So, for this project we had to execute the idea that we came up with in Unit 12. We had to take responsibility for everything that we were going to do and show off all of the skills that we have learnt over our time in college.
My aim for this project was to create a website that helps people with constructing home furniture. The website would be easy to navigate and would provide a lot of helpful information so that people would find it as hassle free as possible to make their own furniture.
Obviously, I could not cover every piece of buildable furniture in the world so I also created a forum where people can discuss and help each other out with regards to specific pieces of furniture. People would also be able to vote for content to be made for the website and would be able to submit their own content.
The age range and gender I was focusing on for this project was ages 20-40 women. I made this decision when I analyzed the information from my first questionnaire that I conducted. However, I also really wanted to make it so that both genders would be interested in the site and so I made sure that I chose a design that was quite simple but liked by many. I also did not want to limit my age range to just 20-40 because I know that almost anyone can struggle with building their own furniture. I made the site easy to understand so that anyone can use it and know what they are doing.
List of five strengths and five weaknesses
Strengths:
- Was very easy to navigate and use
- Overall it looked great and fit with the theme well
- I created something that was just how I imagined it and it turned out great
- It was very clear what I was trying to do and it showed a lot of potential
- The website actually worked on the web and everything was interactable
Weaknesses:
- Phone version of the site just did not work correctly
- Not a lot of photos around the site
- Animation was not great and was quite short
- Forum did not work as intended and no search bar due to restrictions
- There was not a variety of fonts
My main idea for my theme
The main reason I decided to do this for my project was because it was something no one had ever really done before. There was a want for this but not an overly large one and no one had ever tackled this before. Due to buildable furniture being used by a lot of lower and middle class people, it was an area that was very popular.
Websites like Ikea are very 'bare bones', only really stating the facts and not really showing peoples' opinions and problems with the product. I guess this is because they want to sell as much as possible, however I think they are missing some vital information that people have to know before purchasing their product. People know that most buildable furniture is not the best quality and does wear out after a while but people do not know how long this period is for every product. Having a place where people can find out all of these little bits of information will help them with their purchase and will allow them to save money and make better decisions. People buy buildable furniture because it is cheap but they also want to get as much use out of their products as possible - my website aims to help them with that.
One of the main issues with buildable furniture is actually building the furniture. This can be quite stressful for some people and my site also aims to prepare them and make it as stress free as possible.
My influences for my project
I really like how their whole site is set out, they clearly are appealing to people that believe that they can have a go at fixing their own product and are taking a chance. These people must be quite a small community, seeing as though when you usually open up your own devices, you lose warranty on them. The site is set out well for those sorts of people and you can clearly see that they have put a whole lot of time and effort to make this site really informative and useful.
I think you can see that I got a lot of my inspiration from their site, if you compare them both.
My experiments and exploration that I carried out
So, I really wanted to have a shot at animations but I knew from the start that this task was going to be really hard for me. I decided however, that I wanted to have a shot at it and try and make a good looking animation that was very simple.
I knew that it was not going to turn out well but I had the best shot I could at making the best animation I was capable of. I made the first part of the animation which took me quite a while and I found that at about half way though, it was just not worth all my time - I could be using it in other places to make even higher quality work (Website). I really wasn’t sure whether this was a good idea when I first did it but I ended up making some really good bits. These are the product pages, I was really proud of how they turned out and I don’t think that they would have looked as good if I did not give them as much time.In contrast, as I stated in one of my previous blogs, I thought that shooting the video was going to be quite simple however, it was far from it. I ran into a major problem after my first day when I found out that my friend was not able to continue helping me shoot the video for the website. I really had to act fast here, I did not have a lot of time to play with because I wanted to stick to my timetable and the set we had set up was going to be removed in a few days. I managed to get my mum to help me with shooting the video and even though it did not turn out as good as it could have, I still got a great video out of it that fits with my site.
Comparisons and difference between mine and a similar design publication
So, like I said before I took a lot of my ideas from Ifixit, and looking at both of these product pages, you can see that we both talk about a lot of the same things.
We both include a video but even though I did not get the video idea from Ifixit, I still think that for almost any product page, it needs to include one, otherwise people will still struggle quite a lot when it comes to building/ repairing their product.
We also both show the difficulty of building the product - Ifixit shows it in the form of three little bars with a word stating how you will find it while my difficulty is in the form of 5 stars with no word next to it. Looking at this now, I think that a word next to my difficulty ranking would have been useful.
We also both talk about the time it will take to repair/ build the product. While Ifixit has its own little column for this, I talk about this in the ‘How easy to build section’. I did this because I believe that it is key information that should be paired with why it takes that long and why it could take longer or shorter. I believe that this is more important than just a number as a number means nothing unless you justify how you got to that number.
We both talk about the tools you are going to need for the repair/ build. I think this is key and I believe that every product page must have this as well.
In my product page, I talk a little about the product while Ifixit does not. I believe that I need this on my product page, just in case people want to see someone else's opinion on the furniture, before they buy the product. In Ifixit’s case they do not need to do this because the user already owns the product and doesn't need to know how well it works for example.
