STA Blog

Olivia Wilczek

Olivia Wilczek

Summer Blog Update

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– Podcasting site –

Since our last meeting in May I’ve made many changes to the podcasting sites with the help of Suloni, Stacy, Jaclyn and feedback from Jacob.

The biggest update is the new homepage for all LAITS produced podcasts – https://podcasts.la.utexas.edu .

I used Jaclyn’s mockup  to create cards similar to the style of our podcasting search pages. Jacob requested an option to feature certain podcasts so we added the orange tag and commanded posts with the featured tag to appear first in the queue.

 

Along with creating adequate media queries I’m still struggling to properly align the header elements and need to decide which audio player to place in the cards but for now I’m waiting on Stacy’s feedback and guidance. Still much work to be done!

We also added a footer to the site with LAITS branding and necessary links as well as a homepage for each podcast. Again, still having trouble with placing the podcast logo and site title, especially moving into tablet and mobile view.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of additional work happened on the backend of the WordPress site. Stacy and I created a “Podcasting Help” section to help Jacob and other site administrators set up their podcast pages with our decided preferences and show them their options for customization.

– Vlabs –

Starting in June I took a much needed break from WordPress to assist with canvasser interactives and asset creation for Vlabs. I’ve definitely become very familiar with canvasser at this point and through working on asset creation I’ve become much more comfortable with Photoshop.

 

Now I’m beginning to perform “last looks” on the GRAV site which involves reformating our html for consistency and making sure all interactives are present and functional!Here’s the current checklist to follow when performing the final looks:

As you perform your LAST LOOKS, assignments, COMPARE the FLASH pages with the GRAV pages, while using the checklist below. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

1. For content accuracy: -We want to ensure that the Anthropology students have all that they need per lab, per-section, so that they can study and learn the complete and accurate information they need to pass their exams.

2. Interactives though the lens of pedagogy (SORT OF!)

“how knowledge and skills are imparted in an educational context, and it considers the interactions that take place during learning”

*** Make sure that the redesigned interactives have enough content to be able to stand stand alone, and deliver the lesson the students need to learn. Interactives should not to depend on the html page text content to make sense.

3. For consistent visual style: We want to ensure that Anthropology students have a consistent experience as far a visual and conventions go, from page to page, from interactive to interactive.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

LAST LOOKS CHECK LIST

CONTENT CHECK – IS IT ALL THERE?

1. All of the Content needs to be in the section HTML TEXT VIDEOS INTERACTIVES

 

HTML TEXT – COPY EDITOR

2. all of the HTML text has to be correct – ex: words like “Click Here” need to be edited out of the HTML – spelling needs to be corrected -if words runtogether/spacing , correct the spacing -if words need to be bolded, bold them

 

CONTENT FLOW

3. All of the content needs to flow and be laid out as best as possible – “group” text & other content from separate cards into one card if it helps content flow better
& indent sub headings as needed to show sub-content in the flow of one card. – Center video as needed, or if it’s a list of videos right align?
DOES IT ALL MAKE SENSE?


INTERACTIVES & HTML

3a. All of the Interactives need to be sensibly laid out and pair sensibly with the HTML text, but not depend on the html text.

3b. This step is mostly necessary for the older Interactives & the ones that are not “teal”: Is there enough context (text and images) in the interactive for the interactive to make sense? if the text was edited & re-worded does the resulting text support the content of the interactive? ** It is ok if there is some redundancy between the interactive content & HTML content.

3c. When you see that visual conventions are not following the style guide for Interactives make a note on basecamp and on the spread sheet. ***ALSO let us know that this needs to be re-worked for the content in the interactive to make sense for the student trying to learn the points. – ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

(TEAL DEAL)
4. Valerie will keep track of the teal replacement Interactives on the spread sheet and will make corresponding new to-dos on bc for these

5-1-19

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Podcasting!

It’s been a long time since I posted updates on the podcasting sites! Since my last screenshots I have refined the overall styling and applied my CSS for 15 Minute History to all of our podcast sites. Here are some shots of the most current versions –  

I initially used clip-path property to round the speaker images but it was not compatible with Firefox, Safari or IE. I corrected the issue by using border-radius to create the circular images and it gives off the same effect! I also added a drop shadow to the cards because the flat design wasn’t looking very finished. Overall the light grey content area, colored headers and increased title text size added a lot more interest to the site. I plan to update the default audio player and leave only a large play/pause button similar to the styling on This American Life (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/).

