Day Forty-Nine: Thursday 08.01.2013

As expected I created wireframes today and made a written outline of different options for content. The different options are varying degrees of change from the current content. I can see the splash page being more of a login page with a simple link to request more information. The current page has a lot of corporate catch phrases to describe what we do. I want to pare down this information no matter what, but it could be included if the page keeps the brochure style. 

I'm really happy with how the wireframes are going. Even though they are just rectangle boxes, I am mentally filling them out more. I make notes off to the side of the different options for each box and the overall layout has a more specific plan compared to how I normally do wireframes. I think this method will work much better when presenting to Chris, as well as make the step between wireframes and mock ups much smoother. I will be able to communicate my vision to Chris better and we are much more likely to be on the same page from start to finish.

This is a good example of a process of design that I learned about, but it makes way more sense in practice. In class I was designing for myself, I didn't think through my wireframes as much because I wasn't going to explain it to anyone. There may have been a brief class discussion, but for the most part this stage was largely for myself. Perhaps other students were better at making themselves slow down and utilize their wireframes as a map, but I breezed over them, excited to put together content. Now, I very quickly realized I needed to be specific in my plans, even though a wireframe is visually unspecific. This project is really exciting for me and I want it to go as smoothly as possible.

Day Forty-Eight: Wednesday 07.31.2013

Well, tomorrow is my last day of my internship according to my school paperwork. I plan on ending my journaling on this day as well so I will have enough time to compile everything in to the final "book". Unfortunately this means my reporting doesn't end on a nice clean point of finishing a project. In fact it ends almost the opposite, as I am just getting knee deep in a new project. 

Today I finished reading the article/book about homepage design. The end was mostly about how to place ad space, graphics to represent stocks and some other very unhelpful topics. However it has helped me know which stuff to cut out (press coverage) and I have a better idea of what I want to make prominent. I want to move the sign in button, but that's something that will definitely have to be cleared by Chris. I will go ahead and move it in my sketches, but I know there will be a discussion about it. I am also going to try and design with the idea of not moving it, but changing how the link looks. This way we have a couple of options and I will have a more open mind. The only other aspect that is a bit challenging is figuring out who exactly the audience is. My understanding is that it's mostly seed company consultants and growers coming to the page. There might be an investor or generally interested person here and there, but they are the minority. However, the call to action on the page is for this minority. That is why I want to move the 'Sign In' button down and put it next to the 'Request a Demo' button. Then it would be more with the standard of profile login websites. The user asks for a demo if he/she doesn't have an account, or just signs in. We'll see if Chris would agree with this or if he likes the current set up better.

Day Forty-Seven: Tuesday 07.30.2013

Today I tried to finish off the mock ups for Yield Environment. Kelly said she liked them and Tim agreed as well. I e-mailed Phil to see if I could "Finish" the project, or if I needed to wait until we had a certain column title checked off. I haven't gotten an answer yet (Phil has been in and out of the office), so I guess that will have to keep sitting as it is.

Besides that, I kept reading the article/book on homepage design. I am a little concerned with the development of this project. I am not entirely sure which parts to tackle first and how much of it do I just decide and how much do I try and talk through with Chris. It is larger, important projects like this that really make me wish that I was working under another designer more. I know Kelly is always willing to help, but I don't think she would know much more than me at this point. I think the thing I am missing at this point is the confidence in my position and skill. That's just something I need to be aware of and work on - I think I've said that exact sentence before.

Day Forty-Six: Monday 07.29.2013

Only three days left of documenting my internship! The time has gone fairly quickly, but I can't say that I will miss writing down what I do each day, it has become a pretty tedious task. However, it will be interesting to read back over everything and write a reflection. 

Today I continued reading the homepage design article and planning our new homepage. I would love to get this done by the end of the week and possibly include it in my practicum book, but I just don't think that's possible. Right now my goal will be to make more detailed wireframes and begin gathering and creating content. If I were to try and get much more done I think it would be rushed and definitely not up to par. 

