Daycare

Doctors

Baby Proofing

Schools

Activities

Baby Supplies

Milestones

Discipline

Site Report

Advice For New Parents

Purpose

The purpose of this web site was to inform new parents of things they might need to know. This includes activities to do with children, how to baby proof, where to take their child to daycare, and much more. The list of all the things that new parents should know could go on forever. We kept it as basic as we could while still trying to be informative on this subject.

As a parent, Allan knows how hard yet rewarding having a child can be, so he wanted this site to give information about the things many new parents might not know. Elizabeth while not being a parent has experience with children by being an aunt. So between the two of us decided that we wanted people to be able to visit our site and get basic, yet valuable, information. We did not want to fill the site with too much information, but we also wanted to avoid not having enough. Our goal was to have just enough information that parents could find what they are looking for.

In addition, we wanted to provide good, reliable links to sites with additional information for those parents thirsty for child rearing knowledge. While we could not put every bit of information a parent would we at least came up with a good start to get parents thinking and hopefully guide them gently into the fun world of parenthood.

Site Design

Every page design is the same basic layout.
Not every page contains photos and some pages have more then one photo.
Every page has a master set of links including a button to go back to the home page
Also every page has a button for the BSU project sites page.
Along with date, email, and copyright information,
The design was chosen with the K.I.S.S. principle in mind.
We wanted the user to be able to get to any page they want on the site from any page.

We had a few problems with the design. After having many drawn out, and picking the one that we wanted to use, it did not work out how we wanted it to. We ended up making changes to the layout halfway through the project.

Originally, the links were going to be:
• Daycare
• Doctors
• Baby Proofing
• Schools
• Activities
• Baby Supplies
• Milestones
• Discipline
• Tips
• Links
• Home

After searching for tips to put on a designated page we decided instead to just put a few tips or suggestions on every page. This makes it easier for someone to find tips on a certain topic. So our page links became:

• Daycare
• Doctors
• Baby Proofing
• Schools
• Activities
• Baby Supplies
• Milestones
• Discipline
• Home

We also included a link back to the sites index page as well as the BSU homepage.

The sidebar was used mostly as a quick reference point where we either put information on that particular subject or tips.

Participation

Allan did most of the original layout and design work.
Elizabeth put together the colors so they would blend right also designed the buttons that were used.
Allan and Elizabeth edited photos in Photoshop and optimized them for the web.
The photos used were of Allan’s son and Elizabeth’s niece.
Elizabeth found the majority of the information for the pages while Allan inserted most of it.
Both of us did layout although Elizabeth found ways to use subheads to make the information more presentable.

Reviews

We visited a few different baby sites on the web but did not find too many that we liked most of them were too busy and overloaded with content. Some of the better ones we found still had a lot of flashy distracting ad's but had good information. A few of the pages we visited are listed below.

Problems

We had our share of problems many of which were technical problems.

Not knowing how to work everything in Dreamweaver.
Files not loading right.
Pictures not loading.
Files not saving in right location.
Not being able to start over from home after deleting files on flash drive.
Not being able to meet outside of class because of work and school schedules.
Columns expanding and collapsing when not wanting them to.

Solutions

Taking more time and having more patience.
A couple frantic sounding emails to Dr. Morgan
Getting used to the problems with Dreamweaver and learning how to deal with them.
Deleting unneeded files to minimize confusion.

End Result

We had an easily navigable site designed pretty well for a couple of beginners working with a new program. The site contains information on SIDS, choosing daycare's and doctors etc. As well as advice on discipline, schools and information on what kind milestones you can expect your child to experience during the first year. Also some fun activities to do with your toddling toddler.