Intro Questions

1. Provide your name, major, year in school (sophomore, junior, etc).
   • Howdy, I'm Emily! Ellison. I am a senior/5th year pursuing a B.A. in Communication Design.
2. Tell us a bit about your background and what prompted you to take this class.
   • This is a required class for my major, which is the main reason for taking this class. I've bounced around a lot with school; such is the curse of the jack-of-all-trades. For a while I was doing architecture, at one point I had a second major in mathematics, and now, for some reason, I am doing design with a side interest in linguistics.
3. Do you have any experience with HTML/CSS/JS? If so, tell us a bit about it.
   • I have formatted something in HTML/CSS once, and it was a short article with most of the code already provided for me, so my experience is very limited with that. I have taken the intro computer science class here, so I have a bit more experience with JavaScript. I have also dabbled a bit into GDScript to make a game in Godot, but I never got very far with that.
4. Name one thing you hope to learn in this class.
   • I want to learn to design websites and other interactive material that isn't boring. The internet and technology feel plagued with convergent design, and it makes me sad sometimes. After learning the basics and fundamentals, I am most interested in learning to add personality into these designs without it feeling unpolished or unprofessional.
5. Name one way you expect designing for screen to be different from designing for paper.
   • When designing for screen, it seems, so far, that you have a bit less control than you do for paper. When designing something physical, you have the choice of materials you use, you have the ability to tweak the design to work with your specific paper/printer. For screen, all screens are different. Difference sizes, aspect ratios, even quality. Color and text also look different depending on the screen.
6. Provide a link to a website you think exemplifies effective design. Explain your choice.
   • Baba is Hint
   • This is a spoiler free guide for the puzzles in the hit game Baba is You. The minimal color is very easy on the eyes and does not distract from the information on the page. When you visit this site, you are most likely looking for hints to a specific puzzle, which you can easily navigate to by clicking on one of the images. On the level pages, it also has the puzzles listed in order of how you would complete them, which makes navigation even easier. The way the website has designed the hints is also very effective. It could have been a neat little button, but sometimes simple is best. The hints are black text on a black background, so to reveal the hints, you must highlight the hidden text. Super simple, super effective. 10/10 would hint again.
7. Provide a link to a website you think exemplifies effective communication. Explain your choice
   • Opposite Snakes
   • I should preface by saying: This is NOT a pretty website, it is meant as a gag, but the seemingly crude design is very intentional for what it is trying to communicate. I think it's important to note that not all communication needs to be serious, or even pretty. The Opposite Snakes website is a joke, and you can tell this immediately once you open it. From the early internet style background and the neon green text, to the clearly not real “facts” about this not real creature, this website communicates perfectly well its tone and what the website is for. It's meant for fun and to not be taken seriously. (I thought I would add a joke website in this assignment, because humor is important.)
8. Provide a link to a website you think works well. Explain your choice.
   • Official Terraria Wiki
   • For this, I have to go with the Official Terraria Wiki. On each page, including the landing page, it sorts the information from most important/general to the more specific topics, which is a very simple but effective way to make sure the user doesn't have to scroll for ages to find what they're looking for. Each link to another page also has a little icon next to it, which is a more visual way of finding what you might be looking for. Visually, the colors used are reminiscent of the game, which makes the wiki feel cohesive and not alienated from the game itself.