#cm491

Progress Update #5: Lo-Fi Wireframes Pau!

Hey everyone! So glad you’re stopping by my Tumblr blog again! Read ↓below↓ for my project update details!

What has been happening over the past 2 weeks?

These past two weeks have been pretty busy as I worked on my other classes’ assignments. I went against the advice of our professor, who said, “Use the spring break to catch up,” but I instead opted to relax and decompress. I actually went outside this time, touched grass, and shopped at malls, unlike my previous breaks, when I would just stay cooped up in my house reading manga. I pretty much crammed some last-minute work before class today and the night before. At the very least, I finished my low-fidelity wireframes for the five microsites. In my last post, I only completed my low-fidelity wireframes for the main website, so I am happy to have done more. I think I forgot to mention that I reduced the scope of my website. Instead of ten designs, I narrowed it down to just five to make it more manageable for myself. If I also fail to deliver a fully functional website, I will fall back on a website prototype as a backup.

What is coming up for the next 2 weeks?

My next step is to complete my high-fidelity wireframes based on the low-fidelity ones. For this step, I will need to gather assets, such as images and text (copy) to use. After that, I will work on recreating the design on the actual website using Wix, hopefully by next week on the 30th. I want to launch the website as soon as possible to ensure there is ample time to gather data by collecting votes from my Instagram Stories polls, summarizing the results, and posting the summary on the site. So, that’s where I am heading over the next two weeks.

Hiccups/Hurdles/AHA moments

A hurdle I had to overcome was my perfectionist mindset. Because I want everything to be perfect, it was a struggle to begin tackling my five microsite wireframe designs. I did not know where to start, but once I began working, I had momentum. At this point, I realized I really just need to pass. Of course, I want to put out my best work, but I may need to take some shortcuts.

I had an AHA moment when I realized that I still had some time before I needed to launch my website. It is not a lot of time, but I remain hopeful. However, throughout this whole creative process, I have had serious self-doubt about completing this project. I had given up in high school for a STEM capstone project for STEM honors, where I dropped the class and forfeited the honors. It was definitely not my proudest moment, but I like to believe I have changed drastically from that time. Although I have self-doubt and imposter syndrome, I have accomplished a lot to get to where I am now. While I do not believe I was the person to actually achieve these things, I am trying to be more grateful and celebrate the small victories. By the end of this project, I hope to savor my triumph and success exuberantly with my friends and family. I am so close to the finish line. We all are. We got this, guys!

Any deliverable drafts to share?

At the top of this post, you will find screenshots of my low- and high-fidelity wireframes from Figma. I have finished my lo-fi wireframes and am beginning to work on my hi-fi ones. Click here to view my documentation for this project thus far. I have compiled my brand color palette, study guide, user personas, sitemap, and lo-fi wireframes into one Figma file to have everything in one place.

Where are you on your timeline?

I am kind of in the production phase, depending on how you look at it. I categorized wireframes under the production phase, but others may still consider them to be in the pre-production phase. Needless to say, I am quite behind, as I have assigned myself to launch my website this past Sunday. Now I know that the deadlines I set for myself are tentative and bound to change, so I won’t beat myself up over it too much. I am proud I have at least finished my lo-fi wireframes, which were substantially weighing on my mind due to feeling overwhelmed. Even so, I have reduced the scope of my project, which has lifted that immense burden off my shoulders.

Aloha mai kakou, I’m Maxine.  I created this short introduction video to give you an overview of my senior capstone project.  Basically, I will be sharing my project process on this blog.  

During last fall semester 2021, I did some research on my project topic, “Why are native Hawaiians leaving their homeland to reside elsewhere?” and found fascinating data evidence sharing that thereʻs a current migration of Hawaii residents relocating outside the Hawaiian islands, especially the native people of Hawaii also known as the kānaka maoli.  Hawaii is losing more and more native Hawaiian residents each year for several different reasons, but we find the top common reason is due to the high cost of living in Hawaii’s economy.

