Eggs is eggs

As we draw to a close the site is almost complete. it is time to reflect on the foibles of actually getting a working site onto the internet - the answer, as always, is Photoshop.

This week my site has not been behaving. Clickables have walked across the page, FireFox has not been compatible, and the sun has been shining hard enough to completely distract me. I have managed to make a series of pages, interlink them, and upload them. This is a small success of monumental scale.

The site structure now looks like this:

It is a little different from my original plan due to the constraints of adding linkable components to my website. I do not think this has drastically reduced functionality, but it is annoying that you cannot link back to the experiment pages if you click onto the safety page.

I have reduced the usage of 'Draw AP Div', a wonderfully visual tool for inserting elements, but very difficult to make those elements appear int he right places on the actual web. FireFox particularly seems to hate them. Photoshop enabled me to add my images to the background and then use the 'hotspot' functionality on Dreamweaver to make them into links.
Do take a look at my handi-work. The site exists in the 'real world' right about here, or maybe over there? I'm not sure.

The final task is to make rollover components on my experiment pages. They currently look like this:

Quite lovely really but lacking in a certain explanation. Much as I hate the dreaded website full of text it would be wonderful if rolling over the images changed them to a small amount of explanatory text. Hopefully using the slice tool in Photoshop I will be able to activate these elements and sort this out. if not them it is a question for the class tomorrow, they are the collected cleverness and will be able to help me. Maybe.

Next week blog number eight, the final in my eight week series. It will no doubt be a reflective wonder. Please feel free to hold your breath in anticipation. 

Actual progress

Finally it all seems to be coming together and a website may actually be on the horizon. So how has this happened?

Monday 13th 18:00, completed banner and home page image in Photoshop

Tuesday 14th 09:30, set up home page HTML and CSS, designed layout for text pages and built HTML and CSS (for some reason the new background image won't display?)

Thursday 16th 21:00, sat on a train staring out the window... and decided which experiments to showcase on the website

Saturday 18th 10:00, spent the day shopping for cabbage and celery, set up the experiments and photographed them

Sunday 19th 13:00, realised the 'camera to computer connect-y cable' is in another part of the world, sat about feeling miserable and cursing life in general... (15:00) copped onto myself and redid all the experiments photographing them on my phone (18:00) Images uploaded and sent to the file exchange server ready for photoshopping tomorrow (19:11) Bloggin'.

So there you have it captain, a week of work, real work. And, yet more impressive, a 'to do' list for next week:

• Crop and organise the experiment photos in Photoshop
• Make the experiment pages backgrounds
• Complete text pages and sort out background image that isn't displaying
• Write HTML and CSS for experiment pages
• Add clickables to the home page
• Upload to the web
• Beta testing

For the beta testing the website should be accessed by children. I think the best way to do this is to send a link to some of my cousins and friends with small children and ask them to look at the site together and send feedback. It is more appropriate to use this home environment for testing instead of a school as the aim of the website is to get children doing science at home. It would be nice to have a comments page, or a blog page, set up to facilitate this, some thought needed here. 

OK you have been very patient, here are some pictures for general entertainment:

Chemistry experiments: Red cabbage indicator and silver eggs.

Biology experiment: Xylem in celery.

Physics experiment: surface tension power boat. This one is in a complete cartoon strip as a special treat, in the website all the experiments will beset out in this sort of fashion, with catchier titles. 

Oops, I lost last week

Where did it go? I'm sure it was here a minute ago, just lazing about minding it's own business. Then I try and do anything with it and, oh, it's gone. Sneaky week. Rights so, this is a filler catch up blog - proper one for this week to come later today...

Cast your minds back ladies and gentlemen, to a time long ago, to at least the 12th of June 2011.

*waves hands in a mysterious way*

This week I did two things that seem small but really launched me forward in terms of having a product:
1. I finally knuckled down to Photoshop - booked myself a quiet evening in the lab, messed around, and learnt how to build up images, write, and draw.
2. I set up a Word doc and started developing the site content.

It is a good feeling to have some site content (text and visuals), now I am ready to start putting it all together...

All the signs of s serial killer

Yep, that's the comment presenting my blog and website idea to the class got me. Personally I disagree, I only display some of the signs of a serial killer. Today I will be less random, today is all about getting down to business.


Website idea: 'Crafty kitchen science' (title may need some work). Possibly 'crafty home science' to allow for future expansion of the site.


Market opening: Current websites showing home experiments are not very user friendly. For example:
http://scifun.chem.wisc.edu/homeexpts/homeexpts.html

This site is pretty bad, it has a lot of good experiments but the layout is bland. It's not child friendly in terms of layout, feel, use of colour, and use of text. The site is very text heavy, particularly once you click into the experiments. 

http://www.sciencebob.com/experiments/index.php

This site is a little better, it has a more friendly home page. However it is still text heavy without any appealing images or points of reference for children to relate to. The experiments are again very text heavy. 

http://scienceathome.cienciaviva.pt/

This site is horrible. Blue and yellow (in these shades) is not a good colour scheme, I can't even look at it.

http://www.hhmi.org/coolscience/forkids/

This site is better, posing questions to spark interest and using images. It is very corporate looking, and I think this detracts from it. 

Target audience: My site will be aimed at children and parents who want to do fun experiments at home.


How: By making it text light, image heavy, exceptionally easy to navigate, and having a 'crafty' feel rather than a 'sciency' feel to encourage playing with the ideas.

Navigation:

Layout:

Experiment pages will be similar in style to that used by the Science Museum:
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/educators/classroom_and_homework_resources.aspx

Mood board:
Old style point and click for the main page main image:

I like the style of a slightly muted background with clearly 'cliackable' elements overlayed.

General theme mood = crafty (like the beautiful Little Big Planet):

Planning: 7th June - Build elements in Photoshop
14th June - Finalisation of elements in Photoshop, entering elements into HTML code, writing site content.
21st June - Finalisation of text content, tweaking, addition of a gallery page if I can work out how to do this (this will allow users to post their own pictures / comments and make the site more interactive)
28th June - class presentation of website, final final tweaking
4th July - Hand in

That's all folks. I'm sure I've forgotten some vital element of the business side of things, but they can come in the form of updates.