Layout 2

Homepage
Second Page
Third Page

Layout 1

Homepage
Second Page
Third Page.

Proposed Schedule

I posted a proposed project schedule below based on the decision to complete one section of the website per week. I gave us considerable padding for the next two weeks. I think we'll need this if we need to revise the final design and also to give Emily time to figure out the code. Concurrently, we'll all be doing research to collect copy and images. I proposed giving draft (D) dates when the initial version would be up for review by Dene or Gregg. We would then have two week to revise each section and provide a final version (F). I think this is generous, but again, wanted to put in padding for unforeseen issues. I only have appx. one week for beta testing and putting the site up on the server. I guess I assumed we would be doing beta testing concurrently throughout the project as we finish each section. You may also notice that I assigned work over spring break...I didn't notice that until after I was done. Anyway, take a look and please leave comments if you think it isn't detailed enough or if I've been too conservative/harsh with the work pace. Thanks and have a fantastic weekend! See you all Sunday - Tayler

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Key Dates
Tuesday, March 10th - Coding for website layout. (F)
Friday, March 20th - Arts & Culture (D)
Friday, March 27th - Neighborhoods (D)
Friday, April 3rd - Parks and Recreation (D), Arts & Culture (F)
Friday, April 10th - Community Resources (D), Neighborhoods (F)
Friday, April 17th - Parks & Recreation (F)
Friday, April 24th - Community Resources (F)
Friday, May 1st - Beta testing and web hosting (F)
May 4th – May 8th - Formal project presentation and website launch (F)

Action Items

Site Map ~ Send any specific items that you want to appear in the site map to Eija. Think about a brief description of the plan for your content area that you can share during the presentation.

Proposal ~ Send Tayler a brief (1-3 sentence) description of your role on the project and any skills that you are bringing to the table.

Designs ~ Update current designs with Bryce's copy and post a new version. Post design for 1 secondary page that shows how the sub-navigation and layout will work.

Qualifications...I didn't really look at this part, but on the proposal writing handout it says, "offers information about experience, training, and education." Any ideas about how to tackle this. Off the top of my head I think I may give a general overview of the DTC program and then provide specific examples of projects you've done or work experience you have that qualifies us as a team (?) I'd be OK if someone wanted to give this section a try for me.

I will try to email a draft of the proposal & ppt tomorrow and post a suggested schedule that you can comment on.

Welcome Text

Welcome to Southwest Washington Living, your guide to the rich quality of life in Clark County Washington!

[Topic sentence here]Charmingly positioned on the Columbia River, Clark County boasts wide expanses of natural beauty with close access to the Pacific Ocean, Columbia Gorge, and multiple nearby mountain ranges.

The region also takes delight in its rich historical contribution to early Northwestern life. Established in 1792, Washington’s city of Vancouver soon became the heart of the Cascade fur trading industry in 1825 with the addition of the Hudson’s Bay Company and Fort Vancouver.

Even now Clark County’s quality of life is as robust as ever. Comprised of multiple close-knit communities that share a family-oriented attitude, a bustling downtown district located in Vancouver, and vast stretches of rural landscapes, Clark County is the ideal setting for your family and business to grow.

-Bryce-

third sample layout

Here is a third layout for the website.

Home Page Copy

I took what Ryan and Bryce came up with and tried to add a little bit more to it to make it more specific to our audience. I still don't think it's where it needs to be (lots of repetition of "Clark County"!), but hopefully we can continue to work on it together. Specific items I thought should be addressed include:
1. Access to beaches, mountains, gorge.
2. Population, growth potential, proximity to Portland.
3. Convey the idea that Vancouver and Clark County maintains a more conservative, recreational, family-oriented feel.

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Welcome to Southwest Washington Living! Here you will find a detailed guide to the rich quality of life in Clark County, Washington.

Clark County is located in beautiful Southwest Washington. This region boasts a great array of natural beauty with close access to the Pacific Ocean, Columbia Gorge, and multiple nearby mountain ranges. Clark County’s hub, Vancouver, was established in 1792 and became the heart of fur trading in the northwest in 1825 with the addition of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Following the spirit of the Northwest’s founding fathers, Clark County’s quality of life is as robust as ever. From the lively bustle of downtown Vancouver to the expansive rural landscapes of Battle Ground and Ridgefield, Clark County provides a wide range of living opportunities. Clark County is comprised of multiple close-knit communities that share a family-oriented attitude and appreciation for the moderate climate and recreational opportunities in the region. With more than 400,000 people in the county and Portland, OR across the river, Clark County is the ideal setting for your family or business to grow.

Neighborhood: Assumptions and Questionnaire

Sorry to be so slow to get cracking on this guys. I'm afraid my husband hasn't been feeling at all well since last night and we spent most of the day waiting to be seen for urgency care. He's finally asleep.
The neighborhood section is a large undertaking, as this extract from a City of Vancouver neighborhood association sub-page illustrates: "Fisher's Creek Neighborhood Association (FCNA) was recognized as the City of Vancouver’s 60th neighborhood association in 2002."

We’ve said that we want to focus on Vancouver but give coverage to the other cities/town of Clark County. With that in mind, perhaps it would be better to model our map more closely to that of the Parks and Recreation Map.


This kind of a partition divides Vancouver into three sections, far more detail than any other city will receive. Of course, it means that each section covers roughly twenty neighborhoods. This would force each section to seem a highly diverse area--just think, section 1 holds Brush Prairie and Battle Ground.

Perhaps the questionnaire itself should help us sculpt the regions we eventually define, because we all seem to agree that it is not appropriate to give Vancouver the same overview status as more rural cities of the County. Otherwise our map will end up a gilded version of the navigation map for the Clark WA site.


