I gonna start off by saying that I’m kind of burned out today and I gonna do a super quick review of the chapter. It’s all about writing sweet specifications. The reason for this is so that everyone’s on the same page and no mess ups happen. Also it states when specific elements of the projects are due and whats next to accomplish. Whats nice about specifications is that they are right to the point and if there developed correctly, can be an effect form of communication. Now need to spout other dialog, just read the specifications. The one thing that should be noted is that specifications should be written by an appropriate employee and should have the authority to do so. Otherwise, the whole project can crumble. To sum up the chapter, specs is what you need to succeed.
Sorry for getting to this so late in the week, but nothing really happened until today. Last week we finalized the designs of the website and today was the only time they could meet to sign off on them, which to a great weigh off my shoulders, they did. Now i’m moving into the next phase of my project, building the site in Joomla. I’m gonna start on this part of the project over the weekend and give them a more accurate deadline of the project completion, Monday. Finally, a smige of good news, a staff member left the Valentine and the staff has to pull more weight. This means that the staff member who would do the online updates, won’t be able to anymore and I was given an opportunity to get paid hourly to do the job. So, i guess this means I scored a freelance opportunity and all I have to do is get back to them with a by the hour price. I’m gonna research what I can and get back to them soon. She also mentioned that if all goes well, this position could blossom into something else. We shall see, but for right now, I’m totally content.
Reading the next chapter of the making things happen book, really makes me enjoy the book even more. I’m not trying to suck up, but this book is really giving some great ideas about how to tackle project in ways I never thought of, and maybe it’s just me but, I think that this book is getting much easier to read. So this chapter was all about what to do with ideas that people have for projects. Starting from the beginning, a problem needs to be stated before ideas can begin to be tossed around. The better the problem and information is stated, the better chance you have a design that works and you can avoid mistake. As the author states, most mistakes begin in the early phases. From there should be time to allow for the ideas to take shape with a deadline in the horizon. The author states that the cut off time for creating ideas and designs must be shown in the beginning and not dropped on your workers like turning off a light switch. Also, stated was that ideas need time to fulfill, that they won’t be perfect at first.
Next, grouping the ideas together into similar categories was suggested to help narrow down the design into 3 different versions, taking the groups that seem to serve the problem best. From there, a design is narrowed down to 2 ideas and then 1 idea. It’s around this time that prototyping begins. Basically a prototype is a rough version of what the final design will be and the better quality will help solve the tougher questions. The author stresses that a prototype should be a cheap and quick way of presenting what a final design should be. Anyways, this was a very solid chapter, which was pleasant to read.
Now about my clients work, I very sure that we have the final design hammered down. I’m trying to set up a meeting with them to sign off on the design, so that I can begin production in Joomla. If anyone would like to see the prototype of this design, please follow the links below.
http://www.rprnow.com/valentine/home.html
http://www.rprnow.com/valentine/events.html
http://www.rprnow.com/valentine/rent.html
http://www.rprnow.com/valentine/support.html
http://www.rprnow.com/valentine/map.html
http://www.rprnow.com/valentine/about.html
http://www.rprnow.com/valentine/contact.html
http://www.rprnow.com/valentine/join.html
My work with my client ran into a bit of a halt. I though we had a design down, but it changed greatly over the weekend. We also ran into communication issues, on both ends, and hopefully I’ve found a way to combat it. Where I’m at now is I contacted the client today, and we’ve worked it out that tomorrow, I will show them the full site as it should be when built for the web (with all the updates and new designs). Soon after, I’m planning on meeting with them in person to have them sign off on the website so that we don’t keep making changes. So, by the end of the week, I should start building the website in Joomla. There’s not really anything else to talk about at the moment, so stay tuned.
