my website

http://studentnet.kingston.ac.uk/~k0820509/

evaluating

Overall- i am pleased with my final product, eventhough slight changes have been made from my proposal. The main difference is that in my proposal i outlined that i will be conducting interviews with dance teachers and filming performances, unfortunatly, even though this was a key part of my website, i was unable to do so. I initially wanted to film the dance classes from Kingston University but was told that it was not posible. i then contacted a dance lecturer and was given a similar response. I would have liked to have primary sources to add to my website as i think it would have been beneficial to the users. I therefore had to make up for the information i was supposed to gather from the interviews in my text and embedded youtube videos, i think this worked well but collecting the information myself would have been much better. I would say that this is the biggest downside to my website and all other aspects turned out as i had planned. There are other improvments that could be made to my website, I did consider inserting a moving banner but thought along with the busy backgrounds of my web pages it could end up looking too clustered. However i do think that my web pages could be made more interactive and engaging as compared to my home page they are very simple.

Presentation -When presenting my website to my classmates, i realised that the font i had downloaded for the bhangra page did not appear as i had intended, instead a default font was used. I therefore had to create headers in photoshop then insert them into dreamweaver so that the fonts i chose for every page will appear on any computer. Another problem i realised when presenting was that my pages would not always open in the same window, after research, i descovered that selecting _self in dreamweaver would solve this problem.

Server- I had great difficulty uploading my site onto the server, i spent a very long time trying to do so from home and the server would not connect. I then tried to upload it from a univeristy computer and i connected succesfully.

headers - I hink that my headers could have been made better, i could have used the roll over function or downloaded animated banners to create headers that stood out more.

Security message -Unfortunatly there is still an error on my website that i was unable to overcome, when clicking a link and opening a new page an adobe flash player security message pops up which i must then click continue to access the page. I am unaware of the reason behind this problem so therefore could not solve it.

organisation- i did not reference my information and images as i went along therefore it took a great deal of time gathering them once i had finished my website, it would have been more efficient to refernce each piece of data as i found it. even though i tried to keep my folders neat they ended up being unorganised, this did cause me some problems along the way and i soon realised the importance of keeping the folders tidy.

youtube references

belly dance videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZPsPb7roiY&feature=player_embedded, accessed April 15th

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xk_Qd_uj58&feature=player_embedded, accessed April 15th

bhangra videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vewp4vJojac&feature=player_embedded, accessed April 15th

http://www.monkeysee.com/play/1932-How%2Dto%2Ddo%2Da%2DBollywood%2DDance accessed April 15th

flamenco videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqxJMCQxb_Q&feature=player_embedded, accessed April 15th

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY6L4XPPibI&feature=player_embedded, accessed April 15th

ballet videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs9A9Tos85U&feature=player_embedded, accessed April 15th

http://www.5min.com/Video/Ballet-Workout-Video-93957073, accessed April 15th



Music for home page.

i converted youtube videos to mp3 so that i could use them on my site

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDZzUVKXM2g. date accessed April 11th 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7AEV7kKifo.date accessed April 11th 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJztXj2GPfk.date accessed April 11th 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITvrZoJmwcM. date accessed April 11th 2010

The Making

Home page –
Made dancers into movie clips then used timeline to animate them and action script for the functions
I then researched how to control the movement in the timeline – used www.kirupa.com it gave me a tutorial on a complex button to control the movement



I then opened the audio player file that was given to me and used to code to have music

This complex button gave my website the interactivity it needed to make my website attractive and suitable for my target audience. its a fun way to draw the user into the website. i think the music and the moving dancers are engaging for the users.

I chose the font Divo from www.dafont.com
http://www.dafont.com/divo.font May 10th 2010

http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=samarkan.date accessed May 10th 2010

http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=arab+dances.date accessed May 10th 2010

http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=angel+tears. date accessed May 10th 2010







This font is perfect for my website, the stars go well with the globe and the theme of dance. I feel it made a huge improvment to how my home page orignially was with arial text and made it more suitable for my target audeince. I used filters in the timeline to make the font look good and glow- glow filter




Gallery- uses an xml database to capture images – www.kirupa.com



I wanted to make sure my pages were neat and consistant. This gallery was perfect for that. it meant i could include seven pictures on every page with out my page looking clustered or too busy. it also allowred the user to interact with website by clicking next and browsing through the gallery. The gallery also allowed me to insert captions for every image which was very useful and beneficial for users.

Header- I made buttons in flash
Video- embed the video into html from www.youtube.com


For every page i selected a video of professionals performing, this makes my webpage more entertaining as it gives the user a break from the reading. These videos are imporant as it is hard to visualise a dance from reading text, dance is an art form and needs to be enjoyed visually. On my Get Fit pages i included videos that the user could use to learn a few moves and get a feel of the dance as a way to help them and encourage them to maybe persue it as a hobby by either taking up classes or buying dance work out dvds.

Globe- I got a flat world map and used a mask which is a style of layer to make circle to make it look as if it was spinnig.

