Google Sandbox

Google Checkout gives companies two major attributes to there company website. It allows the company to add a checkout feature easily to their websates to create electronic sales. It also allows the company to create a testing environment for their checkout, through Sandbox. Google Sandbox has been around for a long time. The term Sandbox first related to how google examined and ranked the websites through its search engine. Google Sandbox would test a websites html code and see how complex the website was. In regards to Google checkout however, Sandbox refers to testing ones own checkout. Google Checkout is safe and secure. By having the google checkout customers know that their credit card information will be kept private. One can have google checkout without even having an online store through Email Invoices. Or if you have an online store you can use google checkout's "buy now" button. A company doesnt need to have an actual shopping cart feature in order to add buy now buttons to their website. If a company wants an online store then they can use googles checkout gadget. The gadget is an already created functional online store that the user can customize. Finally if the company already has an online site than they can just add the online google checkout shopping cart.

Final Project

When we brainstormed ideas we had come up with three different ideas, a chart rating projects and terminology throughout the semester, a stroyboard, and a tag cloud. After mapping out iterations of the projects we agreed that the tag cloud would best represent and fulfill the project requirements. The tag cloud was the best way we could represent the information we wanted to include in the project.

In order to begin the tag cloud we had to figure out which terms, concepts, and projects we wanted to include. We chose the words based on what we understood as the most beneficial, useful, and informative during the semester. Color and size differentiate the importance and grouping of each word. For example dark green represents maps, maroon represents definitions, blue represents overall concepts, and lime green represents graphs. Each word was designed with a specific purpose behind it. For example, we agreed that Gestalt is one of the most important terms from the semester, therefore its size is the largest in the tag cloud. Additionally, each word is written in all capitals not only to make it visually appealing to the audience, but not to discriminate against any letters.

Once we made each word, we figured out appropriate placement. We used a coat hanger as the base of our construction. Two words were attached to the top of the coat hanger. Since our placement was already resolved it seemed like it would be easy to attach each word according to the plan. We used a hole puncher and string to connect the words, but in theory the plan was easier than in practice. Not every word fits exactly perfectly within each space. Some of the paper is curled because of where each hole meets on each word. While the tag cloud is not constructed to absolute perfection, our message is conveyed in a s successful manor. Covering the coat hanger is a picture of a cloud with the words "tag cloud". Included in the cloud image is a key which describe our color coded system. We are very happy with the outcome of the project, despite the minor speed bumps to get there.

Individual Reflection:

I was happy with how the tag cloud came out, being exactly how i pictured it in my head. However there were some difficulties that i did not anticipate. Tag cloud function on the size of the words in order to illustrate importance. The issue ended up being that larger words based solely on the number of letters started to appear more important than we felt they actually were. So we had to go back and write really small with some of the larger words. Choosing which words were the most important was also a challenging process.

This was the first year that I really took notice of all the black friday deals. So I thought it would be interesting to research the best deals of 2010 and compare them to the normal listed price. Then I wanted to see what stores opened up the earliest, because I have a tendency to go to stores when they open up early for new interesting products. I did not realize it until I did the visual how great the deals were for the new LED flat screens. The issue I ran into was with the store hours column graph. I wanted to list the actual times, but when I put 12:00 am, Old Navy appeared as the largest column instead of the smallest. Excel read it more as 12 pm rather than 12 am.

storyboard

Unable to post pictures horizontally, even after editing them with preview.


used scene to scene for all.

Bar Graph

Working with excel was a challenge to say the least. I know making a graph on excel is a simple task, I found the task of adjusting a stacked column graph to be extremely painful. Is it possible to make a stack column graph so the two variables on top of each-other instead of stacked on top of one another? For instance say a single in Dorm A costs 200 and a double costs 100. I wanted a graph to show a bar half red and half blue but together only reaching 200. What the stacked graph did would do is add the 200 and 100 so the bar totaled to 300. I couldn't find a way around this, so i settled with a multivariable column graph.

Flow Chart

I tried to make both flow charts vertical, and tried to avoid duplicating boxes as much as possible. I also tried to make it simple, but yet give enough information to get the job done. I know its wrong to assume, but when I say "open browser and go to amazon.com" I expect that to not be the challenge. Since the person did not ask how to work their browser but instead how to navigate amazon.com.

Aunt Jemima Pancake Box

The original back of the Aunt Jemima box organizes the basic information in a way that makes the viewer take longer to process, even if its just mare seconds. The reason being that the original box has images of the ingredients aligned next to the steps. So naturally the viewer looks at the images expecting them to explain the steps, but really there is no connection to be found. I tried to fix this by putting the ingredients at the very top. Then below them are pictures of the steps, and directly alligned with the steps are bullet version of the instructions. The instructions on the back of the pancake box are very wordy. The back of the Aunt Jemima box also goes from making pancakes to making waffles and back to making pancakes. To fix this I decided to move the waffle information to the very bottom.