It's not only design: February 2011

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Week 6 Reading

Goodwill
When it comes to practicing a website, it is all about goodwill, as if maintaining a user-friendly site for the users. At the beginning of the chapter, the author told a story of his own to bring out the problem of most of the existing websites. They hide the information that users want to see; to avoid troubles. It is however, making the users frustrated and lower the likeliness to continue using the website later on. If most of the users come to one site to do some specific tasks, the web builders should make those tasks easy to access so one can go through them right away. After all, it is for the users to use the website the way that benefit them, and it keeps the web site running.
In the chapter after, when most of the people thinking they had created a website useful for everyone, they have to make sure it is assessable. That is, to make the site easy to use for people with disability as well. There should be a lot of tools helping disable people to use the site better on the page, for example, blind people has to go through all of the lines on the page and listen to find some keywords that would probably lead to what they are looking for. To make that step easier, the web builder should put a link on top of each page "skip to main content" so that person can save a lot of time of listening irrelevant contents. If a website is already confusing for the average users, then what about the people with disabilities? One shocking number that the author suggested is that 65% of the population has a disability, so the web designer and developer should not ignore that large portion of people. They might have money to spend and it is the law to benefit them. It is the right thing to do after all, just a bit more effort then they could make life easier for people. I believe there is nothing wrong with that.
Chapter 11 is really inspiring, most of us, average people might not notice how people with disability live their daily life. Some tasks that seem easy for us may take them a much longer time to complete it.
Just as when we are using the computer, it is really easy for us to scan through the whole page and look for the content we want, but for blind people, they have to turn up their speakers, listening closely to each word on the page to find something. With the advanced technology today, I believe it is easier to create assessable website for everyone than a few years ago. When I build a website, I must keep in mind that the users include people with disability as well.

* Designing Accessible Websites
* Accessible and Attractive Websites
* How to maintain accessible Websites
* 50 tips to build user friendly sites
* 50 Beautiful and user friendly navigation menus

Homepage for Classic Closet.

I want to add in a bit of high end fashion touch and yet funky looking/ style into the new Classic Closet page, I hope this homepage can help you imagine.
For the logo (on the top right handside of the web page), instead of using the hand drawn logo,
I recreate one on the computer that hopefully will be matching up the style a bit more.
The close ups of the logos are placed underneath the web page image.

Hand drawn Logo

Computer rendered logo

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Sketches for Classic Closet webpage redesign (e-commerce site)

Sketches for web page

Sketches for Logo design

Wek 5 Reading

Chapter 8 indicates the difficulties to have a conclusion when professionals from different fields are working together. Each person has a strong belief in what they think it would work, therefore it is very hard to have a compromise. Given an example of a designer and a developer, if one asks them to build a website, the designer would pay attention on graphic details and design of course; and the developer would focus on functionality. It is because everyone tends to think others would like what they like, they think everyone else are just like them. Therefore the author suggested to let the people outside the team to test out the site, to see what the web users really want from the site. In chapter 9, the author suggested a lot of details on having a usability test. He claimed that there are an expensive way or a much cheaper way to commit the test; just depend on the company's need. In stead of hiring professional people to attend the test, he said, everyone that is a web user should be able to do the test perfectly. All they need is someone that would use the internet, it could be anyone. Moreover, the author suggested to do the test one morning once a month; the earlier the better( in terms of the website development process). The team should have a small meeting after the test the same day at lunch, so that everyone can come up with some problems and how to fix them.
Chapter 9 is an interesting chapter, it is all about how to cut cost and still do things professionally. It could be helping the small company a lot on saving cost, doing things easily and effectively. After reading the chapter, I realize how important it is to conduct a usability test because when we are the builders, the website seem to make sense to us in every way. Yet when the users test it out, loads of problem could be found. When we get too used to the project we are working on everyday, we cannot find any problems on it anymore, it is when the test come into place.

* seven common usability testing mistakes
* 8 guidelines of usability testing
* Usability 101
* Website usability tips

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Mission Statement

for E-commerce site redesign (project 2):

Classiccloset.com has a wide selection of vintage clothing that are retro inspired and from a woman named Niki’s closet. There are many items needed for an ensemble and even ensembles put together on the site. Niki chose items for her website with after being prompter by her husband to decrease the massive closet size she had built up over time. Pieces from her husband’s collection were also collected and are in the category Men’s Department. The look of the page is simply organized with no landing page. Clothes are immediately viewable on the homepage. A consistent navigation is available in the form of a strange retro tweedish cheetah print purple pink and black texturized diagonal rain pattern. The text and graphic of the website takes on a patriotic theme in color red blue and white. A declaration of independence typeface is used for the "classic" while a bauhaus typeface is used for the "closet". Topped off with an outerglow effect! The most effective piece of the header are the retro hippie flowers in orange and yellow. Although poorly placed, the can be worked with and reformatted to make a nice statement for the site. That speaks to the identity of the site with color shape and style. The sans serif type face used for the rest of the page is simple. Possibly a little large in the body text and not differentiated well enough for the rest of the page. A little contrast in body type would be nice. This would help the navigation of the page.

A summary on a landing page of the categories made available to the shopper will be created. Instead of reading through a poorly differentiated list of items categories. A broader sweep of items will be made. A grid system will be more defined for the clothes pages by creating container shapes to define separate elements of the page. A new header space will be created including more cohesive typestyles for all parts of the site. Also, a large color change will take place. The black body currently dominating the page will be made funkier and more vintage-esque without competing with the pieces on the site. The container shapes will help define the pieces. Category text will have a character color and feel that separates them from the body text on the page.

"Classic Closet" competetive analysis

Papaya Clothing Online
Make Me Chic
599 fashion
Forever 21
Urban Outfitters
Asos
TopShop
Anthropologie

Mood Board for E-commerce assignment

Week 4 Reading

Building a homepage for a website is certainly not an easy task. Chapter 7 concentrate on how to create a close-to-perfect homepage, using clear directions for the users like search box, welcome blurb, tag line, and the organization of the details. Each elements takes an important in terms of the design, helping to give the users an idea of how to use the website wisely. For example, creating a tag line, to provide a brief explanation of the website place next to the logo on top; is not the same as a motto, it is to give the user a brief idea what the website is basically about. The author also suggest the web builder to show the website to someone outside the team so that person can see what is missing when no one in the team would be able to; in that way, it could make the website easier to use for everyone. He also suggested the website should contain clear information about what it does (purposes of the site); how can one get started(navigation) ; what can one find on there (content) ; and why should they go on there ( differentiation). Again, the homepage should not carry way too much information to confuse the user, instead, it should gives a clear direction to the user whether they want to browse, search, or surf to get started. At the end of the chapter, the author redesign 2 existing homepages on how to send a clear message to users and also better organizations.
I found this chapter very useful on behalf on the coming project, I did not realize that there are so many thoughts behind a homepage design. Now after reading this, I have a better understanding of building basic web pages, and how can I build things to help people use the site easier. The design or outlook is vital, but it is more important to create a user-friendly page. If one find it benefits them, it is more likely for them to come back and visit in the future. This book focus a lot on the details, it certainly helps me a lot on understanding how to build/create a basic e-commerce website.

* Building a homepage
* Tag line
* How to write a welcome blurb

It's not only design