To give them all equal spotlight like this seems silly when even the largest nearby cities (Battle Ground and Camas) are barely a third the geographical size of Vancouver. Perhaps we should base the regions of Vancouver upon population?


You might wonder if I'm thinking about this too much, but I want to know how general we want respondents to be before crafting the actual questions. Because asking for what kinds of professions lives where, as we talked about in the meeting with local representatives...well that's just too specific! If you want to know what kinds of jobs most people have, that should not tell you where they live--though of course know what pay-scale lives where gives a social standing indicator for a neighborhood. Is that really what we want to do? Show where the good neighborhoods are? And if isn't a good neighborhood, then we'll sell it with unique architecture, like us poor saps in Fruit Valley that are living in housing from the WWII era (that may sound cool, but there is no insulation or plasterboard in our house)?


So here's the questions I was thinking about that got me thinking about the above:


1. How long has the typical resident been living in your neighborhood?

2. Do the people living in your neighborhood own or rent their residences?

2a. If owners, what are the current prices of the most and the least expensive homes?

2b. If renters, what are the least and most expensive monthly rates?

3. Do a large number of children live in your neighborhood? Do you consider it a family-friendly place to live?

4. How far do most residents commute to work?

5. Name at least one recreational attraction in your neighborhood. (such as: historic sites, community centers, notable businesses that serve the community, wildlife reserves)

6. Please include any images of your neighborhood that we could use to represent your area. Credit will be given to all photographers.

Quality of Life Design

Here's the smaller 300 x 225 image.

Quality of Life Design

Here's the large image.

Seasonal Images

Same thing as before. List in the comments the number of the image and where on the website you think the image should be used. If you would like an image e-mailed to you for layout/design make a note of that in the comments as well.

Rural Communities Images

Same thing as before. List in the comments the number of the image and where on the website you think the image should be used. If you would like an image e-mailed to you for layout/design make a note of that in the comments as well.

Recreation Images

Same thing as before. List in the comments the number of the image and where on the website you think the image should be used. If you would like an image e-mailed to you for layout/design make a note of that in the comments as well.

Mt. Hood / Mt. St. Helens Images

Same thing as before. List in the comments the number of the image and where on the website you think the image should be used. If you would like an image e-mailed to you for layout/design make a note of that in the comments as well.

There are more images that show seasonal images, more rural images, and some recreation images. I'll post those tomorrow.

I-5 Bridge Images

Same thing as before. List in the comments the number of the image and where on the website you think the image should be used. If you would like an image e-mailed to you for layout/design make a note of that in the comments as well.

Fort Vancouver Images

Same thing as before. List in the comments the number of the image and where on the website you think the image should be used. If you would like an image e-mailed to you for layout/design make a note of that in the comments as well.

Farmer's Market Images

Same thing as before. List in the comments the number of image and where on the website you think the image should be used. If you would an image e-mailed to you for layout/design make a note of that in the comments as well.

Esther Short Park Images

Same thing as before. List in the comments the number of the image and where on the website you think the image should be used. If you would like an image e-mailed to you for layout/design make a note of that in the comments as well.

Waterfront Images

These are images from the Columbia River Waterfront Trail from Ed; if you click on the image you should be able to see the image full size and can look through the thumbnails. If there are images that you think we should use on the homepage or an image that you would like to use on one of the content/backpages please list the image number in the comments and where you would like to use the image on the website.

There are a lot more photos from Ed, so I'll be posting more of these image thumbnails.

Jeff- if there are images that you would like me to e-mail you so that you can incorporate them in your design, go ahead and leave the image number in the comments with directions on which ones you would like e-mailed. I know Dene wanted me to try and use images that complemented the color palette that I was using so maybe you can find images that will work really well with the palette your are working with.

Thumbnail and Larger Layout Images

You should be able to download this image to use as a thumbnail for Tuesday, just click on the image and either download it or drag it to your desktop from there. The image size should be 300 x 225.




This image is a larger image of the main page layout. After meeting with Tayler and Ed (photographer) today, I realized that my layout and design weren't really practical for using and displaying photos. Also I had to move things around because I wasn't really designing my layout for the right screen resolution. This layout is for a 1024 x 768 layout, but most of the content should still be visible on a 800 x 600 screen resolution if the user doesn't mind scrolling down a bit. Any feedback of changes are welcome, but this is what I have so far for you all to download to use for your portfolio of work.

Screen Resolution

I know there were some concerns about how our designs are going to translate from a still image to a working website. It's difficult to think about interacting with just a still image, and then I wasn't sure if I was designing my layout for the right screen resolution. I found this article about designing for Screen Resolution and thought that it was really helpful for me and that it might be helpful for Jeff as well. I know that I have been working and designing my layout at 800 x 600 pixel workspace, so I'm going to try and rework my design to look it's best at a 1024 x 768 screen resolution.

Welcome

In class today, we discussed creating a blog to manage our progress and post project work. Here it is! Other action items I made note of are listed below.

Eija: Focus on wrapping up the home & secondary page designs. We discussed adding a 'home' link on the top menu bar, playing around with the placement of 'in Southwest Washington', and making the font more legible (I think making the font bigger would suffice). I assume you'll be able to attend the meeting with Ed on Saturday. Let me know if your plans change!

Jeff: Focus on wrapping up the home & secondary page designs.

Eija & Jeff: Please post a thumbnail image and PDF of your designs by Tuesday.

Emily: Prepare a questionnaire draft for the neighborhood section (we decided to go with a .doc version) and post a link to the blog by Tuesday. I think it's possible to link word files?

That's all for now, have a great weekend!