Friday 30th April Meeting

To Do List:

• Set up the Database for the PHP (MySQL)
• Code the PHP (News, Shows etc)
• Have a look at making the main gallery xtml and therefore editable by the client
• PHP will be used for the gallery teaser
• PHP for the members page which will filled in by the users and submitted. This will create a member database for client to look at.
• Add image hover to main buttons
• Navigation to have dotted line under text on hover instead of the colour change.
• JQuery for the designers info needs sorting
• See how the Big Buttons look with subtle images in them
• Put the content text and info in the sections
• Include a flash 360 viewer of the Lambley Riding club location and put it in the about section.
• Need to sort out google map.
• Include the PDFs so that they download when corresponding buttons are clicked on.
• Entry Form: We need to find out exactly how this works to tell the user what to do in the text. All Entry for buttons will take the user to the entry form page where they will be given the instructions (which we need to confirm with Karen) Here they will get the PDF link to print off the form.
• PHP contact form needs to be added
• Code the admin page and the login page.
• Change all the page tags to .PHP (including all the links)

Plenty to be getting on with.

Thursday 29th April Meeting

An admin and Facebook button have been added to the footer.

All background images have been intergrated, one for each season including day and night.

We will move the sun to the sky for the summer background and see how it looks, might play around with the clouds so that they are not cut off at the top.

Gallery page needs to be tidied up, we will move the thumbnail images so that they all line up better and the space on the right will have the 'help' text on it and below we will add buttons for each of the different galleries so that they are kept seperate instead of one long page of galleries.

Steven will update the server account to allow for PHP and when this is done, ste will be able to intergrate the PHP he has been working on for the various sections.

Expanding on the Layout Design

Sam and Daryl came up with the idea of altering our landscape background subtly for each page. The idea was to have the background portray different seasons and night time. We all decided the idea could work really well and be really effective so I went ahead with the designs and here they are:

Autumn

Summer

Night

Spring

Winter

Latest Update

With the project and members of the group progressing very well, we thought it would be best to code the index page now to allow us to progress further on with other elements and area that need to be completed.

Here is a screen shot of the Index page being viewed in Google Chrome. We have also now integrated a Latest Photos Flash element that Steven Carroll recently created. I personally believe it it finishes off the Homepage nicely and can effortlessly be updated using the image folder and an xml document.

We now plan to have a different theme for each individual page, at the moment were thinking seasons, with a night time gallery. More progress to come soon.

Planning

The group had chosen my basic design to develop further and so I thought it would be a good idea to annotate the design in order to show the rest of the group my thought processes whilst designing it.


Daryl has since coded the design and it seems to function perfectly so far. So all is going very smoothly up to now.

Gallery Teaser

This is the initial design for the gallery teaser which will be on the home page. We will used the best four images which can each be selected and brought to the front to view. This will then also act as a link to the main image gallery page

Outcomes from Thursday 22nd Meeting

We are going to develop this design, we are going to change the layout slightly, get rid of the big facebook box and replace it with a button. We are going to bring in the buttons from Stephen's black design maybe bring in Daryl's pencils for on the buttons? Possibly change the logo, perhaps have the footer image so that it changes slightly on each page. Have a gallery teaser on the front page (which Steven Carroll has a design for that I will post for you to see) Maybe have a horse shoe that comes up when hovering over particular areas or buttons?

GROUP TASK
Stephen will upload the psd for this design onto the dropbox, we are all to have a play around with the design and the above comments and upload the resulting psd files to our personal files on the dropbox to look at tomorrow.

Design Ideas

Here are the initial design ideas that the group have come up with for this project.

Sam: Would like to use intergrate horseshoes into the final design if it works


Will develop this hills idea which creates a simple and clean feel to the website
Stephen: We like the layout of this design especially the large buttons on the right with the images behind them.

