Creating anything involves a series of steps. Often, we think of these steps as a straight line. Many times we (think we) can go on auto-pilot after the first few step and coast to the finish. This is not the case when working with these mediums. You will constantly be confronted with challenges. In the process of resolving those challenges you'll be faced with opportunites to grow, expand and discover along side paths. These side paths are what enrich your projects to be engaging and meanful.
Work in this class moves beyond the simple, "get it working" to "how can we tweak this and make it better". You must move through and work out technical challenges to get to this point.
Reviewing our process through documentation, allows us to reflect and to gather thoughts as to what our next step should be in our process. Research gives us new insight. Drawing and sketching helps articulate our thoughts. We can translate these ideas to interactive systems using code and various forms of media.
You must have of evidence and collection of your ideas, research, and process (including steps and action). This is imperative. You must be organized and be able to show the development of your ideas and concepts. Also, you’ll need to be taking notes and images during workshops and demos.
Your Process Site is where all of this information threads into, along with reflections, context and dialogue. If you're Process site is thin, your work is thin and needs more energy into your process.
Your Process site must have good, clear, good resolution documentation. Images and links of what inspires you. Links to media. Sketches, Drawings. System diagrams. Code, prototypes, installations, interfaces, user experience. Everything should be making an appearance on your Process Site.
Github is where your code lives. A link to your Github must appear on your Process Site.
With these benefits in mind, a major part of this course will be the creation and maintenance of a process website. Throughout the duration of the semester, each student must carefully document all of the work created in this class, from brainstorming sessions with post-it notes, to pages in a sketchbook, to code iterations, to rough prototypes. You will post this documentation on your process website on a daily or weekly basis.
NYU Web Publishing makes creating a process website easy. Follow these steps, and in a few short minutes, you can have a simple, appealing site perfect for documenting your work in this course.
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Log in to NYU Web Publishing using your NYU NetID and password. This is the same ID and password you used to log in to NYU Classes.
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Go to the Create New Site page, select "create a site", then "Portfolio."
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Fill out the "Essential Settings" form. Choose "Portfolio" as your category, enter any site address or title you like, set your access to "Public" by either checking "Allow search engines to index this site" or check "Not indexed in search engines but still available for public to view" if you wish the content to not be indexed, accept the Terms of Use, and click "Next."
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Choose a theme you like. Click "Next."
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Enable any optional features you think you might want to use. You can always turn these on or off later. Make sure your site is publicly viewable. Click "Finish."
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Click the link to your site. At the top of the page under the address bar, click the "customize" button.
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Create a menu. This is what we are going to use to organize all of your assignments and course submissions.
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Create the following menu headings, by clicking "add item" for each. After clicking "add item", write the name of each of these, as a new page: Reflections, Max Puzzles, Show and Tell, Github, Midterm Project, Final Project. THEN HIT PUBLISH.
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Your site is created! Share your new URL (it's right there on the page titled "Done!") on our Slack channel. Look for the Process Site URL's channel. Join that channel and share your Process Site URL.
This Process Site is only for work done in this class. Please be professional at all times, as you never know who may view your work.
Others in the class will also be reviewing your site. Future employers may also be reviewing your work.
- You must post clear visual documentation in the form of clear, well-lit images that can be enlarged, from multiple vantage points, as well as short videos (1-3 minutes).
This media documentation must be posted directly to your site with the media embedded to your site (in other words, visually evident and not just a file to download). Use Vimeo and SoundCloud as needed.
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What it is that you are posting? What is this code? What does it do? What are your ideas? Why are they important? What's the background context to situation this?
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What are other related artists, designers, projects, firms, expos, movements, etc to this?
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What is the next step? What is the current issue? How can this be resolved? How can this improve? When will these things next happen? What resources do you need to identify and locate in order to assist you?
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What independent resources are you using, to assist you? Is it working/helpful? Why or why not?
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Each post must be placed or associated with the appropriate heading. For example, work for the midterm should be posted under the menu heading for the "MidTerm Project". Not labeling something appropriately increases the liklihood that I can't find the work, much less assess it to give it a grade. It is up to you to check this. This is your responsibility. To check your work, try your access your site from a different browser than the one you were posting with. Under the assignment heading in the menu, can you find your post? If not, go back to your post in the other browser and look at the various setting for that post in WordPress.
At times you will be asked to reflect on a reading given to you. This is not a summary. This is a critical thinking reflection that is not cursory. Respond to the prompts and support your ideas and thoughts with supporting evidence. If you like/don't like something, explain why and describe it. What brings you to these feelings?