EP thought process

EP thought process

1. HTML and CSS

   • I knew that I wanted to do a project using HTML to make a website
   • I knew that CSS was a powerful tool for designing websites
   • Make an online learning resource
     • Use HTML and CSS to create the content and layout of the site
       • Rule of thirds
         • Split a webpage into thirds and arrange content in the thirds
         • This is a simple way to make a website beautiful and effective
       • Colour Schemes
         • The way a page is coloured dramatically affects the way information is read.
         • I decided to use colours like white, grey and dark blues which are all on the same part of the spectrum
     • The web design proved to be too simple and did not provide enough challenge to make the project interesting
       • I started looking into JavaScript to animate the webpage, I taught myself JavaScript
         • JavaScript was not the right language to use for animation because it is very difficult to make it do things when the page has loaded, which is what I wanted to do
           • I came across jQuery from the site I used to learn JavaScript ("codecademy.com"). It is a library of functions for JavaScript which makes it easier to animate content when webpages have loaded
         • To make the project more exciting, I planned to make a tabbed, sliding navigation menu using JavaScript
           • I used jQuery and HTML to make a sliding menu which has five sections: Introduction, Behaviour, The Science, References and About. When each tab is clicked, the relevent content slides in from the side of the page.

2. Addiction

   • I have been interested in addiction for a long time because it causes problems all over the world and can separate families and ruin people's lives
   • Firstly, I split the problem of addiction into two parts: behaviour - what happens outside the body in someone's life - and the science - what processes actually occur in the brain and body.
     • Behaviour
       • This part was more difficult for me because I have never studied behaviour or experienced anything first hand that occurs with an addict.
         • This was the section that required more research
     • The Science
       • I was more comfortable writing about the science of addiction because of studying Biology at GCSE and watching programs about addiction in the brain
     • Early on in the project, I realised that the project could just turn into a dissertation on addiction but written in a webpage form. At this point I decided to focus more on the web design aspects of the project.
     • In order to gather information, I contacted professors at UK universities and PhD students who were more likely to answer my questions. I received no reply and so I turned to information from peer reviewed websites and government learning resources
       • I word processed and summarised the information I gathered in my own words. I then transferred the information to the webpage, adding my own facts which I learned from the TV programmes
   • Case Study
     • Case studies are useful because they provide real world examples of the point that is being put across