Interaction Design

My audience will be potential employers, including clients and design firms, designers who follow my blog, and eventually I will have a store where I will sell personal work.

Here is my 5th grade science site,

Magnetic Earth

It is done for the most part. The images will be tweaked slightly and I am still trying to figure out how to get my current page navigation to stay highlighted.

The web site began with sketches and also the exploration of many sites. At first I was overly ambitious with my ideas. The problem I faced was that I was placing to much emphasis on form with out any content to base my design upon. The following two examples were unsuccessful layouts (that were never completed due to being unsucceful that came from not having a solid understanding of my content.

With these ideas leading to dead ends I decided to focus on finding good, interesting content. I found a few very useful sources on magnetism which are linked on the final page. Then I organized all of this information into a word document. Then I created html documents for each page. Then I started my css and designed with css. I started with setting my type in a way that would have hierarchy to the reader and also being legible for the web for a wide variety of readers (especially at a 5th grade level). The site took it’s shape based around the content.

Once the style was established I linked all the pages and uploaded the site to make sure it worked. One problem that I ran into at the point, and is still unsolved (if anyone has any suggestions it would be appriciated). I could not figure out how to get my navigation to remain selected on the current page being viewed. Without it the site is somewhat challenging to navigate.

At this point the only thing remaining was imagery. I read through the articles on the site and sketched down ideas that corresponded with the articles. I then refined these sketches, scanned them and uploaded them to the site.

here is the site

The intent of this 5th grade science site is to allow students to have easy access to essential information concerning magnetism. The style should aid this in happening.

Type: Web friendly fonts, Helvetica for links, logo and subhead and Georgia for body copy. For the leads into articles orange, italic, Georgia is used. Links are either highlighted with an orange underline or change orange when hovered over. My intent was to have the top navigation remain highlighted when you are on that page, but I can not figure out how to make it stay highlighted with css. If anyone has any suggestions on how to accomplish this it would be greatly appreciated.

Images: Images are black and white to fit with the style of the page and also to avoid distracting from the content of the articles.

Borders: All borders are a 1px Grey solid line with the expception of the underline on the navigation which is changed in color and is 4px in width.

There are many different worlds within the world we live. These worlds are established by the fact that all people are confined to what they can perceive. We all view the environment around us differently from one another. As people we attempt to bridge these gaps between our own persona’s through communication. Some tools we use as human beings include; words, music, and visual art. What something means, varies from person to person, even if those people are speaking the “same” language. This the great challenge we face when communicating. An article on the University of Wolverhampton concerning communication in nursing, states “When you communicate you perceive the other persons responses and react with your own thoughts and feelings.” Perceiving is where we can get into trouble. If I am to mis-perceive or misunderstand someone, what ever form of communication they may be using, it often results in a conflict.

Since man began, man has been trying to better express himself with communication. From spoken word, to engravings, to writing, advances in paper, printing presses, telegraphs, radio, TV, internet, etc. Each of these has done their part in expanding and also limiting communication.. It would be much easier for me today to communicate with a friend from England than 10 years ago. Why do we invest so much time into communication? Why not just stop with the cell phone? Isn’t that good enough?

Communication technology is trying to cover the largest are possible while still being specific to the individual. Take facebook for example; They can customize the ads they send to each individual user. In a sense this gives each individual user a unique experience. Just think what advertising could accomplish if they could literally tap into the human mind and directly read what a person was thinking. The business man would see that someone was really wanting to eat some peanut butter and would know exactly what to sell to that person. The business man would simply have to visualize in his own mind whatever he wanted to communicate to the potential buyer of the peanut butter. Or maybe this business man would choose to hire someone who was schooled in the field of visual concept development. This would be much more direct than a facebook side bar ad. A married couple would avoid hours of arguing by simply saying this is what I am thinking, “here tap into my mind“, that way there would be no misunderstandings in what one was trying to communicate.

Of course this brings up the issue of privacy and human rights. This would completely change the world just as other advances in communication have. Just look how the advent of the internet has affected copy right laws in the entertainment industry. Now a lot of this sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. But I think it is more familiar thn most might think.

We have been reading about this more direct form of communication for thousands of years. One could say that the whole Bible is based upon it. Other religious texts are rich with accounts of this spiritual communication. These records account for two main kinds of spiritual communication. The first generally involves man being given temptations. Thoughts are placed in a person mind in an attempt to persuade them to do something that the one placing thoughts wants them to do. The second form of communication, the good side of it is much more powerful. God, our father in heaven can communicate with us directly as well, even more directly. We can ask him questions and receive direct answers. We have the ability to tap in to something much more powerful than the internet. The way we receive these answers is unique, and the greatest, most clear form of communication, better than words or sight. This is the Holy Ghost, a perfect testifier of truth.

Now I understand that some of these principles seem very basic. But too often are these basic facts overlooked, even at a Latter Day Saint college. This is the most powerful tool in benefiting the human race through communication. It is remarkable that people have the tendency to worry about the speed of their internet connection before they even think about how clearly they are communicating with God. Just think how a direct line to someone who knows and comprehends all things would increase the knowledge and understanding of one another in a society. It is unfathomable. It makes the internet look like a joke. What an advantage it is to be able to access this capability. It should be on the top of everyone’s got to have list.

In the end communication goes back to one of these two sources. It either comes from darkness or from light. We as people need to be aware of this if we ever expect to communicate effectively. If we are not aware of this we risk to serve as the mouth piece for false light.

Identify the poles of a magnet.
5.14.1
ME

1. Magnetic Field of a Bar Magnet – The magnetic field of a bar magnet can be investigated with this compass needle applet. Interactive
2. Magnets and Electormagnets – a good description accompanied by several drawings

I want my web page to have the ability to showcase strong visuals and simple, straightforward facts. I made a layout that accommodates this.