STA Blog

Bridget

Bridget

7-30-19

By

LAITS Knowledge Base

Not much to add since last time… I’ve still mainly been working on Cascade and Vlabs. I also started making a table of contents page for the LAITS Knowledge Base site, which will be a resource for new STAs. It organizes the most recent and up-to-date posts so they’re easier to find and all in one place. Suloni asked me if there was anything I would add to the current table of contents, so I added a few new topics that I think should be covered (they’re grayed out until I create pages for them). Over the next few weeks I’ll be filling these in and updating this blog as I make progress. I tried to add topics that covered key information people need to know when they’re being introduced to Cascade/the Web Editor, to make the learning curve a little less steep. One thing that’s difficult at first is trying to figure out which things you edit in Cascade and which things you edit using the Editor, so hopefully the overview pages will make that clearer.

http://sites.la.utexas.edu/kb/2019/07/24/sta-training-table-of-contents/

7-15-19

By

Vlabs Highlights

The past few weeks I’ve been pretty focused on Vlabs–creating assets for the interactives, building them in Canvasser, doing peer review. We’ve realized that some of the content that initially got marked as interactive can be added to the html as text, which has been super helpful, especially with sections that are very dense and overly complicated. We’re also adding in the videos directly to the html, as opposed to adding them to interactives, which looks a lot cleaner. There have been a few snags (missing animations, formatting issues), but it’s been really satisfying to see the site come together after all of our work. Aesthetically it’s much cleaner-looking, and the content is less confusing when it’s laid out flat.
Here is an interactive that I worked on from start to finish, so you can see the process.
Making the assets in Photoshop:
Making the assets interactive using Canvasser:
The approved interactive:
https://laits.utexas.edu/canvasser/canvasser_content/vlabslab7/lab7section4fayumdepression.html
What it looks like on the site:

Cascade Highlights

I’ve also been updating some of the COLA help guides. The goal is to make these comprehensive, so when we get a question from faculty/staff about Cascade or the COLA Web Editor and it’s not already in the help guides, we try to make a page or edit an existing page to address that issue. I’m also training some of the newer STAs on Cascade, helping them learn it by making a test site.

5-2-19

By

HRC Visit

Monday we all took a trip to the Harry Ransom Center to view the current exhibit: “The Rise of Everyday Design: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and America.” I always love learning about the history of art and design, and I really enjoyed going, especially since I didn’t know much about this movement going in.

The Arts and Crafts movement started in Britain in the mid-19th century and lasted into the 20th century, migrating to the U.S. in that time. It began as a reaction against industrialization and emphasized quality craftsmanship and simple design (the idea was that construction is as important, or more important, than design).

What was interesting is how the early Arts and Crafts reformers had very specific principles of design which was often closely tied to their ideas about political reform (many of the British designers were socialists). They produced informational materials, like this book called “The Grammar of Ornament” by Owen Jones, which is a kind of compendium of geometric patterns for architecture:

Their influences were very broad: Medievalism, Pre-Raphaelite/Classical, Folk, Middle Eastern (like the above page), and especially forms from nature.

One of my favorite things at this exhibit were these textile patterns by the British designer William Morris (1834-1896), who was inspired by forms of flora and fauna. Some of his notebooks were on display showing his sketches of nature. I was really struck by how modern these look, you still see patterns like these all over, in people’s homes, etc, and yet all these designs were created in the 1800s.

The movement grew in popularity, especially among the middle class. This drove commercially-scaled production of furniture, textiles, etc, which was contrary to the founding ideals.

(All images from Wikimedia Commons)

4-18-19

By

Vlabs

I’ve been making some interactives in Canvasser, and they were ones that I made the assets for, so I’ve got to see them from start to finish. The ones I’ve done so far are not that complicated (yay) because they don’t have a lot of popups, but they do have a a lot of information that has to be organized in a visually appealing way (or I try). I’m getting the hang of Canvasser pretty quickly. Every asset gets added as an object and positioned in the output box, then every clickable object is set as an interactive. The begin button is an interactive that’s only visible at the same time as the begin screen, then they both disappear. Then, for every clickable object, there’s a corresponding popup that becomes visible after you click it.

4-15-19

By

History Poster

Vlabs

Been doing more vlabs, making the assets, and then I’m going to start making some in Canvasser using assets that have already been created. Here are a few labs that I finished: