Design Rationale

Design Rationale-
Our group was Team 4, and our website is about the Bristol Animal Shelter and their adoption programs.
Our project was a long, sometimes tough, but ultimately rewarding project. We made several drastic changes before we decided on the final format, and I can say for everyone that we're really pleased with how it came out.
The people at the shelter were more than happy to help. They were more than happy to provide us with the information we needed. We truly appreciate their help; it really made the project easier.
The original design for our project was to have the website resemble a book with chapters. Each chapter was to tell a different aspect of life at the shelter. While I liked this idea, we quickly realized how a chapter-style layout was not ideal on the web page. The format was too hard to read and discern the information easily for the average viewer. We decided that something simpler would be more effective at telling the story.
Technology was a big part of building our website. We tried to use every resource made available to us. Our team used digital cameras, audio recordings through an iPod and a Mac notebook, Soundslides, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Image Ready, Garage Band (for audio editing), Adobe Go Live, and the Internet to compile the resources necessary to build the site. I must say that I found using Go Live daunting at first. I had not used it since my 2003-2004 semester, so I was more than a bit rusty at first. With time and group cooperation, however, we were able to build one heck of a site.
We also had some issues with group communication. Sometimes it was hard to get the team to meet, because along with classes, everyone had jobs as well. It all came together at the end though, and what needed to get done did.
The story we told was of Allison's adoption of a pet cat. That was one of the more constant parts of our project. It was nice that we had a story to work with. It allowed us to lay the framework early on and fill in the holes as we went along. Without the story, the website would not be as coherent and rounded out as it is.
We ended up with a nice looking, informative website. We scrapped our original web design at the last minute and gave it a 'face lift'. The white background allows for easy reading of the copy on the site. The navigation bar on the left-hand side makes it easy to navigate. As opposed to our original 'toolbar' design, I think the left-handed column looks much better.
All in all I would say that our team is happy with the way things turned out. Not only did we learn about Go Live, Photoshop, etc, we also learned about time management and team communication. I know we can use this experience to help with future group projects, whether they are school-related or out in the workforce.


-Posted by Phil Penny