Core Design Task

“You must choose an existing small business or organization and follow the Garrett 5 layer design process in the creation of a website suitable for them. From analysis of their communication needs, scope, content, functional requirements, target audience through to appropriate branding and technology choices. You are required to document the steps and decisions you take at each stage of the design process. You will use your personal portfolio to organize and preset this process documentation for marking. You will also be required to implement a representative sample of content for the client website you design using a web platform of your choice, e.g. WordPress, joomla etc.”

Personal Web Portfolio

“For this assignment you will undertake a series of design tasks. Using the system of your choice (e.g., HOTGLUE, WORPRESS, plain HTML) you are required to create a personal web based portfolio documenting each design task.
Client Website requirements gathering
Client design exercise
Client Development exercise
Each design exercise should be documented in a variety of media types. It is expected that you will include a range of the following – as appropriate to the needs of the project you are documenting.

♣ Text
♣ Images
♣ Photographs
♣ Audio
♣ Video”

https://blackboard.uwe.ac.uk/webapps/portal/execute/tabs/tabAction?tab_tab_group_id=_39_1


Garret 5 Layer Theory

Surface Plane
The Surface Plane On the surface you see a series of Web pages, made up of images and text. Some of these images are things you can click on, performing some sort of function such as taking you to a shopping cart. Some of these images are just illustrations, such as a photograph of a book cover or the logo of the site itself.

Skeleton Plane
The Skeleton Plane Beneath that surface is the skeleton of the site: the placement of buttons, tabs, photos, and blocks of text. The skeleton is designed to optimize the arrangement of these elements for maximum effect and efficiency—so that you remember the logo and can find that shopping cart button when you need it.

Structure Plane
The Structure Plane The skeleton is a concrete expression of the more abstract structure of the site. The skeleton might define the placement of the interface elements on our checkout page; the structure would define how users got to that page and where they could go when they were finished there. The skeleton might define the arrangement of navigational items allowing the users to browse categories of books; the structure would define what those categories actually were.

Scope Plane
The Scope Plane The structure defines the way in which the various features and functions of the site fit together. Just what those features and functions are constitutes the scope of the site. Some sites that sell books offer a feature that enables users to save previously used addresses so they can be used again. The question of whether that feature—or any feature—is included on a site is a question of scope.

Strategy Plane
The Strategy Plane The scope is fundamentally determined by the strategy of the site. This strategy incorporates not only what the people running the site want to get out of it but what the users want to get out of the site as well. In the case of our bookstore example, some of the strategic objectives are pretty obvious: Users want to buy books, and we want to sell them. Other objectives might not be so easy to articulate.


My Website


Home Page
The home page is the first page that the user will come too, meaning that it needs content to lure the user into the website. This is why I have included a post section on the home page where the user will be able to read what everyone has been talking about on the website, whether it may be important news about the course for a general discussion from one of the forums on the website. There will also be more news on the page including updates and announcements from blackboard, so the students don’t necessarily have to go to blackboard to see these updates.

About Page
The about page is quite self explanatory as it includes information about the digital media course. This page is more important for upcoming students as it includes information about the course which can also be found on the main Uwe website. This is so that upcoming students can check this page out and get more information on the course. The page also has an embedded map on it, with the location as Uwe so that the students can find out how to get to the university if they are walking in for lectures or if any upcoming students need to make their way in for an open day for example, then they can just go onto the site and use the embedded map.

Coursework Page
Again, the coursework page is quite self explanatory as well. This page will include coursework for students of each year which will be updated by the lecturers or module leader. This page will only be modified by the lecturer but the students can create new forums on the forum page to talk about the coursework and to share ideas with each other or to ask the lecturer certain questions. This coursework page will be quite similar to the one on blackboard as blackboard has a very simple and effective way of storing coursework information and documents that the student might need. At the moment, the coursework page has a couple of videos embedded in it. The videos are of my work that I have completed this year. This is to give the future students an insight on what to come, and will give current students a chance to see what I was creating during the year.

Resources Page
The resources page will include important documents and information that will be available for download. This is so that the students can visit this page and download what they need, for example, cover pages for certain coursework modules, coursework information and updates from the lecturers. The download option on this page will be key as the students can choose what they want to download and then it will be on their computer for good, unless they delete it. This means that they can keep referring back to the document on their computer and don’t have to keep visiting the site.

Forums Page
The forums page will include forums created by the lecturers or students if they wish. A forum is a discussion area on a website. Members of the site can post discussions and read and respond to posts by other forum members. A forum can be focused on nearly any subject, for example, it can be on coursework, general questions or discussions about trips or meet ups that can be added to the calendar and can be seen by everyone. This is a key part of the website because everyone can talk to each other at the same time, and 99% of the time, your question or query will be answered by someone on the site. This also means that it keeps the digital media community close together.

Contacts Page
The contacts page includes contact information for all of the lecturers and module leaders on the course. This is so that the students and website users have quick access to the lecturers. I know the pain of logging into blackboard every time to get a different email address. This page also includes a small piece of information on the lecturer, whether it may be their personal web page, twitter account or their office location on campus so the students can visit them.

Log In / Student Area
This page is a log in page until the student has registered to the site, then it changes to the students very own personal area. The log in page is self explanatory, the student needs to put in their details to be able to log in, they can also tick the remember me box to be automatically logged in each time. The student area is one of the most important parts of the site and is what brings the students and lecturers closer together. This page allows the student to create their very own unique profile to their liking. They can edit their profile at any time, allowing them to change their profile photo, cover photo, bio and personal information like passwords or emails. Once the student has created a profile, they will be able to access the comments section of the website and they will also be able to comment on forums and also create forums for themselves.