Introduction
This folio is for IENV1802. Its purpose is to bring together a showcase of the semesters work, including:
Individual Weather Assignment
The Individual Weather Assignment consisted of the writing of a Requirements Evaluation Document.
Group Weather Assignment
For the Group part of the Weather Assignment, students were to form groups and implement their weather sites.
Gym Assignment
The Gym Assignment saw students pitted against the forces of bad interface design. Students were to redesign the interface for a piece of medical equipment for the gym market.
Folio
Finally, students were asked to put all of their work together in a folio.
Individual Assignment
Brief
The Individual Weather Assignment consisted of the writing of a Requirements Evaluation Document.
Process
This assignment was pretty straight foward. We were given a template Requirements Document from which to work.
In writing the document we had to consider things like:
- Job Allocation
- Client Needs
- System Limitations
I started by making a few rough mockups to help me see what I wanted to include in the site.
The key things I wanted in my design were:
- Bright Colours
- Big Icons
- A simple and straight to the point interface
I then set about actually writing the RED. For the most part of this assignment, it came down to simply mapping this document onto my own requirements.
Result
The completed resources from this assignment are:
Group Weather Assignment
Brief
For the Group part of the Weather Assignment, students were to form groups and implement their weather sites.
Process
This assignment started with the hunt for a partner. Alan and I formed Team Alpha pretty early in the piece and began brainstorming for our weather site.
Alan's idea rested mainly on a postcard metaphor. This gave the user a familiar context and gave us an easy interface to construct. We decided (loosely :-P) to follow the 'wabi sabi' idea of designing. In english, wabi sabi means 'humble simplicity'.
We decided to combine elements from both of our ideas - keeping Alan's postcard idea and my colourful icon idea. From the outset we decided to play to our strengths. Alan was to write most of our documentation and I was to write most of our code.
We began our site by putting together a basic HTML frame with a few of the basic graphics. Next, came the JSP.
Although I hadn't used JSP before it was pretty easy to pick up and start using for the basic stuff that we had to do for the assignment.
One problem we did face though was with the 'Send to a Friend' option. We couldn't seem to get the site to actually send emails.
Result
Due to the fact that the Tomcat server is *extremely* unreliable, I have simply taken some screen grabs of the site:
Gym Assignment
Brief
The Gym Assignment saw students pitted against the forces of bad interface design. Students were to redesign the interface for a piece of medical equipment for the gym market.
Process
The process for this assignment was simple:
- Analyse the current Impedimed software
- Pick out the annoying bits
- Make a prototype of alternative software
I decided to use Delphi to make the prototype sofware. This decision was based on 2 things:
- Delphi is extremely easy to use
- Impedimed used Delphi to make their software so it would be much easier for them to use the prototype compared to a Director presentation.
The problems with the current Impedimed software can be summed up by a few recurring niggles:
- Unintuative initial screen
- Cluttered main screen
- Generally drab appearance
With these things in mind, I set about making my prototype interface...
Result
There were several completed resources that came out of this assignment:
Folio Assignment
Brief
Finally, students were asked to put all of their work together in a folio.
Process
The folio consited of pretty much jumping into PSPad and making up a site (or page really, because its only one page). Do you want to see the full page?
The icons are all vector images made in Inkscape.
Result
Your looking at it...