Therefore, I am using this project as a platform to bring awareness to this topic and support the native Hawaiian communities both in the island and abroad by offering a venue to share their stories and voices.  Ultimately, I hope to reveal the bigger story in the shift of the native Hawaiian population in different locations.

After graduation, I hope to obtain a career as a digital creator working solely online, so I can continue to work while traveling and connecting with family and friend abroad.

Bi-Weekly update ~

This month I’ve moved forward into the animation phase.  Originally, I had planned to do all of my animation in After Effects, but I decided to animate my characters in Adobe Character Animator (after realizing this exists only recently!).  I will still be animating backgrounds and scenes through After Effects, but characters will solely be done in Character Animator.

I’ve been learning how to work with Character Animator as I go, but overall it has been really easy to make use of.  After properly rigging a character, it makes it possible to manually move limbs and automate walk cycles and mouth syncing.  The best thing about it is that if I need to make adjustments to my character, I can edit it in Illustrator and it’ll update in the Character Animator scene!  Same for backgrounds and other elements.  Additionally, if anything recorded seems a little wonky, the program makes it possible to seamlessly overwrite minor sections in order to make it look flawless.  Learning this program has been fun for me thus far!

The next steps for me is continuing animation, making adjustments when necessary, finding fitting music and sound effects, and implementing the voice tracks.  I’ll also be doing a fair amount of my own acting via the motion capture feature in Character Animator to make sure that the body language of each character syncs with the tone of the voices.

Total Hours Worked: 15.5

During my internship at E Noa this week, I worked on the company's promotional video for Waikiki Trolley. This is my first time shooting with a drone, it made me nervous and excited. Fortunately, my supervisor gave me a lot of confidence, he patiently taught me every step, and I gradually became proficient during the practice process. We mainly shot on the road between Sandy Beach and Mapapu'u Lookout, the three of us worked together to shoot video and photos at the same time, the whole process took about two and a half hours. From this shooting, I learned a lot of new things, and I look forward to sharing with you after the completion of the promotional video.

Then, I was arranged to do several new designs for the mini bus. After the supervisor explained some requirements to me, I went into the design. I referenced and compared the previous design of mini bus, and searched for some travel routes and features of the mini bus from our official website, hoping to get some inspiration from it. Finally, I decided to kept their most iconic image color, orange. Also, since the bus doesn't have a lot of space, I tried to keep the design clean and simple. Currently, I have submitted a total of two different designs and are waiting for a response from the sales department.

Progress Update #2: Workback Plan Pau!

Welcome back to my Tumblr blog! Per our CM 491 class schedule, I will post progress updates biweekly or every two weeks. Expect to see posts on Mondays or Tuesdays!

What has been happening over the past 2 weeks?

To get you all caught up, I finally completed my workback plan (pau means “finished” or “done” in Hawaiian)! If you are curious about how it looks, here’s the link: Galacgac_R_WorkbackPlan. I tried my best to make it look organized and visually appealing, using colors and formatting for contrast. I like color coding, so I made each phase different: pre-production = purple, productive = blue, and post-production = pink. I also “started” on my timeline but am still working on it. So, that’s what I’ve been working on these past two weeks.

What is coming up for the next 2 weeks?

Here is what the next two weeks will look like. Once my workback plan is approved, I will begin working on my user personas and a design doc for branding. After that, my wireframe sketches will be next!

Hiccups/Hurdles/AHA moments

Although demotivation and procrastination have been my top two hurdles, I am pretty proud of the workback plan I created. I locked in and did what I set out to do.

Any deliverable drafts to share?

Unfortunately, other than the workback plan, I come empty-handed with deliverable drafts. Please forgive me! Hopefully, in the next two weeks, I have more to show.

Where are you on your timeline?

I am pretty behind on my timeline; I won’t lie. I should be starting on my pre-production phase. However, I will take this time to celebrate accomplishing a milestone, which was my workback plan. I am pretty proud of it, and I probably spent an unnecessarily long time on the stylization and making it look nice and presentable. I picked up a few spreadsheet skills from my previous office job, so I wanted to show them off here, haha. Aside from filling out the template with actual information and deadlines, I focused most of my time on data validation, formatting, and coloring.