Another big change I’ve made is adding a color palette for client’s to choose from that corresponds to their branding. To select these colors I looked at UT’s brand guidelines and worked with Suloni to choose shades with high enough contrast to my white title text.

For the muted colors I found inspiration from the Pinterest loading cards. (I’ll add this image later). I chose corresponding link shades for all color options available.

A challenge in applying my 15 Minute History styling to the other pages was how it affected the American Ingredient site. This site features a global search function separate from our Episode and Guest search pages. I’m still not confident on this placement of this sidebar but all content on the site is behaving responsively at last! 

Stacy and I met with the podcasting client last Friday to gain feedback on our progress and design so far. The client was pleased with the responsiveness and search features as well as the uniformity. He did request a LAITS podcast homepage be created that features logos from each podcast that link to their respective sites. This design as well as what’s included in the footer will be decided once the individual sites are completed. This has been such a good experience to get back into coding and learning how to customize a WordPress theme!

Rise of Everyday Design

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I went to the Harry Ransom Center during my STA meeting this week to check out the Rise of Everyday Design exhibit. This was my first time to the Harry Ransom building so I really didn’t know what to expect. I found the inside of the building smaller than expected! It looks like a huge museum when you’re approaching.

I thought the exhibit was very thorough though I would have loved to see more product design from the Arts & Crafts movement vs mostly print and photography. I would definitely return to the HRC on my own time and really enjoyed the exhibit. Here are a few notable pieces I loved learning about –

 

Norman Dawn’s Glass Shot:

I’d never heard of the term “glass shot” before and know very little about filming. Honestly I was drawn to this Norman Dawn exhibit because of his sketches and illustrations! I especially love the sketch of this weird contraption he built to test the exposure of film strips. The style of his drawing is very similar to the product design sketches in my textbooks and the kind we draw in class while prototyping our projects. I found it really cool that those standards and techniques have remained over time.

    

Architecture:

I love Frank LLoyd Wright’s work so I really enjoyed looking at his renderings as well as Harwell Hamilton Harris’ sketches. Perspective drawing is a skill I want to gain this year and both Wright and Harris provide beautiful examples. Wright’s clean lines and choice details in his renderings are so calculated and pristine. I love the detail of the carpet which was custom made for this particular house.

 

Harris’ use of color in his perspective sketches was great and really made them come alive.

     

Photography:

I was very absorbed by the whole photography section of the exhibit, especially the work of Otto Steinert. I’d never heard of a gelatin silver print before but I really enjoyed the disorienting and whimsical nature of his print work.

   

 

William Morris Textiles & Lettering:

I was drawn to these Morris & Co wallpaper and fabric prints due to my love of textiles and new fascination with wood-block printing! I recently took a class with Darrell Howard learning her process of Japanese Wood-block Printing. It’s equally laborious and beautiful. William Morris also used this labor-intensive method of printing to create his repeat nature patterns seen below. Morris’ vision of “art for all” really resonated with me. I also found his lettering work really fascinating. I think Jessica Hische (http://jessicahische.is/awesome) likely takes inspiration from this work.

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3-26-19

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And even more podcast updates!

I updated the font styles and accent color. I also styled the Category and Tag pages for desktop and mobile. Still sorting out the card layout for the speaker search page!

https://podcasts.la.utexas.edu/15-minute-history/podcast/episode-20-reconstruction/
https://podcasts.la.utexas.edu/15-minute-history/categories/time-period/19th-century/
https://podcasts.la.utexas.edu/15-minute-history/episodes/
https://podcasts.la.utexas.edu/15-minute-history/speakers/

2-26-19

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This week and last I worked on graphics for the Brexit in Global & Historical Context Poster with Chloe. My role was to colorize this illustration in Photoshop. It was a great challenge to get more familiar with Photoshop and pretty fun, I basically got to color all week!


Before
After

I also finished my STA blog avatar! Creating my avatar was my first time using a drawing pad. Definitely a task out of my comfort zone but I’m happy with how it turned out as a first try!

I also worked with Stacy on more edits to the Podcasts sites. I made a grid layout for the search pages and repositioned content on the episode pages.

Episodes

Speakers
Episode 118: The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science