Evaluation

- what? - so what? (happened) - problem - how did I deal with it? now what?

My idea was to create a website for my mum’s antiques and collectables business that showcased the antiques and collectables that she sold. Originally, I thought about doing a website for a furniture store in Kings Lynn as I thought their website was very poor however, I realised that it would be hard to do this as I didn’t know the client. So, I decided to go ahead with this idea and create a website for her business. One of the problems I had with this idea was that at first my client wanted me to create an online web store, where you could buy her different items however, I knew that I didn’t have the skills and time available to do this, so we came up with a compromise. Me and the client decided that what I could do was create a gallery that showcased the different things she sold, so then potential customers could look through this and phone her up if they wanted to buy anything. I was really pleased that I came up with this solution to the problem, and I am going to ensure that I keep this calm and positive attitude when working on my final major project so I can come up with good solutions if needed. One of my ideas for the client was that she needed a premium looking website, as after all she sells premium unique products, so this meant together we looked at many different premium brands such as Gucci, Selfridges and the Bonham’s auction site to get ideas for the layout. We gathered many ideas such as having white text for the logo on a black background and a drop-down menu like the Gucci website - this really helped develop the design for the website.

The research played a big part in this project. I carried out a lot of research into different premium websites like Gucci, Selfridges and Bonham’s to get more of an understanding of how these websites look and function. One of the main things I learnt was that many of these websites were quite complex – they had many different drop-down menus with many different buttons leading to different areas of the site. Now I knew that I had very limited time, so I picked the key features that me and the client liked about each site. One of these was how you could click the logo on the website, and it would take you back to the homepage, also the white text with the black background for the menu navigation bar. Me and the client also really liked the drop-down menus however I didn’t know how to make one of these, and I ran out of time to ask so therefore I never could create one. I have learnt from this that I need to improve my time management for future projects as I believe I could have completed this if I planned and used my time more effectively. Another part of my research was leaning how to use Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Muse to create my client’s site – I stared of by learning how to create a button in Photoshop – I really learnt a lot from sitting down with James Fox and discussing how to use photoshop and I now feel confident in going forward with future projects where I might require this software. In terms of Adobe Muse once I learnt the basics such as importing photoshop assets and altering the master page, I quickly learnt how to efficiently use this software.

The planning process also played a major part in creating my client’s website. This involved me creating designs for the website including where the different buttons and the menu bar would go. Perhaps the most important part of the planning process for me was creating the user flow. This was because it gave me a clear understanding of where the different buttons would lead to and exactly how to structure the website. This ensured that when I came to actually making the website in Photoshop and Muse that I didn’t waste time figuring out how the website would work and where the different buttons would lead to. I am going to ensure that my planning is thorough like it was for this project in future projects so I can use my time efficiently and effectively. One of the problems that I encountered during the planning stage was the research into my target audience and demographics of who would use the site. As my client’s antiques business is located in Snettisham near Hunstanton, I had to research the demographics of Hunstanton. The problem was that there was rather limited information available, and some of the statistics were rather hard to interpret. I did however overcome this problem by using the few statistics I did find out from my extensive research and using them to the best of my ability – another important skill that I learnt. From my research I eventually did come up with a demographic of the visitor to my website.

One of the final parts of my project was to actually create the website. The first thing that I needed to do was to create the different buttons for my website in Photoshop and then import them into Adobe Muse. I started of by creating the banner for my website. This was however where I encountered a problem. I forgot to make the individual buttons in Photoshop and instead just made one banner in Photoshop with all the different menu buttons on. When I came to import the banner in Muse, it meant that as I forget to create individual buttons I couldn’t link these to different parts of the site, so to solve the problem I had to open the banner in Photoshop and cut out the buttons from the banner I created and place them over the different parts of the banner in Muse – so then I could link these buttons to different parts of the site. Solving this problem now meant I had a fully functioning menu bar in the design me and the client wanted. I also created other parts of the website such as the photo gallery using the widgets library and the interactive google maps feature the client wanted for her website. Overall the production process went well however I did run out of time to completely finish my website – I do think I could have spent less time researching and more time creating the website.

Overall I thought the project went very well however I have learnt many important lessons that I am going to take forward into future projects like the final major project.