Memo

To: Dr. Greg Wickliff

From: Hazel Mynes

Date: 11/20/2018

Re: Project Assessment Memo for Website

Ideas & Development

I had a vision for the website layout and sketched that out, which I then implemented into the first online
draft of my website. After doing that whole layout, which included drop down menus containing the
memos, feedback, and assessments, I was not satisfied with the flow of the website. Instead, I wanted to
try to implement all document and image links within a single page for each of the five projects in the
course. I realized that putting all the documents in full size on a single page would be too much and
would be a long scroll-down page, and therefore I chose to implement the links from the page.
There are two kinds of link sections on each page, one for the drafts, and one for the
memos/feedback/assessments. Since all the latter are PDF or Word documents, I decided to have them
open in a separate window so that the viewer can easily see and then close without having to re-navigate
to where they were in the website. With the sketch and drafts section, I chose to upload images wherever
it would make sense to open and enlarge in a popup window on the same page to see the whole draft
piece. But, if it was a document that was too big/long, such as my Tutorial Final Draft PDF, I linked it to
a separate page that would open up in a new window, similar to how the memos/feedback/assessments
section behaves.
I felt competent with using Weebly to do my website, but I am always learning new processes in the
software as I use different templates, create from scratch, or manipulate the code to get what I want. I
frequently must Google the answers to questions I have and can usually find the them within a Weebly
forum or through others that have published relevant information about using Weebly. I knew the
instructor wanted us to come up with a design that we liked and envisioned from our own creativity, and
then implement that idea, so I did not look at templates in Weebly until after I had decided what I would
like my site to look like and what the content, layout, and navigation would be. Of course, I have seen and
used a lot of templates and had an idea of what I could do, but as I browsed the themes after drafting the
sketch, I looked for what I could use that would implement the ideas I had and the changes I wanted to
make to those.
Audience
I created the website for an assignment in my ENGL 5182 - Information Design & Digital Publishing
course and will be able to use the final version of it for my e-Portfolio, due at the end of the course. I will
also be able to use it as a work portfolio in my web design, media, and marketing business called Dream
Link Media, or even as a work sample portfolio should I choose to get a job in the future. Therefore, the
target audience for this website is 1). The course instructor, 2). Potential clients in my business, and 3).
Potential employers.

Graphics

• Fonts – The font for the Site Title is a cursive font called Saginaw and is in lavender. The
navigation menu, in gray, as well as the text on each page, in black or white depending on the
background, is the font, Work Sans. The Title font for the entire site is the default that
Weebly chose for the template, Lora, in black, but I liked it and didn’t want to change it. I
know not to use too many different fonts in one project, but I felt that this one worked well
with the other two and decided to keep it.
• Colors – I love purple and lavender, and it is the color scheme I use for my business, so I
decided to give my site a lavender theme for the colors, with accents of white, gray, and
black.
• Images – I also chose to incorporate some images I purchased for my Dream Link Media
website because this captures me and my style, and the portfolio is representing me. I used a
different lavender (the plant) image for each page, with the color lavender or shades of it and
purple in each header. This gave the site a cohesive look, but with variety. It is also very
aesthetically pleasing to the eye, I think. I did also use a couple of stock Weebly images of a
cell phone for the Contact page and a computer, pen, pad, keyboard layout on a desk for the
Home page. I overlaid them with transparent purple to incorporate them into the color
scheme.

Layout and Typography

Once I had chosen a theme that encapsulated the vision I had for my site, I began building the website by
adding the pages I wanted, which included a project page for each of the five assignments, plus a home
page, and a contact page, on which I also added my personal and degree info. This is what would
normally be an About page in a more traditional business website, but I wanted to keep the page count
down. I also added a photo of me on the Contact page. On the Home page, I placed a header with an
image that captured the theme colors and style I wanted for the site, along with a purple overlaid image of
a computer, pad, pen, phone, and coffee, the latter which very much captures me and how I work in both
business and school tasks. Above this image, I placed an opaque rectangle that one can see the image
through slightly, and overlaid the text content containing the name & course number, my name, and the
semester over that.

Production Technologies
The website saves content automatically as you update it, and therefore the site is built as you do it. When
the designer is ready, there is a publish button to publish it to the web, which can also be used to preview
the site as it is being built. After the website is published, the link can be given to others to go and view
the site. Each time a change is made, the publish button must be clicked again to implement those changes
on the final site that others can see.
The Weebly program is easy to use compared to some others I have tried. It has a drag and drop interface,
which makes it easy to add and move around what you want on the pages. Some popular other site
builders, such as Wix and Go Daddy are also good and fairly easy to use, but they do not let you change
the HTML code to alter the theme and layout/content, etc. I prefer Weebly for this reason and have been
able to implement items into my websites in the past that were not a part of the Weebly platform.
However, as Weebly has grown as a company and in popularity with web designers and even the
inexperienced, the request for more features has been answered. There are many more plugins that are
available to the Weebly designer now, as well as new features built right into the program. With all its
good qualities, one negative feature of the free plan I used was when uploading a file, I could not do so if
the file was bigger than 10 mb. To get around this, I chose to add the file that was too large to another
paid site I own, as a hidden page, and then link from my portfolio site to that, which would open in a new
window, similar to the actions of other links on my e-Portfolio site.

Feedback
I have chosen to implement some of the suggestion that Ivy & Miriam gave me into the final portfolio of
this site rather than to do it now, as I am quite pleased with the layout of this site and was given feedback
from the instructor in class that as long as he can find the items easily, that the layout of the site now
would be fine. I do believe the pages are very organized and the items easy to find, so I am choosing to
leave the site as is. I do like the some of the suggestions the girls gave me, though, so as an alternative, I
will take those and any instructor feedback I get from this final draft and implement that into my final e-
Portfolio. This will give me practice on revamping websites, a common request of web design clients.
There is a placeholder for anything not yet finished that will be added to the website with the final e-
Portfolio.
I am happy with my project, but also look forward to trying the new layout for the final e-Portofolio as
suggested by my peers. I love web design, so this will be a fun project and I can’t wait to see the new
layout and how it functions, and then have the two comparisons for others to look at for a sample of the
upgrading of websites.