Molly HKU
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Portfolio 2: Evaluation Portfolios
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Portfolio 2 Project: Wireframes
Final Personas
Persona 1:
Name: Jamie Koning
Age: 10
Family: Mom, dad, 2 brothers (12 and 20) and 2 cats
Favorite Colours: Black, blue, red
Favorite Games: Call of Duty, Habbo Hotel, Skull-Kid
Most frequently browsed websites: Mondo mini shows, Habbo hotel, Speeleiland
Likes: Lego, playing video games, watching violent cartoons online, laser-gaming, skateboarding.
Dislikes: Homework, vegetables, Justin Bieber
Personal Quote: Live long as prosper
Interesting notes:
- Often plays games at school when he should be working.
- Likes to meet friends online so he can beat them at games.
- His favorite movie is Alien VS Predator.
- Oldest brother studies Game Design.
- Usually hangs out with lots of boys at school.
One reason for wanting to design for kids is that at my old school there was a big group of kids who really liked my work. They knew the names of all my characters and used to ask me pretty much every day if I'd drawn anything new. I have some really detailed characters I developed as a result of these kid's interest. I still remember them argueing over little details about the characters: 'No! Doctor Guy's real name is Rudolf Gaylord, not Rudy!' And other things like that. I know they'll want to see my portfolio when its online and keep abreast of what I'm up to.
Persona 2:
Age: 19
Studies: Videogame Art, first year
Family: Mom, Dad, little sister (13) older brother (22) and a rabbit.
Favorite Colours: Black, purple, silver
Favorite Games: Starcraft II, Zelda, Kingdom Hearts
Most frequently browsed websites: DeviantART, Kotaku.com, Conceptart.org
Likes: Ren & Stimpy, drawing, listening to music, gaming, watching movies
Dislikes: Lady Gaga, drawing backgrounds, Facebook
Personal Quote: IT’S OVER 9000!!!
Interesting notes:
- Has dyslexia
- Drinks too much caffeine
- Likes to cosplay and is very fanatical in his interests.
- Has never taken up a sport. (Not including mandatory PE classes in high school.)
- Is very silly, but can be very serious and ambitious when it comes to doing schoolwork.
This persona was probably the easiest, because its basically just me and my friends mixed together. Not really a lot of thought needed in order for this to be convincing.
Name: Yolanda Bitters
Age: 43
Occupation: Teacher at the HKU
Family: None
Favorite Colours: Grey
Favorite Games: Isn’t a gamer
Most frequently browsed websites: Hotmail, Google
Likes: Correct grammar and spelling
Dislikes: Late assignments, Students who don’t read their instructions properly, hip-hop
Personal Quote: Do, or do not. There is no 'try.' -Jedi Master Yoda
Interesting notes:
- Will automatically give a student a fail if they use Comic-Sans font in an assignment.
- Wants student’s work to be very clear and concise with no unnecessary text to pad it.
- Believes giving a student a short deadline will force them to work harder.
- Is very critical of student’s work: Yolanda believes that then students will try even harder to do better next time.
- Favorite animal is the spider
Ok, I'd like to make it VERY clear that my teachers are not like this! In fact, this persona is the opposite of the teachers I interviewed. Literally all the teachers at the HKU are hip, funny, chirpy, cool, lovely people with families and interesting careers. For motivation, however, its better to pretend that my teachers are jerks. This way I'll be forced into trying to please people who are never satisfied. One similarity between my persona and my teachers is that they are both difficult to please and pretty critical. My persona acts this way because she is a jerk, while my teachers do it because they want us to do well. I know they know what they're talking about, they know they know what they're talking about, so I'm making it clear I know they know they know what they're talking about.
...
Maybe this is a bit demented, but it works for me!
Portfolio Project 2: Interviews Docenten
Interview 1
Name
Rens Marten
Age
32
Profession
Teacher Grafische onderwerp at the HKU, typographist, owner of graphical development company ‘Rens.’
Academic training
Beeldende kunsten at the HKU
Personal quote
'Do or do not. There is no try.' - Jedi Master Yoda
Favorite colour
Blue
Hobby
Collecting Hip-hop
3 words to discribe Rens Marten
umm… typographist…teacher and…
Most visited websites
Nu.nl, Hotmail, online CD shops.
- Believes site’s look or navigation isn’t as important as its functionality.
- Tends to look at a website’s pictorial content, then the text.
- Finds results more important than process
- Not a gamer
- Likes nice typography in a site.
- Encourages artists to only upload best work.
- From a site, I expect to know where I am and who’s site it is.
Interview 2
Name
Ton Markus
Age
41
Family
Married with 2 kids
Occupation
Director of one-man company for CSS programming, HTML teacher at HKU
Interests
Making efficient websites, tools for making sites
Personal quote
Anything you can explain to a computer is science, the rest is art.
