Well, it is getting down to the pointy end of the semester, where every component has to be fine tuned, and looked over with a critical eye. I have gotten everyone in the group to look over the website and give their opinions, and have changed components accordingly. This is the week where we all set deadlines to have the videos and audio edited and ready to put into the app and website in the middle of the week, this way it wasn’t all being left to the end. This week was all about getting everything into the website, making sure all of the links are working, such as social media links, and also links to the different pages.

I had a couple of issues with the website when I was designing elements in Illustrator and then exporting them for the website, they were going pixelated and I could get the sizing right. The timeline was my biggest issue surprisingly as it was only a 3-D photo gallery, however I designed all of the individual items, and getting these to work was quite a task, however after researching and experimenting, the images fitted nicely into the gallery, the background images and also the images throughout the website. It was all about the exporting details when saving them out of Illustrator, as I had to change the resolutions, the art board sizes and the quality of the image. After this was overcome, I went straight into fine tuning the rest of the website.

Last week I had a design that I was happy with but it wasn’t 100%. After critically examining and dissecting the website as a group, I redesigned the website (only some of it – such as colours, font etc), so that it was mirroring the goal at the beginning of this project. Once editing the website it was all about making sure all of the components were ready to go for when the videos and audio were given to Brontae and I. It was in this new design that I thought about the website in some more detail and took on board some of the feedback from the presentation earlier on in the semester, where the guests suggested having a “little spirit” following the user on the journey or driving them along to the different components. In the time frame that we had, I had to think of something simple yet interactive, so I decided to have an image of JMC throughout some of the pages – and beside these images would be him talking to the user, sharing his thoughts about the page or the content, or where they should check out extra information. This way it is like he is speaking to the user himself and guiding them through his own story. This element adds a personal touch to the website, along with a bit of fun, as you are always on the look out for when he might pop up, and the user is more invested in what he is saying (as it is coming out of a speech bubble), then what has just been typed up on a page. The website is all about managing all of the content as it is the central hub, and making sure there are quirky elements like this to keep the user happy and intrigued.