Evaluation & Future Considerations

In this brief, I was given a reasonably free reign on my work provided it was about the four elements. I chose to be slightly different in my approach and tackled the four elements within alchemy. I wanted at the same time as accomplishing my brief to try something different and take the theory of mobile first to a new level. While I learnt a lot about mobile first and techniques it used, I also learnt the reason why so many people leave the mobile experience on the mobile is because it simply doesn’t work on the desktop. This means that the overall design isn’t as good as it possibly could have been.

Learning Zurb Frameworks was another milestone within this assignment as it meant I had to learn and use the entire package from scratch, I am happy to say that now I know my way around foundation and it means I am a lot more confident with using it, something I couldn’t say 6 months ago. At the same time it meant I could also input extra code and ideas based on other frameworks and learn even more.

The marketing strategy was an important element of the brief and something I completed sucessfully, the research allowed me to understand that offline and online are closely tied and should seamlessly integrate with each other, something that mean’t I have to try and get across in my marketing. Somewhere I felt I wasn’t doing so well was in the area of implementing the social media marketing within the website itself, as it how no links to the Facebook or twitter. This would be a failure within the marketing online but instead something I would need to consider if I were to spend more time improving this project. I would need a much greater integration of the marketing and what the exhibition is about within the actual website to convince people to attend the museum itself.

Implementation of Google Analytics was an interesting pillar of the marketing strategy as it meant I was able to check the amount of people visiting the website, details of their demographics and details as to why they weren’t purchasing tickets. This would mean i’d be able to create a more successful website which drives more sales as I could change the website to suit the needs of the user based on analytics.

It seems that the bottom navigation on the desktop version of the website doesn’t make sense and confused the user quite a lot when navigating it. It would be inappropriate for users to leave the page simply because they could not navigate it as it would impact the sales.

The styling of the content managed system is another negative side in this project and I have failed to make the word central aligned while also making the font illegibly small. I have left the word on the site as evidence that I am capable installing and using couch cms, but i consider this an area that would require further research.

The form on the website is something I have tried to implement from a pre-built experience. The reason for this was the fact that the labels float inside the box making more a much more enjoyable experience, however in the way I have created my form, it is first uncompleted as limits on time restricted me from finishing it, but it also looks unprofessional.

If I was able to do this assignment again, I would be able to learn from the mistakes I have made. Simply being able to further what I already have created I would firstly make the desktop navigation sit at the top since this is where most users are most comfortable with the navigation being positioned. From my user testing, when people went on the ingredients and instructions pages they tried to click on elements on the page which I had not made clickable, therefore, something I would do is allow them to learn more by simply clicking one the ingredient or instruction. Mainly though, if I was offered the opportunity to spend longer on this assignment, I would choose to fully integrate the marketing with the website, by including social networking elements into the site, including but not limited to links to the pages, feeds of statuses and images taken at the exhibition.

There were many good and bad things that have come out of the work I have completed, but all of them have taught me invaluable lessons about the way I work, what I am capable of achieving, my strengths and weaknesses and finally what I do and do not enjoy doing with regards to my work. This means that I can work more efficient and and achieve greater results next time I am given a brief.

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Setting up Couch CMS

Couch content management system is a compelling option to making a website enabled with little php knowledge. First stage is to create a database through cPanel of the hosting company.

First, create a database;

Next create a username;

It is important to use the password generator to create a secure password;

Once you have the database prepared, go to the couch cms website and download the package;

Once you have the folder downloaded, rename the config.example.php to config.php

Next you need to open it in a code editor, and add your database name, username & password;

Save the folder, and upload it to the root folder on your domain;

setup is almost complete, you should go to your domain and access the couch folder, this can be done by going to http://www.example.co.uk/couch. Once there set your username and password up and store it in a safe place. You will be greeted with the backend.

To make a .hmtl file editable through the couch cms it is done really easily, firstly change the file to become a .php file. Next you need to add the code before DOCTYPE;

<?php require_once( ‘couch/cms.php’ ); ?>

<cms:template title=’tester’ />

and the following code after </html>;
<?php COUCH::invoke(); ?>

Then all you need to do is add the following code to add something you want to edit;

<cms:editable name=’text_content’ type=’text’ label=’Text’
desc=’Enter Test Here’>
</cms:editable>

This sound then look something like this;

you can then go into the backend and edit what should appear in this place, you can see an example of this here;

Which appears on my own website at http://scottlewis.eu/exhibition/exhibition.php which you can see here under the back button in the top left (A mistake I am currently unable to fix);

 

Maritime Museum Presentation

You can look at my final presentation about this assignment here;

https://www.icloud.com/keynote/000MxdO2qsSqXHj8TqqkyMoqQ#Maritime_Museum

Four Elements Presentation

You can look at my final presentation about this assignment here;

https://www.icloud.com/keynote/000KgjRQ3AfOtU1HiyftH5qDQ#Four_Elements