So this week, we had to read a marathon of chapters in the Making Things Happen book (actually just two). With that being said, I’m just going to summarize both chapters, but I will say that I enjoyed these two chapters more than the past few. So the first chapter was all about the vision of the project and how important it is to narrow it down. When working on a project, it’s important to have your workers knowing what they’re doing from the get go, but also keeping up on the project further down the line. Basically, they understand what they have to do at first, but then they lose sight later on, and this is what having a strong vision comes into play. A vision is helps determine what the project is all about and should be clear enough that everyone can understand. I believe it was in this chapter where the author states that the idea should be simply phrased, no need for big words. To help complete a vision, goal must be set that help determine different factors of the project. This chapter also talked about different questions to ask and how to go about finding additional information to help create a great vision. All and all this was a very solid chapter that brought along some very useful information.
The second chapter was all about being creative and designing your project, and how you go about it. I really enjoyed how the author destroyed the phrase that’s supposed to help with creativity, “think outside the box”. Once again, the main theme of this chapter, the book, the articles for this class, and all aspects about life (the one and only truth), is to ask questions. Of course this chapter stresses asking only the questions that matter, that help further along the project. There’s also something in there about finding out requirements of a project and that gives you a base to start on. All questions, that’s all there ever is. This chapter also talked about brainstorming and different ways you can be successful about it. What I truly enjoyed about this chapter was the get up when you fall down because we all do motto. I always have to trudge through the mud when working on projects to get things right, and I feel that if I was supposed to be good at the things I could do, I would be able to do it in one try, but that simply is not the case. The quotes from the famous people in this chapter also help convey this message. I also enjoyed the stand by your word idea he pushed across. That might have been a minute detail he skimmed over during the improv section, but I’m personally tired of pushing out an idea and following up with, I know it sounds dumb. I think it’s good to stick with what we say and support throughout and if it doesn’t work, we try again. Once again, very good chapter that was helpful.
Finally, with my client, I’m creating a flash banner for them, that I’ll show them tomorrow and I waiting to get back updated information for the site that is outdated on their current site. Hopefully, I’ll begin production on the site next week, sometime.
I just got done speaking to my client again today. I showed her how the rest of the pages would be laid out for the redesign of the valentine website and she seemed please d once again. Only a few more minor changes to be made and hopefully I should be starting production on the site. The only additional item that she wants created is for the banner to be animated. Basically I’ll be making the banner image shimmer with pixels kinda like the Arch site. I’ll hopefully have a rough version of that created by this Friday. O the busy life I now keep.
Sometime during the beginning next week, I’m hoping to start messing around with Joomla and start building the site officially. Anyways, not much else is going on, except I’m trying to keep rocking out the homework.
The third chapter of the book continued on with planning and how to determine what needs to be done and how we’ll go about doing it. The author starts off by describing the 3 different types of projects that can be done including solo projects, small team projects (2-10) and large team projects (around 100 people). He also talks about some key points about determining who does what in a project and who’s responsible for determining what needs to be done.
To begin to find out what needs to be done, 3 elements must be looked at. The elements are the business perspective, the technology perspective and the customer perspective. Looking at these 3 different perspectives, there are many questions that have to be asked to help narrow down what a project entails and the best way to do that is find a balance between the 3. This will ultimately lead to a give and take system where you might have to give up an element in planning to appease another aspect. From there the author talks about the bad decisions that can be made during the planning process and how you should not go about planning. Finally, the author talks about different methods of collecting data to help determine the appropriate questions for the planning process. Overall, what I took from this chapter is that to plan, the right questions must be asked and that there are numerous aspects to look at.
I also spoke to my client today, and they took a look at my recent comps. I was very relieved that they really liked the new designs (the first comp in fact). We discussed a few minor changes to be made, but it seems that the biggest hump is now over (I have a hard time designing). This Tuesday coming up, I’m going to have the other pages of the website designed, shown to the client, and hopefully signed off to then begin production on the site. Everything’s looking up now, so thanks everyone for your help. I greatly appreciate it.
