Rachel established the site plan by way of a flow diagram as I had suggested. A key feature will be areas with quite different identities; one for adults, particularly teachers, and another for children. There is a great deal of potential within the site for further interactivity - games, puzzles etc. - but that's for the future; for now the site's main focus is on the transmission of information. It also needs to incorporate minimal animation to support end users who may not have state of the art equipment.
Having said all that I couldn't resist having a go at a Flash based web page for the kid's section of the site. It's the kid's part that I have been able to make a start on as I'm still waiting for content to arrive from Kingswood. I have also carried out research into fonts that may be appropriate for headings and titles. Kingswood have a logotype which Rachel and I consider to be a little stiff and formal - it's reminiscent of a prep school logo. At the moment, due to budget constraints and other logistics, it is difficult for her to embrace a full rebranding so we decided that I would look at ways in which to soften the look to make it less formal. I have already started to experiment with this.
Rachel and I met to look over the progress on the kid's page. We were both of the opinion that while the vector based Flash page appears cute it is perhaps just a little to young for the core audience - 6 to 8 year olds. We both like the 'magazine' type look of the other dummy page and I need to work to develop this. The child characters need a little more work and I'm still not sure whether to go with children or an animal centred character. I was intending to use Image Ready to slice it ready for HTML editing but Adam has pointed out that this route creates accessibility issues due to all of the text being presented as images. I think there are ways round this, for example creating text-based links as a footer on the page, but in just underlines my current state of understanding in terms of developing web pages. I need to learn more about the techniques, pro's and cons of page design, particularly the technical issues that impact on these. It's one of those instances where technical know-how can inform creativity. Without that level of understanding it becomes difficult to appraise sites that appeal as a stimulus and to see ways forward for planning my own sites. I feel like I need to take time out to learn more about the technicalities but also feel that I don't have time to do it. Catch 22.
