Hello! Crazy to think we are halfway through the semester already! Feels like it is FLYING by!

In terms of what is going well with our project, I would say it is good that we finally have an actual topic locked down after hitting an obvious speed bump early on with our original topic pretty much ghosting us! Thankfully we were able to think quickly on our feet to find a replacement that worked in a timely fashion.

For what we need to do better going forward I’m not sure if there is anything apart from just getting to work and knocking out a chunk of this project to “catch up” to the rest of the class as a whole. Thankfully the latter half of the semester is all just getting to work and making progress. Our biggest obstacle up to this point is for sure the fact we had to change everything completely haha.

I’ve been pretty under the weather this whole week so I will say I haven’t contributed much but I will be heading up the website/web design side of everything going forward since that is my clear strong suite compared to the other options.

Unfortunately, we had to make the difficult decision to change topics to looking at coffee houses nearby campus and their impact on college student culture. As a group, we have a great direction on where we are going and what we want to do. We have designated tasks to better suit each individual’s needs and skills. There is a fabulous presence moving forward on the attitude of our group. Each member contributes significantly to the efforts of what’s in danger in our topic and what plans are moving forward. I am every glad to be apart of a group that knows that we need to get things done and always puts in 110% effort on everything. Most times, you don’t luck out with the members of your group but the dynamic that exists is joyful and optimistic. There will be a struggle to work on our assigned tasks in the period we will need to do it. Still, I am confident in my group’s ability to work effortlessly to obtain our goal. Overall, I like the direction our group is going and the challenge we faced, which will most likely be our greatest challenge yet. Next week, I hope to provide better news on the status of achieving our goals for the project and work towards a smarter and safer avenue to take.

I think the biggest challenge we as a group have encountered this week is the bump in the road with the topic of our project. Although originally we were planning on doing the bars we had researched, the scheduling didnt line up between members of the group or with the employees of the bar. This lead to us having to come up with another project idea pretty quickly since the first submission of content is due this week. Our group has decided to do our project over the connection between college students and the local coffee shops in Lincoln. We decided to choose about five coffee shops to focus on which include The Mill, Crescent Moon, The Foundry, The Coffee House and Cultiva. We chose to do the Cultiva across from east campus since it most likely has the most student traffic due to location and access. Most of the connections with the people of the coffee shops are already made but a couple contacts still need to be made which is one thing we need to work on. We also need to really start getting content for a project and outlining what we want the end project to look like. Research has been done over the five projects by all of us and a few of us are heading out to capture some pictures for the submission on Friday. I am heading out this week to get some content at the Crescent Moon.

I’m definitely intimidated by the thought of already being halfway through the semester, especially after the bump in the road our group hit with our first project idea. Although our group does work well together, we had to change our entire theme. We were originally going to focus on a new bar that just opened up in the Haymarket, but because of the lack of communication from the bar, we changed our topic. We are now going to profile different coffee shops in Lincoln and discuss what they mean to college students. I think our project idea is great and we are on the right track. Our project is going well so far because our whole group is all in on producing the best work and having so many great ideas for creative content. Our group needs to work on communication the most because sometimes people in our group are hard to reach. At this point, our biggest challenge is starting fresh with a new project idea and contacting the coffee shops to make sure they approve of us capturing media.

I believe my biggest contribution to the group was taking the lead and getting our group together to think of new ideas. I also know I will contribute greatly to the preliminary content submission and know my other group members will as well. In the future, I will not allow groups I am in to choose projects that I am not 100% set on. I was always had some doubts about the bar idea because of my concerns on communication between us and them.

I found the presentations this week to be very interesting and give some insight into what I hope we work to incorporate into our own project as a group. The music and audio that was in the background of the 30 Pieces website I think added to the emotion of the website. While our topic will not be that serious, it is a good example of how audio and music can add to the feel of the website that we can create. The World War II website was also very interesting with how the graphics within in worked. I think the site did a great job at showing visualisation of numbers. Again, while we will most likely not need to focus on number values within out project, we can keep in mind that visualisation adds to the impact of the information being provided. I also liked how both of the previous sites mentioned allowed to user to look into the statistics provided by rolling the cursor over the graphs or charts. This could be incorporated in our easily, and would be useful because for the reader or viewer to gather information they almost have to go looking for it. Graphics seemed to be a theme for this week, as all the presentations were heavy in interactive graphic aspects. I think this is good to some extent for projects until it becomes overwhelming. The Nurture website did not seem to be very organised and was harder to follow along. The last project (I dont remember the title of the site) was also slightly hard to follow, and while the cursor was intriguing it was also more of a bothersome at some other times. This week my group worked on contacting the bar and brainstorming.