My key areas of development in this project
One of the biggest areas for development throughout the project was discovering the brand. This took me quite a while to finally figure out but I remember not really knowing which logo I was going to choose or which colour scheme to use for a long time. I am very glad that I resolved this problem though, getting to experiment with different colours, while the site was being made, was great. I got to see which colours gave the site the most light and stuck with the theme the best. When you look at my early videos you can see that the colour scheme I was using was really dull and looked terrible. After a bit of playing around with colours and taking a bit of inspiration from Ikea, I came up with the colour scheme I used for the final product. When I asked on my questionnaire what people thought of the look of the site, the majority said that they liked it, so I think it was a success.
Another, was finding out what people really wanted from the site. I found from my first questionnaire that a lot of people did not really struggle at constructing their own furniture. This made me a bit sceptical about moving forward with the project. However, when it came to the end, I decided to finally ask people what they thought of the site and the response I got (from a lot of people from my target audience) was that they would use the website in the future - this is great feedback because it means that I know that what they saw was actually useful for them and actually a good tool.
What feedback I got from friends and peers and how did it make me feel
When I showed my website to my friends I really wanted to see what they got from the site so I could improve it and make it better for them. I ended up using their feedback and incorporating it into my FAQ. One of the significant pieces of feedback I got from them was that the colour scheme was not so good and so consequently, this was really when I decided to change things around and make it a whole lot better. I also received a whole lot of positive feedback from them - they found my site to be very useful and said that they would definitely use it if it was fully functioning.What could I change about my work produced to improve and develop it?
I really like what I have done with my site and I think some of the most major problems about it were due to the restraints from Muse. I think the content that I made for my furniture was not the best, like I said before I was not overly pleased with my animation and if I was to do this again, I would probably make sure that I either do a bit of training with the program or get someone who is familiar with the program to help me with some of the mechanics.
I also really wish I could have added more photos and images around the site. Most of the images that I wanted, had to be really big and there was not a whole lot of royalty free images that were big enough. This meant that I had to get some of my own images to replace them. They did not look the best and did not really fit with the site. I wish I could have got some more professional looking ones.
Another was the phone version of the site. I really tried to change the site to work with phones but it just didn’t work. I had multiple attempts at this and could just not get it. I decided to just make it as good looking and readable as possible. I think if I had a bit more time I would have been able to mend this issue. I think phones would be the main way people access the site so I really wanted to make it capable for all users and not get rid of / alter the experience for one device.
Looking back at my statement of intent and Project Proposal and seeing - what changed, what developments did I make, did I manage to complete everything I set myself out to?
Looking back on my Statement of Intent and Project Proposal, I found that I talked a lot about making it: easy to navigate and one that functions well. I believe that I have met these goals, the results from my questionnaire show that the majority of people who visited the site, found it easy to use. The site works great on a tablet and desktop but not on a phone, however I did not have goals to put it on these two systems until about halfway through my project. I think this is good though, it shows that my research helped me in understanding that there was going to be quite a lot of people that would be using this site on their phone.
I also had a goal to make numerous animations, however this did not work out well. I only managed to make one animation in the end. I think when I was writing this I was not really thinking about how long it would take me to learn Animate and I thought that it was easier to use than it actually was.
I also added a whole lot more to my product pages that I originally stated on my Statement of Intent and Project Proposal. I am glad I did this though because it shows that I got to have a good look at what my site (from the research that I carried out and found out) was really trying to achieve and make my site original with its own unique selling points.
I also made it accessible through the internet. I remember really not being sure whether I would be able to do this but I found out quite quickly that it was easier that I had first thought when writing the Statement of Intent and Project Proposal.
Reflect on my pitch to the client; how did I feel about it before? Did it go better or worse than I expected? what was the feedback from the client/lecturer? what do I think I could improve next time?
Ever since I had done my pitch, I had really regretted the way I did it. The way I worded everything and how I pitched my idea was terrible. When I was doing it, I think I just got a bit nervous - I tend to always bring a bit of paper that mentions everything but the feedback I got from my Unit 12 project was to not use a piece of paper and just say everything on the spot. Due to this, I missed out a lot of key information and forgot to include a whole lot about why I had chosen to do this project in the first place.
Due to this, the feedback from my lecturers were asking a whole lot of questions like: “Why did you choose this idea?”. “It does not seem possible to write something about every piece of constructible furniture”. I really wish I could have got my words right and talked about everything I wanted to talk about.
When I was talking to my other lecturer about the project, when we first started off Unit 12, I showed him why I wanted to do this as my project and what I was trying to achieve and he understood what my idea was and why it would be useful.
I think next time I would either recite it a whole lot more in my head so I would make sure that I covered the key things about my project or bring a piece of paper with me. I know it is not ideal to do but I believe that it is a good way for me to get my idea out in an easy and understandable way.
Conclusion
To conclude I am very happy with the work I have done. I really believe that I have produced a great looking website that shows my future intentions. I also learned a lot more, I learned how time management is very key when doing projects like this and how much of an impact it can have if you do not plan everything in advance. I hit a lot of my goals that I set at the start and I ended up learning a whole lot more than I did in the beginning of this project. I feel like I have expanded my skills in all areas as well, from research to web design as a whole. I am very glad I chose this as my FMP because I had a whole lot of fun and I believed that I created what I originally set out to do to a very professional standard.
Bibliography:
Ifixit (2017) IPhone 6 Battery Replacement. Available at: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+6s+Battery+Replacement/56607 (Accessed: 28 April 2017).
No comments:
Post a Comment