The links to my two comps are:
http://www.rprnow.com/valentine/comp1.html
http://www.rprnow.com/valentine/comp2.html
So, when I met with the client last week and showed them my comps, I learned that I kinda missed the mark on my designs. After spending time with my client, we came up with an idea of how to redesign them, while keeping some of the elements that they enjoyed about my previous comps. This included the links being placed under the banner and the script font that I used along with the curved line. One big change that they want to include in the new comps is a picture of the valentine building to help with the branding.
The website that they wanted me to sorta model the new site after is the Philharmonic Center for the Art’s website.
The link to this site is www.thephil.org
*website background might take a bit to load, but it will load*
**roll over the flash to see a small animation**
Ok, so there’s a lot going on with this post so I’m just going to knock out the topics one at a time. First off is the second chapter review of making things happen. This chapter was all about scheduling, and man, did I learn that I’m pretty much doing it all wrong. Basically, the book described 3 things that schedules do, they show objectives for a project and when they have to be done, force people to work on projects and to track progress and help break down work into large chunks. The really interesting thing that I learned about is something called a forcing function. This is a psychological shift that when an employee actually see a timeline or schedule when things have to be done, there more inclined to work on the project and get it completed by that time.
The next issue tackled in the book is, understanding the ideas of creating a schedule instead of just going with the technology to create schedules. A lot of people run into issues because they think a certain method or technology is golden and will always solve an issue. You need to understand the basics first. Then the book started to discuss ways of building a schedule and different methods of doing it. These ranged from questions that should be asked while creating a schedule, to trusting you programmer’s opinions.
Finally, the book discussed reasons that schedules fail and this includes banking on a schedule and blaming it when it doesn’t work, not including holidays or special events, ect. What I learned out of this chapter is that I guessed on my Client’s project timeline. The reason I had to do this is because I am unfamiliar with a lot of the information required to complete this project. I also learned that my guess at a timeline can alter up to 400%. I think I’m going to take the weekend and try to learn more on my project so I can create a more accurate timeline to reflect the project. I still feel that I have more than enough time to complete this project, but I don’t want to get stuck behind.
Alright, moving onto the next and final part of my blog (I guess there isn’t really that much after all), I met with my client today to show them the comps for the site redesign. They liked some of the ideas incorporated but I guess they were looking for something a little more like other theatre websites. The client wasn’t upset with my progress, and she seemed confident that after the meeting, that I will have it together next time. I think the issue we ran into was that I didn’t ask enough questions about how the design should look, and she didn’t give me enough information to get there. There was some miscommunication between both of us, but I think that everything is clear now. So, with that being said, I’m working on a few more comps with the new design we discussed to be shown next Friday. Once again, I must ask anyone who is willing to take another look at the comps (when I get them up) and let me know what you think. What I have to give back to you is this little bit of advice, Take all the time in the world to ask your client questions about a project. Pick their brain till they bleed because it will help way further down the line.
***** Update, the links to the site weren’t working so I posted then to this blog, See below ****
It took a bit longer than expected, but I’ve finally completed some comps for the redesign of the valentine website. I ran into a few issues while creating these (mainly designers block), but I’ve got them done and I am ready to have people review them and rip them apart. I’m only allowed two comps to show my contact at the Valentine, so please choose the TWO better designs and critique form there. I am meeting with the client this Friday, so if you can get back to me before Thursday night, I would be eternally grateful.
*** Things that have to be in the design – Logo, Title of business, Large flash banner (Jesus Christ super star for each), and a purchase button that pops
Now about the design, they want a clean and simple site that isn’t too distracting or contemporary. I showed them my portfolio site and the Architecture site that I built and they really enjoyed what I created. I about 90% sure they wanted something similar.
Important Links
Valentines website: http://www.valentinetheatre.com/
My portfolio site: http://www.rprnow.com/portfolio2/
Architecture site: http://www.bgsu.edu/architecture
My Comps (click below to enlarge)
