From the homepage, I went to 'projects' in the upper right nav bar. I first went to 'Experience Design' first. It looked like it MIGHT contain videos in an option that wasn't immediately obvious. I explored a bit through hyperlinks and found nothing. I backed out to the homepage and tried 'Identity' with the exact same results. The web browser back button also sent me back to the course homepage where the hyperlink originated each time.

I finally tried the third option down - Interactive. Exploring, I lucked out with the first hyperlink I found and located the web videos for Honda. Probably twelve or so clicks total until I found the webvid page. The layout is very confusing in that the remainder of their project pages


The second task was easier. I was tempted to click on 'Company' but chose 'Contact' and was presented with the list of options to where their stateside offices were. I chose the New York office and was taken to mapquest, where a map was not immediately available, but rather the address to the location - this is where the error occurred. I went to 'map this location' and finally saw the map.

Gestalt would have a fit with this. The homepage alone places the most emphasis on their featured video projects, and less emphasis on their primary navigation bar. The navigation bar is small text in the upper right of the corner (it is not the first place the avg person starts to look) and appears as a sub-menu to the site.

The actual submenus were also not clearly distinguished from each other in terms of easily identifiable genres. It would've helped to have visual icons to compensate for this.

The news section had the appearance of an undeveloped page. The link icons were blurred (of course which clear when the cursor hovers over them). And the fact that text doesn't appear until that point was frustrating. This means you have to hover over each icon in order to browse to get to the story that you want. They appear grouped randomly with no discernable genres to them.

In text pages, there was a great waste of visual space throughout. Users are prompted to scroll down constantly when it is unnecessary (and the scroll bar doesn't work very well.)

http://www.peekvid.com/

This is suggestion is a bit biased toward the students who were in digital streaming course over the summer, but this is a very straightforward site that offers a large library of (albeit non-licensed) on-demand video content. The overall layout of the site is quite simple and very straightforward and emphasizes little else than the content itself. Individual files aren't organized in a very efficient way, so I think we could improve on something like this. But there are enough ppl in the class with experience in video compression, and I imagine it wouldn't be that hard to figure how to upload video files to a remote site.

http://www.refugeestories.org/

The second is a fairly simple but moderately well-organized collection of refugee stories, interviews, and other profiles regarding global refugee plights and survival stories. The flash animation is going to be beyond our level, but I think it incorporates a good use of pics and content that is achievable. I would hope we would be beyond even this level in 5 months' time, but I think it is a safe bet we can accomplish something like this.

'Rethinking Goals' (revised)

It's easy to confine goals to the personal level, but this course is more about team coordination than I had really anticipated. I can definitely see knowing how to navigate team flows, expressly in terms of web development, as a highly relevant skill set in the Seattle area. Along those lines, I would consider more relevant goals to be site planning (gathering input from the team and structuring a well-established foundation for a site), complementation (if that's a word?) - (publishing visual/text content that flows well together and is effectively coordinated by a team) and coordinated site maintenance/editing.

I would consider graphic design and copy writing to be my strongest assets - and the ones I would be the most comfortable contributing work to a team. I am only just starting to learn Dreamweaver, so I would prefer not to be responsible for local/remote site maintenance and technical adjustments.

'A Virtual Project'

The benefits of an all – distance work group for such a scenario is that those inputting the content are forced to think in a frame of mind that, ideally, benefits web interaction, ultimately. They are forced to consider people “outside the room”, whereas a physically-proximate work group may fall privy to thinking ‘locally’ and thus introduce a different design and functionality impact on the site itself. Another advantage, if this is to be an employee-wide website, is that it guarantees a diversity in corporate representation and interest across the company’s theatre of operations. Say, for example, Amazon.com sought a dramatic re-invention of its e-commerce site and the work team consisted only of developers native to the Seattle office. User interaction habits on the East Coast or Deep South may be paid significantly less attentions in the early development stage and would possibly result in a site that may have a fine local, regional appeal but perhaps less utility in other parts of the country/globe. Disadvantages count as coordination challenges, regional time zones, communication flows, and general site interaction. In such a situation, it is absolutely vital to have a project manager who can oversee all aspects of site development and serve as the core source of information and direction for an otherwise segregated, disparately focused team.


“We-ness” is especially difficult to accommodate over the web, though it would be assumed that the team members bring a certain degree of experience with online task forcing. I would most likely incorporate a combination of all available web technologies to facilitate as close to personable interaction as possible, at least in the early development stage. Combinations of tools such as Live Meeting, teleconferences, and video conferences (if accessible) would be employed to introduce the work group to each other and during staged demonstrations of site progress. More novel approaches like ‘Second Life’ meetings most likely wouldn’t serve as substantive development devices, but would do much to foster engagement and interest in the project at hand.