This week I also did not present my interactive analysis project, but I did choose the project I wanted to present. Without giving too much away, I chose the particular project based off of style and organization. 

Like I said last week, I think the mark of a good interactive project is organization and aesthetic appeal. Without either, the content doesn’t captivate the audience and thus fails at any kind of intrapersonal communication. 

I think everyone in “Sad Journalism Kids” knows this concept and regardless of the direction our project goes, it will have a very good aesthetic appeal.

As far as an update on our project, we have hit a bit of a snafu with the bar. Our main contact is only available on Monday afternoons and that severely hinders the times we are able to obtain content for the project. 

Because of this it seems like we are going to find another topic, what topic, I’m not sure but I have faith in the competency of everyone in my group that we will pick a good back up topic and put a satisfying project together. I assume we will fall back on one of the other two topics we presented on a few weeks ago, but until we are sure that the bar contact is an official “no-go” we are probably going to be optimistic about the bar.

Hello hello, we are back again! Almost halfway through the semester! Crazy to think about exciting and scary at the same time!

I didn’t present this week as I presented last week but I loved all of the websites that were shown. Specifically the Endangered Species and World War 2 sites. I saw a lot of things I would like to use on our site but they seem to be a lot more advanced in terms of web design than we would be able to accomplish. The use of large comparison graphs in the World War 2 site and circular list of animals on the Endangered Species list to name a few.

In terms of consistency between sites, it honestly depends on how closely you want to draw comparisons. They all utilize the same kind of “flowing” letter entry the moving parts at all times to add to the interactive feel. As for problems not really other than maybe drawing back a few things so the site doesn’t seem as crowded/busy as the ones presented (mine included.)

As for contributions this week it has been pretty laid back. We are trying to figure out a plan of attack to all go to the bar together for introductions and content capture for what is due next week.

When talking about the people who presented this week, they all did a great job of showing the in-depth patterns presented by CSS. Every interactive website was executed well enough to give off a story, particularly the WWII history one. I have seen a video like that before, but taking it one step further and making it more interactive when you can click and look at the information. Every website you could find has its flaws. Still, I would say that some of the sites that were shown were in the area of not much interactivity. More just an article read rather than presenting the fundamental part of the project.
Additionally, this week my group and I arrived at the understanding that we will probably need to begin a new topic somewhere else. It is very upsetting; however, the bar has been very unreliable at the moment due to what times we could come to film, requirements, etc. For the benefit of the project and the group, we must move on from this topic and start anew. I assumed something like this was probably going to happen and planned on writing a text back to one of the owners of the bar. Just the way things go sometimes, and it was good to get some more unity between the group and keeping on the same page.

This week, I did not present my interactive analysis presentation. I’m glad I got it done last week so I don’t need to worry about it. In the presentations I watched, I saw some really interesting ones and ones I thought were too confusing. Craig Sullivan presented over the 30 endangered species and I loved the uniqueness and animations on the website. I was always very intrigued by the WWII presentation, as the emotional factor was something I was drawn to immediately. In the projects, animations were consistent throughout. Also, there were almost always videos with interviews or extra information that provided the user with more background knowledge on the subject. One thing I thought was problematic was also something my classmate Jenna brought up. She mentioned how some of the websites were difficult to navigate and I agree with her statement. In our website, I will ensure that it is easy to navigate so the user doesn’t get frustrated.

As a group, we decided on when we will go to the bar for our preliminary content. We decided on going this Saturday the 29th to capture videos, photos, and ask employees a few questions. We decided on this time with the owner because we wanted to get a chance to be there before it opened to the public at 4:00pm. One challenge we encountered was finding a day and time all of us could meet because of our busy schedules. In the future, we will work on collaborating more outside of class to be more prepared for class discussions.

This week has been particularly difficult for me in my personal life and it resulted in some physical complications and a subsequent absence from class. With this in mind, I obviously didn’t present or see any presentations yet. However, I have been looking at possible projects on my own to present and there are a few key factors that help visual storytelling. 

The first is over all organization and aesthetic appeal, If a person is going to tell a story visually it has to be ordered in a simple way that allows for maximum understanding and comprehension. Few words, important numbers and a strategic use of fonts is necessary so that the consumer can understand the content without having to use too much of their brain. 

If content is too jumbled, too complicated and for lack of a better word, ugly, the meaning and story will be lost in translation and the purpose of the project failed.

As far as group updates, I think we are all aware of this important concept within media storytelling. We have discussed particular task assignments and have already gotten the go ahead from the owners of the bar to begin interviewing and procuring content. I am excited to see how this project begins taking form once we start going to the location creating a viable story for it.