What I Have Learned This Quarter
What I Have Learned This Quarter in Com 596 Interactive Media
Intro
The quarter has come to a close. It is time to look back and evaluate everything that I have learned. Most of the learning happened for me during the class assignments. This journal entry will look back at each of those assignments. They started with an evaluation of a good verses bad image and ending with a write-up on service envy.
Good vs. Bad Image
This was the first time that I had an opportunity to critique a webpage in written format. Carolina gave us some great direction in this in terms of what works on a page and what doesn’t. It was fun to be the “expert” during the assignment and evaluate what I felt a designer did and did not do well.
Wireframes
Before this assignment, I didn’t know what a wire frame was. This was a fun assignment because I could create what could be a webpage in very little time. This was the first time I had to pick a software program to work out pictures and designs for class. I have had success with simple projects in Microsoft Publisher in the past so I decided to use that.
Poor Usability
This was a fun article to write. It was fun looking around my surroundings assessing what worked well and what needed improvement. A few days before the assignment was due, I got a flat tire and experienced the extreme low usability of the car jack while trying to change the tire. This experience made for a perfect example in this write-up.
Classroom
I liked my classroom design. It was a roundtable where the instructor had control over the overhead with an in-table computer. The rest of the class sat in a round/oval table. This form of classroom encourages ease of input and conversation from each student. This design also gives a sense of accountability of each student to pay attention and interact with the class.
Term Project Proposal
My term project proposal was the hardest assignment I did in the quarter. For my project, I chose to design a website by myself. I had never ever done something like this before. As I was leaving class, without setting myself up in a group, my stomach began to turn and I wasn’t sure I would be able to pull it off. To begin, I started where my roots are, business. That lead to Vashro Consulting being my mock business. Designing the webpage it in a software platform was very confusing at first but I just started and kept going, and got use to the program. With endurance things started to fall together. It is amazing how many hours I could spend tweaking every little detail again and again and not realize the time that had passed.
Use Case
This was a nice quick and easy assignment. But is was also very useful in terms of learning how define the users path in a webpage.
Task Flow Diagrams
In this assignment we had to find a task that was to be done in Media Space and first map what it currently is and then map an improved version. This was another thing that I had no experience with so I dove into it with simple white squares. I was very surprised when I got to class and saw the level of detail that some of my classmates were able to put into their diagrams.
Service Envy
This article was also very interesting to write. At first it was a bit confusing but as I studied the assigned reading things came together. It was an interesting notion that the actual product was an afterthought when it came to service and customers saying “what can you do for me?”
Conclusion
This has been an enjoyable and challenging class. The amount of detail that I learned was unexpected. As I said in my intro to this paper, the hands on assignments were the largest learning experience for me. Several times I was forced to step outside of my comfort zone. That was hard each time, but as the assignment evolved I became more comfortable with it.