Presentation feedback

This was my original flow chart for my website however after feedback from my presentation i have made a slight alteration. It was suggested that in my about page i provide links to my get fit pages so that the user has another option of how to access those pages. I took on board this idea as I agreed that it would benefit my site. I used the sihlottes from my home page as buttons to lead the user to the get fit pages. i made these images into buttons, i edited them in photoshop and made them into roll over buttons. when the user rolls over the image it changes to the same colour scheme as the page itself. this ties my about page in with the rest of my website. I chose a simple font for my about page and a background of silohette dancers so that it ties in without being too busy.

References

References


Gallery and music button - www.kirupa.com.date accessed 14th April 2010

Ballet -

http://balletphotography.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/img_0351-edit.jpg.date accessed 13th Apriil 2010

http://www.artsalive.ca/upload/dan/den_0448vu_full.jpg.date accessed 13th April 2010

http://imagebank.ipcmedia.com/imageBank/b/Birmingham%20Royal%20Ballet.jpg. date accessed 17th April 2010

http://www.victorhochhauser.co.uk/moscow_city_ballet/mcb_2004-5/graphics/NUT51_520.jpg.date accessed 18th April 2010

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirUI0-ZWfR1cgwcMyaHGThE75EZSa1QE4zRygIuVU_wBg-v1nNA7u5xhvpUAXcolqwasfBDGX4Q7-cB-zrNeAgHcHSNYywH1lzH4tovV60RR2f2r087hgf8PLohviR9KQclLQo8UXGa_4/s400/bugaku+ballet+costumes.jpg.date accessed 15th May 2010

http://www.5min.com/Video/Ballet-Workout-Video-93957073.date accessed 19th April 2010

http://www.essortment.com/all/originsballetd_rkmn.html.date accessed 19th April 2010

http://www.dancetutors.co.uk/TheHistoryBallet.html.date accessed 15th April 2010

http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/ballet/history.html.date accessed 15th May 2010

http://www.angelfire.com/oh2/chezsarah/let.html.date accessed 15th May 2010




Belly Dance -

http://www.dancingrahana.com/images/products/detail/costume285iso.jpg.date accessed 13th April 2010

http://bellydancecostume.name/prodimages/bellydance_3L_belt_black.jpg.date accessed 13th April 2010

http://www.rainbowcrystal.com/musicpix/oud1.jpg.date accessed 13th April 2010

http://www.bellydanceplus.com/photos/carolinelabrie/turquoise-shamadan-detail.jpg.date accessed 13th April 2010

http://www.movenyo.de/media/samia_gamal_5.jpg.date accessed 13th April 2010

http://www.goodbyetwoleftfeet.com/-/Flamenco_Fit_files/silhouette_logo_white_resize.png
http://www.danceblogonline.com/some-rare-and-interesting-facts-about-the-belly-dance/. date accessed 13th April 2010

Bhangra-

http://shopping.muteyaar.org/bmz_cache/2/24a01342f6b774fc44bd92184c6aea75.image.600x386.jpg. date accessed 13th April 2010

http://www.swide.com/filemanager/cms_dolcegabbana/BlogImage/bellezza/Masala_dance/MasalaBhangra/MasalaBhangra_Main.jpg.date accessed 13th April 2010

http://www.binaswar.com/dhol_bha2.jpg.date accessed 13th April 2010

http://www.binaswar.com/dhol_bha2.jpg.date accessed 13th April 2010

http://www.pcschicago.org/youth/kids/passport/07/IMG_1498_1.jpg.date accessed 13th April 2010

http://www.punjabonline.com/servlet/library.history?Action=Bhangra.date accessed 13th April 2010

http://ezinearticles.com/?History-of-Bhangra&id=1251554.date accessed 13th April 2010

http://www.punjabonline.com/servlet/library.history?Action=Bhangra. Date accessed 15th May 2010

http://www.dancehere.com/bollywood/. Date accessed 15th May 2010

Flamenco0

http://www.travel-images.com/ukra81.jpg.date accessed 12th April 2010

http://www.ericantoniou.com/img/gallery_01/pix/22_Swan_Lake.jpg.date accessed 12th April 2010

http://illinoischristianevents.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/ballet-shoes.jpg.date accessed 12th April 2010

http://www.artsanddesigns.com/artists/samples/ballet-silhouette-2-cross-stitch-kit-lanarte.jpg.date accessed 12th April 2010

http://www.classicalguitarmidi.com/history/flamenco.html.date accessed 12th April 2010

http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/flamenco-dance-history-3005.html.date accessed 15th May 2010

http://shakirastar.com/?p=1. date accessed 15th May 2010

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/flamenco-dance-facts-about-flamenco-dancing-in-spain.html.Date accessed 15th May

about page - http://haitidansing.com/SilhouetteDancingPeople.jpg. date accessed 3rd May 2010

choice of backgrounds

i chose this as the background for my bhangra pages because of bright and vibrant colours and the paisley print which origniates from india and is used alot in their clothes and designs. i edited the photo in photo shop to remove the white boarder because it look too tiled and unprofessional





I chose this image as the backgorund for the flamenco pages as the red rose is symbolic of the dance, flamenco ladies are known to wear it behind their ear while performing. it is also bright and delicate just like the art of flamenco.





Mosaics such as the one above are an integral part of the arabic culture and are used in furniture and architecture, this is why i have chosen this as my background for my belly dance pages.




I have chosen this image for the background of my ballet pages because the soft shades of pink and blue and shapes of this image reflect the delicacy of ballet.