The whole group liked this design as it developed that inial clean hills design, talking through what we would do to improve the design we said we would, abandon to large facebook box and replace it with a button that links to the facebook page, we would use the style of button seen in the above design. We will bring in a jquery info box at the bottom for us to put links to our own sites as web creaters for the site. We will have a news feed limited to 3 posts but then a button under to show all posts.
Daryl: The group really liked the background image used in this and we especially liked the buttons used for the downloadable forms. We also liked the horse shoe used on the navigation. We want to intergrate the horse shoe and the pencil icons that he had on his buttons. We also like his idea of having a few of the best images on the front page to act as a 'gallery teaser'.
Steven: Used the original logo in his designs, the group have still not decided on which logo will be used in the final design.

Although these two designs are very similar, the group decided that the second one was the better of the two as the spacing is better. We also decided to have a news feed on the home page instead of the about information as most users of the site will be members who will find the news posts more interesting on arrival to the site, if people going onto the site are not members they will only have to click one 'about' button to get the information that they need about the club. If we were to take this design we would change the green slightly - either try to make the green work or use an alternative colour.

Research: Showjumping websites

I have continued my research looking at show jumping websites, as in the Riding club websites i haven't really found any more inspiration, however on these for show jumping websites I have found design elements that I like.


The british open show jumping website has a flash banner which is displaying many different images that refresh every few seconds, with added information about upcoming events. The banner is in a prominent position and designed to advertise, however consideration with other design elements on the page haven't really been thought through, the banner looks like it has just been place on the page without any consideration.

On the british show jumping website I like the logo and how the navigation is directly underneath incorporating the same colour. The colour red is also used throughout this website adding to the consistency, however the pages looked very cluttered.

The high offley stud website has an interesting banner incorporating the navigation, I don’t particularly like the banner however I do like how the images have been used. I also like the simple logo, not sure why they have used the colour Green. The colour isn’t used anywhere else on the page, doesn’t seem to be relevant to the logo.

The Olympia horse show website has a Flash banner the same as the British open show jumping website. This banner works a lot better on the page consideration has been paid to positioning. What I like about this website is the consistent use of the same colour purple. The colour is used on the navigation and headings which allows the user to navigate more easier. The colour is also used on the logo which also adds to the consistency of the website.

Research into Riding Clubs

In Friday mornings session as a group we decided to start working on the Lambley Riding Club website layouts, we would all work individually on separate layouts and bring them for review next Thursday morning to decide which elements we liked about each others website layouts.

This isn't my normal way of working I normally carry out research first, after about three hours I didn't really have much to show just the navigation and didn't really like that.

Friday afternoon we decided to work independently at home we would meet again Thursday to discuss the website layouts. I decided later that afternoon to carry out research on riding clubs to hopefully gain some inspiration as at the moment I don't have any.

I have looked at a number of riding club websites, I normally review three or four discussing elements I like, to gain inspiration to use in my own work. However I have not found any riding club websites that inspire me. In general the websites I have looked at are poorly designed and amateurish in nature. The websites seem to be either very cluttered, all a lack of content, doesn't seem to be any consideration how the pages are laid out. I have to widen my search for websites inspiration, e.g Showjumping, sporting websites and Olympic Games.

Client's Basic Content Brief

1st Group Meeting

LAMBLEY RIDING CLUB

Thursday 15^th April Meeting

We Will:

• Develop the Logo
• Meet every Thursday at 12pm to work together
• Meet every Friday to follow up from the day before
• Each come up with design ideas to look at
• Have the sign up form as a downloadable version and online form

Home Page

• Logo
• Banner
• Latest News – Diary Journal (PHP)
• Welcome info
• Facebook
• Twitter?

Dates Page

• Dates (PHP)
• Hover over and it says how many days until?

Location Page

• Map
• Location Info

Membership Info

• PDH + PHP

Image Gallery

• Images

Contact Page

• Contact form (PHP)
• Contact Details

Job Allocation :

Stephen – PHP, MySQL Database, Design

Daryl – Page Construction, Design

Steven – Project Leader, Gather Content, Client Liaise, Design, Logo

Sam – Gather Content, Client Liaise, Design, Administrator, Game, Gallery