This week in the lecture, we were shown meaning of micro and macro copy example which is first time for me hearing both of those terms which is new learning information for me to know. Also this week we were told to make Major Project Proposal which is 1000 words document which have to be bound, not stapled which we have to explain about our major project we going to do in second semester of final year of IMD course.
Northern Ireland Deafcyclopedia is website contain two major features which allow users to learn British Sign language with variety of images and videos with alphabet and common words with other features showing interesting place in Google map with custom designed bubble of most of Northern Ireland deaf support group and community with links provided.
What this website does in my perspective of being profound impaired in hearing is provided more active source of information of support and community in one site provided with links with locations shown on Google map with modification to bubble to provided more uses out of the Google map feature.
Another important feature is the primary source for me because I am learning to do British sign language but after visiting several websites showing variety of quality and poorly designed website not being friendly for users to visit, I feel this would be big improvement from other similar mind websites.
Library of images and videos with person sign with caption of what they say expressing to allow the users to study the British sign language in alphabet and common words and phrases. I would may expand the library with more words and possibly common phrases and sentence to provide more learning content.
I will provide a news/contact page for those who want updates on news and changes in Northern Ireland or United Kingdom for the hearing impairment with advertisement of events and such, with uses of social web tools like twitter and Facebook with social icons for links to direct them. Twitter feed could be possibly provided.
The site could have potential for further development of creating forum or Wikipedia like containing content regarding deaf groups around Northern Ireland or creating personal page for football teams like Belfast Deaf United.
There are reason of why I have decide to do this project, mainly personally so I have found several sites in inspiration in due process of research of finding good designs but the issues was lack of localised creativity designs website. Some website do provide good way of structure the content placement or having creativity way of display learning content of sign language.
British-sign/Auslan signbank – fingerspelling feature
I found a particular feature on this website which allows the users to input any word they want and it would display the result in following order with finger sign language for each letter which I feel is good idea to take on for my project with improvement in visual display and usability.
Auslan signbank was particular better feature as it provides series of image of finger spelling in alphabet where you click on one image and shown on left hand side with bigger screen. However it also show new function of where you input any word into text box below the big screen and it would produce the series of images in order which is improvement of usability over British-sign.
Fingerspelling function will be implementing into my project for additional features along with library of images/videos show common words, phrases and alphabet for those who want to learn the British sign language.
What I want to target in particular is providing platform of information guide for those who seek out people who are in similar condition of being hearing impairment to join groups and organisation.
· Hearing Impaired of all ages
· People interest in learning new language
· Career choice of becoming interpreter
Target is the hearing impairment for all ages along with people who want to learn British sign language to communicate with their friends or relatives who have hearing impairments.
What I am going to use in the development of this project is uses of HTML4 Transitional and CSS, not particular involving any uses of HTML5 or CSS3 because of inconsistent of features between different browsers would make it harder for open standards.
Will be using sketch designs to create images that would be scanned and add onto Illustrator and Photoshop to modify the images for suited to be used on project to be display.
I will be possibly hiring out interpreter, since my knowledge of British sign language is quite basic so need to create professional standard on the images and videos.
JavaScript will be used to give users control to improve accessibility of the site as in enlarging the fonts for example, along with function to create usability friendly library of images/videos rather having static content.
PHP and MySQL is a possible option in uses of development of this project, but the issue is my basic knowledge may not be enough to pull off the project in time in comparison of my ability to create HTML/CSS with professional standard with creativity design.
I hope this project will be delivering in high professional standard as improvement on current websites that are available to display the British sign language content online in United Kingdom.
There are lot of features that I am eager to implement in this project with good success especially in usability and accessibility of the website, providing social platform for the hearing impaired community to use for their own uses to expand the awareness of hearing impaired community in Northern Ireland in particular.
· Library of images and videos for alphabet, words and common phrases in British Sign Language
· Google Maps features with location and customised details of the support groups and organisation in Northern Ireland initially
· “Fingerspelling” feature will be great additional for those who want to learn how to spell particular words
· Possible “Wikipedia” features for the groups and organisation to provide their own content and links to their own website if applicable
This particular area which is discussed in the lecture is regarding the issues of featuring the logo or brand of particular product or having a website where you want the users to focus on. It use dependence of colours, size of the brand or buttons, smallest details can make the biggest difference on making your project a success.
This is what really matter for is guiding your users to particular content and assuring them that everything is fine by visual clues, for example the log in page for website would have just single feature of form with login and password textbox for user to input then simple button to click to log in. That is how it works, make them think on instinct of natural users rather actually telling them what to do, where to log in etc.