Favorite websites
Daring Fireball, Roughly Drafted.
Worst Personal Feature
Has trouble letting go of things.
Favorite colour
(Looks at orange shirt)
- Believes the purpose of a portfolio is to see what the student is up to.
- Hates when he can’t find what he’s looking for in a site, since this is the purpose of a website.
- Is a teacher at the HKU because he was asked. (Joking.) He always wanted to be a teacher and likes to teach college students because he knows we want to learn. (Compared to, say, high school students, who have to be there.)
- Only teaches one day a week
- Likes to delve into and learn about new ideas and goings-on in the technology world. (EG: relationships/arguments between Apple, Adobe, etc.)
- As long as you can still read it, grammar and spelling are not important to Ton. Likes information to be concise and to the point: no bullshit padding.
- When Ton works, he storms his customer’s brain so he can know exactly what they want. Some customers don’t like this, because they feel then that they’re paying for nothing.
- Ton can work in a team: he works with the University of Utrecht and other companies on a daily basis.
- Has a deep dislike for Comic Sans font. He feels it instantly undermines the content of a page.
Name
Joeri Lefeure
Age
24
Job
Teacher at HKU, freelance art, Monkey Business (concept art company) 2 days a week.
Interests
Drawing, drinking, chess, watching films, playing guitar, music, NOT sport
3 words that describe Joeri
Troublesome, ‘eigenwijs,’ (does their own thing) dyslexic
Frequently visited sites
Gmail, art blogs
Personal quote
When something’s good, something’s good.
- Artwork on a website should, if possible, have no text. The art should speak for itself.
- Composition and navigation are very important in a site and shouldn’t be too cluttered. Should also fit context.
- Hates advertisements on sites, as well as broken links and pages that take unnecessarily long to get to.
- Artwork in a portfolio will be the first thing to catch Joeri’s attention.
- Impulse is as important as planning in art
- Has dyslexia
- Feels he is a concrete person
- Likes to work in a team, except when doing personal work, like painting.
- Uses Google Chrome and has a Mac Pro.
- Is an artist because he likes to make things he internally finds beautiful and gives lessons because he likes to offer wisdom externally.
- Doesn’t mind humor in a website’s text, as long as it’s appropriate. (Not in articles about cancer.)
Monday, September 6, 2010
Portfolio Project 2: Student Interviews
Interview 1
Name
Alexander Chiho Ho
Age
22
Subject/Year
Game Art, Year 1
Interests
Watching Starcraft II tournaments on YouTube, drawing
Hobbies
Drawing, collecting art books
Family
My mom, dad, 20 year old brother, 2 parakeets and fish.
Which sites do you visit most?
YouTube, Facebook, DeviantART
What are your favorite games?
Halo, Modern Warfare II, Starcraft II
Which 3 words best describe you?
Insane, grumpy, eccentric
Interview 2
Name
Peter Klyn
Age
21
Subject/Year
Game Art, year 2
Interests
Games, films, art, entertainment
Hobbies
Going to movies, drawing, listening to music
Family
Mother and father: other siblings have moved out already
Which sites do you visit most?
Conceptart.org, Kotaku.com
What are your favorite games?
Dawn of War II, the Zelda series, Beyond Good and Evil
Which 3 words best describe you?
Chaotic, traditional, apple-pie
Interview 3
Name
Joris van Leeuwen
Age
18
Subject/Year
Game design/development, year 2
Interests
Drawing, programming, surfing the net
Hobbies
Drawing, programming
Family
Mom, dad, 5 year old brother and 4 cats
Which sites do you visit most?
Google, school project art blogs
What are your favorite games?
Kingdom Hearts, Uncharted, Starcraft
Which 3 words best describe you?
Sporty, fanatical, ambitious
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Portfolio project 2: Personas
Since my website is already going to prioritize people like my teachers and schoolmates, I decided to interview children as my ‘3 other people.’
A lot of my work and tastes are influenced by experiences I had when I was around eight years old. Taking into account what children of this age like could be useful in designing my website. It is around the age of ten that children begin to develop their own personal tastes in things, so looking at what they like now might be a good indicator of what they well like in future. This is only a theory, so could be proven untrue. At any rate, I can at least have nostalgia-appeal.
Lucky for me, yesterday was my brother’s 10th birthday party and he invited lots of 8-10 year old test subjects for me. These boys would be better to interview than girls, because my tastes are more like that of little boys than girls. (No offense, every single girl at the HKU!) All of them where gamers and we were going to go lazergaming later that day, so these guys where obviously cool people. Another point to make is that these boys are either Dutch or go to a Dutch school. They are also all friends.
