Interaction Design

I like trebuchet/arial/helvetica paired with times the best for my site.

Type was hard for me because it is so limited and, even after set, it can vary depending on the browser. I took each of these type faces (trebuchet, arial, helvetica) and paired it with times in indesign to see what it would be like if there were any variances depending on the selected browser. I like this option the best of all the different typefaces I had to choose from.

I’m itching to be done now that I’ve done the greybox.
I can see how I want it to be done. The greybox method gives both the client and the designer a good idea of where the project is heading before the actually production.

Studying how other websites are designed helped me decide how I ultimatly want mine done.

I like memphiszoo.org; mostly because it is primarily image based and I think that would be more appealing to the target audience, it is never fun to be overwhelmed with too much text, that always makes me less interested in reading it.

Sketching always helps me to improve upon my ideas. I usually know what I want but am not exactly sure what it will look like.

I want to keep it clean while still allowing fun elements and interactivity for my client to best learn the needed information. The more I sketch, the better my ideas get. I want to incorporate images but I felt like some websites were too much image based and there wasn’t enough information so I want to have a balance of text and image.

I would like my website to look like an environment; a static image in the background of the splash page anyway. The header and navigation floating about a third-way down the page. I would keep the imagery simple and consistant with the text. I don’t want this to be too much of nothing important.

Broken down based on content, the more informative parts (environment and energy). Further break down to meet the goals for student learning.

Boston Public Schools require students to give examples of how to apply these principles so I am going to have a section giving examples of how all of these principles can be applied so the student can start thinking of applications on their own as well.

Thinking about how this site map got me excited to move forward with the project, I keep getting ahead of myself. Now that I have a site map, it is easier for me to plan it out.

I enjoyed doing my wireframe because it helped me to divide up the space on my main page for my site and better decide where to put the elements on my site. I would like my image to take up most of the background and have the header/navigation floating about a third of the way down the page and have my content just be one column that will take up about a third of the left of the page.

I didn’t realize how hard it would be for me to find the needed information to fill Massachusetts’ state science standards for fifth graders, I can only imagine what it must be like for them.

Most of the sites I visited weren’t targeting fifth graders, they seemed to be for an audience much younger or older than a fifth grade client. I ran into too many college lectures while trying to research a seemingly simple topics of adaption and environmental changes. These sites had a lot of confusing concepts and large vocabulary words that would be hard for most people to understand. The few websites I found that were too young for the target audience were really flashy with too many images with too little information.

brainPOP.com

The obectives and goals for Massachusetts’ fifth grade science standards are as follows:
Objective:
Adaptions and living things
Goals:

Give examples of how inherited characteristics have changed over time as adaptions to changes in the environment
Give examples of how changes in the environment have caused plants/animals to die or migrate
Give examples of how organisms can cause changes in their environment to ensure survival

Objective:
Energy/living things
Goals:

Describe how energy is derived from the sun and used by plants to produce sugar and is transferred within a food chain from producers to consumers to decomposers