Final Post

The websites are completed and the end is near . . .

This class has both reinforced skills that I already knew and also given me new skills.  In my opinion the most helpful skills that I received in this class would be in photo editing, especially for the web.  Now having the skill set to edit and manipulate photos to my liking will make printing photos from vacations so much easier.

Of the two websites that were designed I believe that designing on wix was a bit simpler and easier.  The use of web 2.0 technology gives you the ability drag, click and drop.  Expression web was not too difficult either, it just has certain nuisances about it that can make things difficult at times.  Overall though, both websites have the same design and feel to them.  The wix site is more interactive and animated, including sound on the home page.

Looking back at the storyboards, both websites keep in line with the original plans.  I removed the top banner from every page.  The site still contains 6 pages according to the original design and the overall feel and color scheme stayed the same also.

Wix Site
http://www.wix.com/andrewsgrim/in-the-money

Week #6

When designing a website and deciding on the layout the best way to organize your ideas is through the process of story boarding.  By laying out your ideas and designs on a storyboard you are able to visualize your ideas before they are an actual webpage.  This helps cut down on design and layout changes to your website, especially if you are strictly using html code to build your site.  For example, If you use html code to build your website you are spending a great amount of time to type in that code.  If you do not have a storyboard made for the design you could code out the website and end up not liking it.  Your whole process will have to start over again because you do not like the design of the site.  By creating a storyboard this will help eliminate that from happening.

Writing for the web differs from writing for print because you have a smaller area to capture your audiences attention.  Some tips for writing for the web are:  Write relevant content; people are viewing your site to read about a specific topic.  Don't falter from the topic or your audience will be less enticed.  Use lists instead of paragraphs.  People are better able to follow a list on a website than a paragraph, they are easier to read and scan.  Write short sentences.  Make your sentences brief and to the point.  Too much information can overload the reader.  Put your conclusions at the beginning of the sentence.  Use the inverted pyramid concept.  Post your conclusion and than expand on it from there.  Write only one idea per paragraph.  Loading up a paragraph with more than one idea will lose the readers interests.

After reviewing the web 2.0 website building site, I believe I will give wix at try.  After reviewing my website topic, I believe that by using wix I will be able to create a more interesting and interactive website than on the other traditional programs.