Evaluation screen based 2

I was really looking forward to this project, being able to learn new skills and new software. One of the main paths I wanted to follow after finishing University was in the digital industry. I quite like the idea of designing polished websites. Because I was learning new software I knew it would be difficult from the start, but I didn’t anticipate the amount of problems I was going to encounter.

I really wanted to try something different, a website that had never been done before, which would stand out from all the others. I chose to do a box because I was inspired by a quote I had heard time and time again from my tutors, that ‘we are the package.’ The reason we were on this course was to acquire the relevant skills to set us up for industry, that we were trying to sell ourselves. I felt that this was a strong concept, but by the end of the project the way I finished was a little bit rushed. I put this down to my lack of organizational skills under pressure.

To push myself a bit more I decided I was going to try learning ActionScript 3.0. In the previous screen based unit last year we used ActionScript 2.0 and after getting to grips I found it pretty straightforward to use. I knew as long as I had enough tutorials in 3.0 I would be ok. But I found out the day before the deadline I had hit a brick wall. I think this was voidable if my time management was a little better. I left it to close to the deadline to be doing extremely technical problems.

Another problem was that while I had been spending a long time on researching ActionScript 3.0, I wasn’t leaving enough time to record what I had learned. I think if I had recorded this in my sketchbook and time planned a bit better then I wouldn’t have been in the stressful situation I found myself.

During the project we were given tutorials in how to use Dreamweaver. Unfortunately half way through the learning process, our tutor Neil was ill, so we had Lee to help us learn the program. I don’t feel as if my learning experience was fulfilled because we went off the point of learning Dreamweaver, and instead were shown how to use flash catalyst. Even though it was an interesting program and a look into the future at how web design could be shaped, it wasn’t the software we should have been learning at the time, which confused the point of the unit a bit for me.

Having finished this unit now I regret not taking the decision to use the extension given to me. If I had taken it, it would have given me the opportunity to sort myself out with organisation and time management skills. I wish that I had a better experience of learning Dreamweaver as this could have helped with my ideas generation for the unit.