Preparing for dorm life |
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Site Report |
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Purpose Navigation Choices Use of Subheads Design and Text Decisions Our original thought of the site was to include a lot of information about what students should bring to college. We decided to give the reader a lot more information about life in the dorms not just what to bring. We also followed an already prepared thought, by using Janel’s and JP’s organizing exercise that started out as a list of 100 small objects in the home. It turned out to be Small Space Living. Anna thought of the idea to go even further into the topic so we decided to do dorm items. Problems Encountered Our navigation was an issue but after figuring out that it's best to keep all of the navigation the same on all pages. Before some of the sites where only linked on the main page for each subject. We decided that this wouldn't work for our site because it prevented the reader from viewing all the page links at once. We had some problems deciding how much information we wanted on each page. We also wanted to make the site humorous but we are aware of running the risk that people might not get the joke. We reviewed our writings to make sure that it would make sense to most people. Some of our biggest issues concerning the site were due to our lack of dream weaver skills. None of us had used dream weaver before and using our Microsoft Word skills on the site was a challenge. We also wanted to put most of our energy into the content and do very simply designed pages. The pastel pages are easier to read and not as boring as differing shades of gray. Sibling Sites The Lowes web site is something we wanted to stay clear from just because we mentioned in our site that we didn’t want any advertisement, but the page we looked at was entirely different. Under the “Dorm Life” title there were no advertisements for their products but instead they gave excellent advice on how to store items in your dorm. They also have made a list of what to buy for decorating, what you should buy if you live in a furnished apartment and off campus housing. [College Bound Network- Top 10 dorm must haves] The College Bound Teen Magazine web site is another great sibling site. This web site is straight to the point. They include the top 10 must-haves for your dorm. We were particularly interested in the first sentence of their web site“We advise students not to bring everything that they own, but travel with as little as possible.” This is what we want to get across on our web site They have items of great importance, like towels and power strips, but they also include items of personal importance, like photographs and mementos from home. We all agree that you do need specific items to be able to survive physically, but more importantly, surviving mentally. [E-How- How to Pack for Your Dorm Room] The E-how, how to pack your dorm room is one of the best sites that we have searched. This site has a list of the top 11 steps to make your living in the dorms as comfortable as possible. This list is best read before you go shopping or make any serious plans with your dorm, for instance, the number 1 step is recommending that you get a hold of your roommate to figure out who is bring what. This site doesn’t go in much detail about what items you will need, but it gives you a good idea of what to look for when you do go shopping. [College Board- College Dorm Rooms: The True Hollywood Story] College Board is a web site that doesn’t contain any specific items that someone needs to live in the dorm but what we found was the lists of the different types of college rooms. They have listed single dorms, special interest or "theme" housing and suites. This web page would be ideal for a student interested in moving to college, they can get many ideas from this page of what type of living space is best for them. The best advice that we saw on this site was under the description of a single room "It’s pretty rare to get a single as a first-year student." We all agree that it is crucial for your first year in college to share your room with a roommate. It doesn’t fit our web sites criteria but it includes a lot of important facts about different types of living spaces when you are in college. Group Work JP, Anna and Janel were members of the FYRE (First Year Residential Experience) program. JP and Anna have been roommates for 4 years so we had the “special” treatment for living in the dorms and knew a lot about what it takes to make the freshmen year go smoothly as possible because the FYRE program taught and showed us the ropes. Original Work Usability Testing 1. Find information on moving into the dorms? All of the people we asked answered the same exact way. They were able to find all of what they were asked to find quite easily. They commented on the navigation bar as far as the order the links were in. Therefore, we changed the links around so that “the College, the Headaches, the Life” was listed right after the homepage. They all stated (2 men, 3 women) that there was quite a bit of print without pictures and that the pictures were in strange places. Therefore, we broke the pictures up and revised our content three more times. The last thing they commented on was that the home page shouldn't have had as much content as a content page, suggesting the use of pictures. We struggled slightly on deciding exactly which picture to use, however, we decided to use a picture of the arch in front of Deputy for the fact that no where on the home page it states that our purpose is for "preparing for dorm life” at BSU and although the picture is of an administration building, it shows that Bemidji State University is part of our focus. |
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Copyright © 2004 Jennifer Pettitt, Anna Haugstad and Janel Budenski
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