I have found out a lot of good information about homepage design. Since my previous work experience was all at Taylor, I have very little information about what corporations want or expect. After just a couple days of research I understand a lot more; like why there is an About Us page or Contact Us and what type of information to list there. I would not have thought through how the information on those pages changes for each type of company. Also, I learned that having a designated "In the Press" page can encourage more coverage because journalists see you value their work. All of this is so interesting! I know our new page is going to be pretty simple, since our web presence is focused on the actual application. But, that does not take away from the value of knowing this and it will definitely help when explaining the design I come up with.

I know that I've said I think my education was missing a lot of web information. There is so much out there and I think we only skimmed the surface. However, this internship is a part of my education and I definitely think it helps prepare me for the corporate world. I am doing my internship a little out of order, normally I would take it before or during my senior year. Instead, I am taking it as my last class and I'm at the job that will become my full time career after the summer. Being in this position has made me very aware of how important real life experience is. You cannot understand how being a designer actually works in a class room. You can gain a lot of great tools and get really prepared, but it's not the real thing. Internships are just such an important stepping stone before a "real" job and I'm really happy that Taylor makes us do them. 

Day Forty-Five: Friday 07.26.2013

It's Friday!! Wooo! ...That's not as much fun to say outside of chapel. Nonetheless it is Friday and today was a great end to the week. I think I have completed the Yield Environment/Zone Edit mock up; it's at least at a point that I would greatly defend against changes. I haven't come up with a title for the expected yield range, every so often someone pitches a new idea, but none have worked yet. Otherwise I really like the layout, it's clean and organized, there is clear hierarchy and I think the user will be able to quickly adjust.

The rest of today I continued reading the article about homepage design. It is very long and tedious, but I am getting some good notes from it so I definitely think it's work my time. I take some breaks and peruse the web for visual examples of good homepages and jot down some content ideas. It helps me break up the content and digest it so I actually remember good points and weed out inapplicable things. I also caught up on my practicum documentation and timesheet entries. I will be sending in my internship book next weekend, so I wanted to take some time to make sure everything was in order. I collected previous weeks form my sent mail, sense I lost the original files with my hard drive, and made sure their formatting was correct. This way when I set up the book to be sent I can focus more on the design/layout and get my images of my work together and not worry too much about the copy.

Day Forty-Four: Thursday 07.25.2013

Since this week ended up being a little mixed up, today was the day I worked from home. Being able to work from my (new!) couch was so wonderful and ended up being perfect. I had no idea how tired I had been, but it felt great to lean in to a comfy couch while working. I embraced the relaxing feeling all day and took it kind of easy. I continued reading various articles about homepage design, focusing mainly on one from Nielsen and Norman Group. I've come across other helpful articles from them, and the one I read today was more like a book. It's 113 Design Guidelines for Homepage Usability and I know I will have lots of useful notes to work from. 

I've said this before, but I think web design principles is a topic really lacking from my education. I took Web Design, but that was focused on how to make menus and a basic web page. I would like a class more like Visual Communications, but focused on the web. The principles I'm reading about now are really helpful and very web specific, they are not something I could transfer from basic design classes. I'm learning about usability, what a business will want and how that might not be best for design purposes, especially when it comes to advertising for partners. I've also learned about the benefit of having some kind of call to action with a button or some other action the user will do. This makes perfect sense, but with nature of our site I might not have included it, or made it a less prominent feature.

Day Forty-Three: Wednesday 07.24.2013

Wednesdays are normally my day to work from home, but since Chris is in town for a short time we all came in. He didn't actually need me there, but I figured I'd change my day just in case. 

I hit a bit of a slow spot with mock ups and decided to work more on the homepage design. Since I had found some interesting articles yesterday, I thought I would continue this research. I found lots of smaller articles, some really not helpful and one really great (long) one at the end of the day. I have not added to my sketches, but it is helping me know how to organize information and which pieces to cut out. Since my sketches were more like wireframes, I don't really need to adjust them at this point. I still want to keep the simple idea I started with, using three images and a tag line. However, now I know why this will be most successful and I have a better idea of what the pictures should be. 

Another thing I need to do is go and photograph more farm scenes. I had done this a couple weeks back and I got some amazing shots during the golden hour. Unfortunately that was included in the files I did not back up, so I have to redo them. I'm a little worried the corn will be too tall and I won't be able to find high enough ground to shoot from. However, if I can, I think the tassels on the corn will look really great with the sun setting.