Mary Miller's EDIT Studio Design Journal Fall 2005

Date	Site author & URL	Feedback given
11/17/2005	Collin Webster http://www.arches.uga.edu/~cweb/home/index.htm	Hi, Colin. I really like the design of your site. Very nice to look at. I have 2 suggestions for the home page: 1. I think you could probably reduce the size of the font a little in your welcome passage (Welcome to the University of Georgia Sport Instruction Research Laboratory...) and still have it easy to read, but make it fit a little better into the frame without people having to scroll. 2. Also, it was confusing to to see Lab Notes, Teachers Workshop and Lab Updates be underlined and have them not be links. So either they are links, but the links are dead, or you may want to consider switching from underline to italics if they are not links. If they are going to be links in the future but aren't links yet, I would take out the underline until they are linked. The overall look and feel of the internal pages is great. I like the way you have used a graphic for the first letter of the main text on each page, and the photos are also nicely selected and placed. In particular, I like how you have set up the individual member pages. The little graphic/text links are great. Excellent job!
11/17/2005	Jina Tollet http://www.cfr.uga.edu/~jina/ccqm/index.php	Hi, Jina. What a great site! I wish I could give you some feedback to help you make it better but I could not find anything I thought you should change. I did not have any navigation problems. The color and graphics were perfectly matched to the topic. The "Customized report" function was really great and I am sure people will find it very helpful. I was wondering if you were going to add a "test your knowledge" section to the "Where can I go for help" part. That would be my only suggestion to improve the site. EXCELLENT EXCELLENT job!
11/17/2005	Kristen Sabo http://www.arches.uga.edu/~peek/index3.htm	Hi, Kristen. I like your atomic model Webquest. I wish we had had Webquests when I was learning science in school! I know different people have different preferences about this, but I would like it better if the links opened in new windows rather than in the parent window. If your student researchers get interested in their topics, they may follow links in the sites you send them to and then have a hard time getting back to the Web quest. Also, you had some layout problems on the "conclusion" page. The bullets were aligned left but the text was aligned center, which was confusing to me. Also, your graphic had jumped up and was overlapping the last line of text. If you created this in Dreamweaver and used layers to lay out the page, you might try converting the layers to a table to eliminate those jumps. I thought the overall site navigation was very good and was always able to tell where I was and to get to where I wanted to go!
11/17/2005	Elizabeth Foster http://www.arches.uga.edu/~efoster3/ edit6190project/meettheteachers.htm	Hi, Elizabeth. I really like the look of the homepage of your site. You have lots of information in one window and it is easy to see and understand the layout. I found the text on the Learning Games page to be really hard to read. I think the page would be much easier to read if you changed the background color, or else changed the color of the linked text to something that would stand in contrast with sharper edges to what you have now. I like the great books list. That is a really good idea. In the library and bookstore worlds, and also in research papers, it is customary to put the title of the book in italics but not the "by" part or the author name So instead of saying Centerfield Ballhawk by Matt Christopher it might be clearer to say Centerfield Ballhawk by Matt Christopher (with only the title in italics). The titles of the pages on your home page do not always match the titles on the pages themselves. For example, on the homepage you have a button called "Learning Games" but the page is called "Games and activities." I think it might be better if you used the same title in both places. Finally, on the Meet our Team / Facts about the Teachers page and on the Learning Games / Games and Activities page, the button to get to the home page is "Back" but on the Great Books page the button is "Home." I think "Home" makes more sense! Thank you for the opportunity to look at your site!
11/30/05	John Bishop http://www.arches.uga.edu/~johnny/storyteller/	Hi, John. I have finally visited your site! It looks great. I really like your design. I like it that the navigation buttons are always there on the left so that you can go back to the start of your section, or to a new section, from any page. I do have a few questions and suggestions for you. 1. Is there an introduction page? When I got to the page you had linked off your studio listing, I felt that I had landed somewhere within the site rather than at the introduction. Is there something somewhere that tells you what the site is about, who it is for, etc.? 2. With my current monitor resolution (1024 x 768) I can see everything but the 2nd half of the green "sense of setting" bubble. You might want to think about tightening up so the whole thing is visible without scrolling. 3. So far only the "Great Leads" bubble seems to be linked and then within "Great Leads" only the "Introducing characters" box is linked. I assume you know this already... 4. Once one clicks "submit" where does the text box go? Will the learner receive feedback on his/her posting? 5. On your nav buttons, you have Great Leads with the first letter of each word capitalized, but the other buttons are all lower case. I think my personal preference would be to do great leads with the words in lower case and stacked rather than side by side to look more like the other buttons. Thanks for the opportunity to look at your site. I am a lover of the written word and I am really excited about your efforts to encourage children to write!