Interview questions where difficult to plan, because they couldn’t be too complicated, yet give me some useful information. Here are the results:
Interview 1
What’s your name?
Wouter te Pas
How old are you?
8
What three colours do you think are pretty?
Black, red, blue
What games do you think are cool?
Wii games. My favorite is De Blob.
What websites do you think are cool?
Debbo Hotel, Habbo Hotel.
Why do you think those sites are cool?
You can meet other people and beat them.
Interview 2
What’s your name?
Tom Heady-Carroll
How old are you?
10
What three colours do you think are pretty?
Red, Purple, Blue
What games do you think are cool?
Godzilla Save the Earth, Lego Starwars, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi
What websites do you think are cool?
Lego.com, Cartoon Network, Warner Brothers
Why do you think those sites are cool?
They’re just really fun. I can play games with my favorite characters in them.
Interview 3
What’s your name?
Floris Koning
How old are you?
8
What three colours do you think are pretty?
Red, Black, Blue
What games do you think are cool?
Starwars games, Habbo Hotel and Call of Duty, Skull-Kid
What websites do you think are cool?
Spelen.nl, Speeleiland.nl, YouTube,Mondo Mini Shows
Why do you think those sites are cool?
They are aggressive and have fights in them, which is cool.
Interview 4
What’s your name?
Jeroen te Pas
How old are you?
10
What three colours do you think are pretty?
Red, Black, Blue
What games do you think are cool?
Habbo Hotel, Debbo Hotel, Zwaarden en Sandalen
What websites do you think are cool?
Habbo Hotel, Debbo Hotel, Speeleiland
Why do you think those sites are cool?
You can buy things and play things.
Something immediately apparent is how much these guys like red black and blue. All of them listed these three colours, with the exception of Tom who picked purple over black. Since these kinds of colours appeal to ten year old gamers, it might be worth using these colours in my site.
Knowing which sites they like means I can look at these sites for inspiration. Most of them visit Dutch game-portals, like Speeleiland.nl and Spelen.nl. (This is also where mosty of their favorite games can be found. I think this is because most of these kids are too young to have their own consoles.) These are among the first sites listed when the word ‘Spelen’ is Googled, which highlights how important it is to have your site listed first. These kids are pretty young, so chances are that their parents found these sites for them. When marketing to children of such an age, it should be taken into account that parents will more often than not govern what their children play. If you have a site with chainsaws and guns on the front page, the parents will be less likely to show the site to their children. (These can be on other pages. ;P)
Another powerful force is kids telling each other about sites. Floris, who is one of the older boys I interviewed, has explored the internet on his own and discovered more conventionally cool things: violent entertainment, such as Happy Tree Friends. I remember being introduced to Happy Tree-Friends through friends in the computer lab when we were supposed to be doing homework when I was ten. I expect Floris’ introduction was similar. Another example of the power of friends and community is the popularity of Habbo Hotel and Debbo Hotel. Communication through the internet has a unique novelty to kids. I’m currently working in the library and all around me I can see children playing Runescape and text-chatting to each other, even though they are sitting right next to each other.
I’m going a little off-topic now. I’m looking at site design, NOT site content. Its still interesting to know what these kid’s interests are.
This is just my first observations. Tomorrow I’m getting an introduction to portfolio 2 and should get some more information on Personas.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
First Assignment: Portfolio Project (part 2)
The next day, I was finally able to really start work on the html. I went to school early to scan and fix up my traditional work in Photoshop so it would be ready to use.
After art class, I went to the computer lab and polished my site. I didn’t do too much work, because I wanted to be back home for my little brother’s 10th birthday. After some cake, I continued to touch up my site and write a lot of the text into the wee-hours of the morning. (I’m so screwed tomorrow morning, but I need to be done tonight. Its 3:45 AM as I write this. Ach.)
Here’s a screenshot of my final results. It isn’t quite what I originally set out to do, but I’m pretty pleased with the results. I realized that this assignment will be assessed on the site’s ease of navigation and our us demonstrating the html coding we learned in class. Due to time constraints, I was unable to include everything I wanted, such as different font and a propper white box around the text. I focused more on its look, which may have been a bad idea since my teachers don’t expect anything extraordinary from a bunch of newbie programmers. I also should have invested time in exploring several ideas, rather than putting all my eggs into one basket and running with my first idea. I need to learn to stick to a quota, explore lots of ideas and make the most of limitations. This is a common problem when I start a project and I seriously need to work on this. I nevertheless hope my teachers are at least satisfied enough with my results to give me a passing grade. (If your a teacher reading this now, I'll try harder in future, I promise!)
I’m tired…