10 Principles of Effective Web Design

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We are starting on our Unit 2 project in Multimedia class which is all about hypertext and web design. I found this great article on 10 principles of effective web design.

1. Don't Make Users Think
2. Don't Squander Users Patience
3. Manage To Focus Users' Attention
4. Strive For Feature Exposure
5. Make Use Of Effective Writing
6. Strive For Simplicity
7. Don't Be Afraid Of The White Space
8. Communicate  Effectively With A "Visible Language."
9. Conventions Are Our Friends
10. Test Early, Test Often.

This site goes more into depth on to why these principles are effective, but I think these 10 principles really can make a huge effect. Being an avid internet user, these principles all are true when it comes to what websites appeal to people and don't. I've gone on websites that were too busy or complicated and never came back. It is all about simplicity. I'm excited to get started and know how to great my own web designs.

Final Project

This is my final project. The hardest part for me in this project was that I love things to be simple. Being that this is a collage and there is a lot going on, I tried to make it as organized and readable as possible, but with still some uniqueness and creativity involved.  Part of the requirement was to use 4 different types of material. I went outside in my yard and gathered a bunch of different sticks, cut them, and hot glued them along the base of the foam board giving it an "earthy" type feel which I was going for. I then took a white foam board and traced the outline of africa and took an exacto knife and carved it out and colored it in with colored pencils and hot glued it to the top. I then took 2 water bottles and hot glued them to the right side of the board showing that these people are in need for water. I then took a blown up version of the picture of sticks I took in my front yard and used it as a back drop for some of my main pictures I got off AP images. I added my other images I took showing the "donate' aspect. I then typed up a short paragraph about what is going on in Africa and how people can help and I put a wooden frame around it to draw peoples attention. I then added images I found the most powerful. As you can see in the top right corner there is a picture of someone in the military with a gun and I made the picture black and white and the just made him colored showing that they are the ones taking over and leaving the other people in the "dark." I went to Michaels and got these really cool white foam letters and I used those to demonstrate what exactly this collage is about and to get the message across. Last, I hot glued my foam board on top of a wooden donation station I created and wrote "Donate" on so people can easily just drop money and coins in it securely.

I found this project actually very fun to do and I'm VERY pleased with how it turned out. Although it took a lot of time, it really paid off. I'm excited to see what my other classmates came up with.

A Day as A Photographer

One of the assignments in our project is to take 4 of our own images. When Professor Murray told me this, I was very hesitant because I am by no means a photographer. Also, it was challenging for me to think of images I could take that would correlate with the over arching theme of my poster, donations for african famine, without actually getting on a plane and flying to Africa camera in hand.

First, I took money from my wallet it and I tried to spread it on the hard surface of my floor in some "artsy" way to photograph what exactly it is that these people should be donating. 

 

Then I took a picture of my roomates hands in a gesture that says "giving" and shows the giving action being done.

Then I went out front and took a picture of the dirt and rocks that my landowner calls "quality landscaping" and figured I could use it as some background for a title or for a collage layering effect.

This picture has to be my favorite of them all. I have this app called "Instagram" where I was able to add this effect to what would normally be a pretty bland picture of food I took from my pantry. I really love how it turned out and how it has kind of a rustic feel to it. 

I am excited to see how my poster comes together. My only challenge left now is getting everything together and think of a few more raw materials to use.

A Whole New Meaning of Color

I've seen a few friends of mine who are very interested in photography post pictures where the entire picture is grey scale except for one part of the picture still has color in it. I've always thought how cool this looked and always wondered how they did it. In class today we finally learned how to do it and I was very excited! It is amazing to see how you can add such emotion to a picture by concentrating on certain parts through color. I'm hoping to apply this to my upcoming project. I may make a young child's eyes be the only color showing as a sign of hope and to have an emotional appeal of people walking by, or just have the color of the gun showing to represent the violence that is going on there. Either way, color can add so much more meaning and emotion to a picture than one would think.

African Famine Collage Project

In our Multimedia class we were assigned a mini project to help get us started on our actual project, which was to take pictures from AP images from the TCU library database and make a collage. I flipped through about 15 pages of different pictures of this tragedy going on in Africa, and I have to admit, it was very disturbing. Just looking through these pictures made me more passionate to want to not only do well on my project, but to get large donations to send to these poor people. This just reminds me how truly blessed we are to live in the country we live in. As you in can see in my collage The top largest image is a picture of the African military controlling the people from leaving. I've made this collage like a "cause and effect." We have the military holding these people back and then the surronding pictures show the effect of it. You can see starving children, poverty stricken living situations, and homeless people on the streets with no food or water. Doing this collage made me realize that there can be so much more meaning in pictures then I would have ever expected and the placement of pictures can have a large meaning as well.

A Glimpse of Hope

Chevron is making a large effort to help out with the famine in Africa, check out this video: Talk about great brand image for Chevron.

Save The Children

I came across a CNN article titled: Famine In East Africa-How You Can Help that really caught my attention. Check it out: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/07/20/iyw.howtohelp.somalia.famine/index.html.


It lists all the organizations that are helping the famine going on today. However, all of these organizations all just have links to donate $10 or to TEXT a certain number to donate money. In my Multimedia Image and Hypertext class at TCU we are trying to find an organization we can send our food to. I think we could easily just send everything we have to an organizations address that they could send out to Africa. Take Save the Children for example. They have their address provided on their website: 54 Wilton Road, Westport, CT 06880. Save the Children is feeding underweight children, providing life saving medical treatment, and clean water. The reason we are looking for an organization we can give food instead of money is because we will have these donation stations we create set up throughout campus and although I trust everyone's moral ethic at TCU, you never know who would just walk up and take the donation jar and the money inside of it. People are a lot less likely to steal food.

I like the idea of gathering food and just sending it to an organization in the US. What do you think?