Feedback received

Date	Evaluator	Comments
11/18/05	Emily Adams	Hi, Mary. Your animal rescue site is a really neat idea – I enjoyed reviewing it last night. I'm an animal lover, too. Your overall design, organization, and use of media look good. Your swirl idea for the different sections is pretty cool. Some constructive feedback I have includes: -I'd add instructions for navigating through the site (i.e., the swirls, the paw, etc.) -I'd also add directions so people know you can click on the pictures to actually view the videos. Maybe where you explain on the intro page the picture icons and the need for RealPlayer). People may not hover long enough to see the alt text that explains it's a video link. -Consider centering the project in the window or at least expanding the width of your display area so there's less scrolling required. Again – you've selected a very heartwarming, special project here. Lots of great information. Good luck with your final product! Emily
11/19/05	Jamie González	Hi Mary, I love your site! I especially appreciate your contribution to animal rescue efforts. Here are a few suggestions that I have for you: On the “rainbow” page, you might consider making your text larger on the “learn more” part. On the cat intake page, you mention a video, but there's no video on this page. This is picky, but on the process parts of your pages (the colored blocks), it might look nicer to add more colored space before the text. Lastly, it would be great if viewers could contribute to this wonderful effort. Have you considered adding a section that would address how people could volunteer time, supplies or money? Jamie González
11/20/05	Robin Fay	Hi Mary, I reallly like the hurricane navigation. I thought it was interesting and tying the color theme to each section, made logical sense. I do agree with others that it would be neat to include a paypal link and/or links to volunteer opportunities, perhaps, on a national scale and then on the katrina scale. One thing that you mentioned was how many people volunteered to help. I am wondering if it might be nice/useful to include a list of folks that volunteered, at least the largest groups of volunteers? Just a thought. I did find one typo in the dog section: thes instead of these. robin fay
12/2/05	Brandy Bellamy	Here is a desk crit of your project. It is not VERY obvious where you are supposed to click to enter your project on the menu page. On night intake video, you should tell people to maximize the screen. Still the video does not work very well. It looks more like stills than a video. The same goes for the second video on this page. Why did the arrows start to curve to the right? On the cat intake page, I am going to assume that you are still modifying this. Is this correct? The text boxes do not lead you to more information. Two pages had nothing on them. I am sure you are still working on them. I had trouble viewing all of the videos. I have real player and they just did not work on my computer. I really liked the navigation that you used in the site. It was helpful and colorful. It is a very informative site.
12/5/05	Hyoseon An	Well, I really liked your site, especially its well- organized information. I could get useful information on animal rescue from your project site. In delivering the content, your choice of using video clips was really appropriate. As some students mentioned, the navigation through the swirl was a little annoying, but it matches well with your topic. Why don't you polish it just a little bit maintaining the shape of the swirl? For example, just expanding the selection part would be helpful for easier navigation. Overall, you did an excellent job!
12/5/05	Yue Li	Your project looks great. Your experience as a volunteer is very interesting to me. I have some comments and suggestions for your project. They are my personal opinions. Please feel free to contact me for any questions related to them. The graphic is attractive. And it is a good way to use graphic to navigate the website. But it took me for a while to find the colored shapes can bring me new pages. One suggestion to improve it is to provide additional menu using colored text. And after review one page, I have to go back the home page before I want to explore next page. It is not very flexible for users. Besides, when I was directed to the page, there is no short cut to let me go back the top of the page when I scrolled down to the bottom. Also the paw is not responded to mouse, like showing the text like "home" when rollover. The table holding the contact information and update date is appropriate. It should show up on each page of the website. You did a fantastic job as a designer as well as a volunteer. It would be a great source for people to learn how people work in the emergency animal shelter.

	Last update: December 6, 2005 Comments to: Mary Miller mlmiller@uga.edu Created for Dr. Lloyd Rieber's UGA class EDIT 6500, fall 2005 URL=http://www.arches.uga.edu/~mlmiller/project/deskcrits.html
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