limited experience out and now I feel I know so much more than when I started.  Thanks for all of the help Michele, it has been fun!!

What else did I learn?

Another fun tip from the book was to make sure that the pictures that have type to choose from four different types of anti-aliasing methods.  Choosing one will depend upon on my design and how I would want to show my font in my site.  I found exciting the section on the book about rollovers and image swaps.  How the image change once the pointer is moving over it (rollover) or another image changes but not the one you expect (image swap), I have seen a few of these techniques and now I know what is called.   

Hypertext links is the most-used feature in the web, important to know this for my own site.  I guess it makes sense since is so inviting and hard not to click on one. 

Fascinating how people read on the web.  Scanning for key words or just scanning period is very interesting.  It is different reading an article online, how quickly attention and understanding is lost.  Very interesting to see all of the research done on that and how educated people read (just like everyone else) hunting for the information rather than enjoying reading.

Review Webnode, Weebly, Wix and Webs. Which will you choose for your site? Why did you choose this particular program?

After spending one hour looking through each of the sites to choose one of them, I am happy to say I chose Wix.  I chose Wix because it seems user friendly and I had no problems pulling it up (I tried the others a few times and it did not respond) and I was amazed with the many choices I have with the templates.  So far so good, I hope I made the correct choice. I have to play with it more to see if I am really happy with my choice.

Why is writing for the web different than writing for print? Cite at least 5 specific examples and tips on how you should write for a website vs. print.

Writing for the web is different than writing for print because the web users want to get their information quickly with no “fillers” like there is in print.  Print is more of a “storytelling” with supporting examples for each story making a longer process of reading (and most the time enjoyable) than it is in the web.  Also, Web users want to make their own storytelling by gathering all the information they need on a much faster rate; thus making the web content “user-driven” narrative.  Making writing for print extremely different from writing for the web; for print is an “author-driven” narrative.     Because of this, Web pages have to utilize scannable text in which includes: highlighted keywords, with hypertext links, bulleted lists. Also writing for the web there is the one idea per paragraph in which users have to be captivated by the first few words to continue reading and the inverted pyramid style which begins with the conclusion. 

Here are other examples and tips on how writing is done for a website vs. print:

·        Linear vs. Non-linear.

  In print the content is linear in which readers are in a relaxed and comfortable setting reading.   As for the web is non-linear with the “solution-hunting” like attitude; to acquire the desired information and get out. Web users want actionable content, thus making the non-linear easier and faster to read.

·        Sentences vs. Fragments.

In print the content is a well- thought -out process with complete sentences.  Because the web is solely based on direct to the point information there is the usage of fragments.   Giving the much needed information upfront and cutting out unwanted “fillers” is one of the ways web writing works.

·        Anecdotal examples vs. comprehensive data. 

In print storytelling is more of a journey than it is on the web.  There are more anecdotal examples to support the articles or a story that the author wants to tell.  In web that would not work because it lacks the “immediacy” and “utility.”  Web users need comprehensive coverage that is much more specific than in print content.  That is also true when it comes to the headings and sub-headings of an article or story.  In print being clever works, there might be a picture to allure readers to the story, but on the web there should be meaningful and straight to the point titles. 

What is the purpose of using storyboards? How will they help you with your final project?

The purpose of a storyboard (or flow chart) is to have a visual illustration of the various categories related to the individual web pages (or files) that will make up my site.  Also, my storyboard structure will replicate the structure of my web site.

The storyboard will be a great help to adequately organize my information; where to put some pictures or more content and it is also a useful tool to brainstorm for more ideas for my web content.