Week 2- Outside of Class

Homework

Research (Phone Call)

For my phone call to Slam'n Salm'n Derby I needed to call Anchorage, Alaska. This meant that I needed to find an appropriate time to call since there was a 4 hour time difference. If it was 5:30 pm in Pennsylvania that would mean it would be 1:30 pm in Anchorage, AK. I prompted myself by saying "Hello, I'm a student at Millersville University in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and I'm a Graphic Designer looking to find out some research for my class. If you have the time would you answer some question about the Slam'n Salm'n Derby website for me?" Of course the lady I spoke to on the phone was very nice and was willing to speak to me just as long as I didn't have that many questions.

My first question was "What exactly is the Slamin Salmon Derby about? She said it's a unique urban fishing contest that happens once a year for several years now to help fundraise for the local soup kitchen. I also asked information about how much does it cost and how many participate in the Derby. She answered saying that there is no ticket cost to participate in the derby and that you just need to catch as much fish to help out the soup kitchen and there are prizes given out at the end. She also said that there are 1,200- 1,500 participate in the derby. I was surprised by this number. My second main question was "What is the main reason for the website?". She basically explain that the website is used for the basic information about the event and broadcast the event so more people can see it and if you couldn't find what you needed on the website that they rather have you call personally. I truly felt that the website holds a lot of information about the derby and it's fairly easy to find them by search this event on google. The lady was thrilled by how far up the website is on Google when you search it. My third question was "Who mostly uses your website and why?" She responded by saying the people who aren't locals because most of the locals already participate in the derby. She also said that about 80-90 people view their website each day and they get about 600 plus views per month. For a small website I was impressed by this number. My next question was "How many people are responsible for updating the information?" She said that the same 1 person update the information every year and when they get older they hand it off to someone else so not to many people are making changes to the site. My fourth question was "Do you think people would benefit if your website was mobile friendly? The lady was thrilled when I asked this question because she said they are currently working on a leaderboard to try and create a mobile friendly version of the event for next year. The leaderboard will also help the publishers of the website to make updates and changes to the event. As for my last question I asked "if you could change or add anything, what would it be?" She said that having the website be mobile would help a lot because most people are starting to use their phones to pull up information rather than go to their computers. 

The phone call only took 7 minutes because I wanted to keep it short since she said the weather was getting bad and she didn't want to be at the office much longer. But something ironic and interesting that came from our conversation was that her husband had actually graduated from Shippensburg University in PA and they had moved to Alaska about 10 years ago. Overall I thought our phone call was successful and I found out a lot of useful information.

Design Objectives 

From the phone call that I had with the headquarters of the Slam’n Salm’n Derby I wanted to create a responsive website that everyday people can easily understand. Since the population in Alaska is far less than what it is on the mainland of the United States, you would think less people have cells phones. Well Anchorage may only have 290,000 plus people they still use their cell phones to receive information. I want to try and create a website that corresponds to the locals and people interested in the event. I want to spark a felt-hearted emotion to the people who participate in this event because they are doing something to help the community. By sparking this emotion and allowing the people to feel like they are doing something inspiring and moving to the community the website should be warm and inviting. My site should have inspiration quotes and comments about the event, as more people will feel the site is more personal and heart-felt.

As Alaska isn’t the most tech savvy State I want the users to see a clean and easy navigational website because they may not understand all the new kinds of trends that are happening in technology. My dad is someone that would be interested in this kind of event since he loves to fish but on the other hand he hasn’t updated his iPhone 4 since the first version came out and doesn’t even understand the concept of user navigation. This is an example of the type of users that could be viewing the Slam’n Salm’n website. The content must be easily located and spaced out using white space to create breathing room to understand the content.

The physical appearance of the website should be eye-catching so more people want to join in on the fun. As for colors it makes sense to stay in the greens and blues because of the ocean and fishing purpose but I believe corals, pinks and yellows can have a statement on my design since the contestants are fishing for Salmon. My site must stay gender neutral since both guys and girls will be viewing the website.

As for the typography I must stay away from cursive calligraphy typography since it becomes difficult to read in some contexts. Unless the stylized typeface is fancy and legible then I will reconsider. I want my choice of typography to be crisp just like the crystal clear waters. Alaskan is known for it’s beautiful culture, atmosphere and landscapes. In order to illustrate this to viewers who haven’t traveled to Alaska but might enjoy participating in the event I want to choose awe-inspiring photographs that bring people in. Overall I want a crisp, colorful website that keeps the viewer interested or they will become bored.

For the responsive design I want to keep a cohesive design to the webpages seem similar and easily recognizable. To much going on will confuse the user and push them away.  My audience is potentially different compared to the rest of the class but it’s a challenge I’m willing to accomplish. 

Persona 

Reading Chapter 2

Flexible Grid

In this chapter it talks about how typographic grids are a rational system of columns and rows, where content can be placed. The proportions of the web page size is unknown because the canvas of our browser window can bend and flex in any shape or size. Each browser has some type of simple grid to identify. You can look at this .psd document of the website if you received the original file but that will do you no good, unless your using it as a reference. PSD documents are only good if you need the correct pixels but its not necessary when you are trying to create a responsive website. This chapter starts to explain a basic grid webpage and you need to think proportionally. We must express font-size, layouts, and images all in values of relative proportion. So instead of using pixels we will be using em's. Accuracy is key. When creating the perfect font size you should not round up but keep the math to the decimal that is get resulted when you divide to numbers. The page were looking at is broken into 12 columns measuring to 69 pixels across from each column. This would be the basic view. The next view would be that the page is broken into two columns the first being 566 pixels and the second smaller column being 331 pixels. When expressing these widths in relative proportion you can resize the webpage and the column will change with any viewport size. For example you would divide the target width of the browser by the context size and produce your percentage that will change your information based on the viewport size. 

This reading was challenging to understand the first time to I made sure that I read it twice. I'm still a little confused about the em when you are making font sizes relative but the columns and content area math makes more sense after I re-read the chapter.