Development Blog Week 5 - Dave

This week I completed pre-production and checked over my work before starting the build.

At the start of the week, I finished off my preproduction portfolio by getting feedback from the target audience so I can understand what they like and what is still needed. I did this so I can have a better understanding of what I’m doing in the build and create a more finished product. To get user feedback I decided to do it in person so I could explain my project better and would have guaranteed questions and ask for expansion on feedback, so the final product is ideal as possible. I also found that I can ask more descriptive questions when conducting it in real life as the feedback is more of a conversation rather than a list of questions.

From this testing I found that the target audience like my idea and think it is needed which backs up my research in the start. I also asked users which mock-up was their favourite and why and the most popular was mock up 1 so I will be using that as the base of the website when I start building. Another question I asked was about the UI, UX and functionality, I did struggle with asking about this as there is no site to test for feedback but I centred the questions around what they would think would work and suggested the functions and UI choices I was going to make and asked whether they would like that in a website or not. All respondents did enjoy my ideas and said that it would work and as of right now the mock ups are easier to navigate than modern apps.

As I had feedback on the UI, UX and functionality I wrote up what functions I will be using and how that will impact the users experience and what to avoid when making the UI in order to have a positive user experience. I find that it is important for me to list what I should avoid in the pre-production so I don’t make those mistakes in the build which will save time and allow me to avoid any crashes or negative reviews. This was the final stage of the website pre-production so I started the email marketing plan.

For the email marketing I created one mock up as I will expand on them in the build, but I wanted to understand the format, colours and typography. By planning this out I will have a set layout which will help with brand identity as all content will be consistent. My priority when designing the email marketing was that it was inviting and would prompt users to sign up so I used vibrant colours and Dave to set a sense of familiarity and positivity which would give the brand a welcoming aura.

As I was creating and explaining why I made certain choices I realised that I shouldn’t create a plan for online presence as it is not as important as the app and the emails and would take time up that could be used for developing ideas further. It also doesn’t align with my career pathway as much so it wouldn’t improve my skills any further. I may pick the idea up at the end of the project but that is only if I have a large amount of extra time which isn’t likely as I am following my gantt chart until the last day.

As I have completed my preproduction I will start my build properly starting on Monday. I will begin with the index as t doesn’t require any back end and I can layout the basic elements such as the nav bar and assign fonts for certain tags.