Midpoint review book

HANDMADE MASTER

A MIDPOINT PROPOSAL BY XIAOZHU YU ( 03754986 ) GRADUATE SCHOOL OF WEB DESIGN & NEW MEDIA

DATE OF PRESENTATION: Friday, October 24, 2014 I TIME OF PRESENTATION: 3:45:00 PM PDT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page 1

01

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

03

THESIS ABSTRACT

05

STATEMENT OF INTEREST

07

MARKET RESEARCH

15

COMPETITORS

19

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

21

TARGET AUDIENCE

23

PERSONAS

27

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

29

FEATURES

33

SITE MAP

35

WORK FLOW

47

PROOF OF CONCEPT

53

MOODBOARD

55

LOGOS

57

TIMELINE

59

RESUME

61

PORTFOLIO

65

CONCLUSION

page 2

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

“ Design is not just what looks.

Design is how it works.

--Steve Jobs

” page 3

Hello! My name is Xiaozhu Yu. I’m from China. I came to San Francisco after I got my bachelor degree in graphic design. I’m currently a Web Design & New Media student of Academy of Art University. This is my sixth semester here. I’m interested in user experience and user interface, especially with my graphic design background. I intend to make my work creative, simple and easy to use.

I’ve received two bachelor’s degrees in China 2012.

One degree is in Graphic Design, and another one is in Business Administration. After making a difficult decision, I chose WNM as my new major in AUU. I hope one day I can be a real master in web design fields.

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THESIS ABSTRACT

“ Handmade Master is a website that helps people share their crafts, learn from others, make friends by crafting, and it encourages them to use recycled materials.

” page 5

I’m doing my midpoint project on a website about crafting. This website is called Handmade Master. Handmade Master is a website that helps people share their crafts, learn from others, and it encourages them to use recycled materials.

Making handicrafts is a good thing to people to do. There are three aspects to human creativity - Art, Crafts, and Science. Making handicrafts can develop our practical skills, such as everyday problem-solving ability, tool use, and understanding of the materials that surround us for economical, cultural and environmental purposes.

Handmade Master website will recommended people weekly most popular crafts tutorials and top three craftsmen. These tutorials could be text, pictures, and video. By using this website, people can share their beautiful crafts, learn from others, and make friends. Handmade Master is also a website taht focuses on protect environment, and it encourages people to use recycled materials to making handicrafts.

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STATEMENT OF INTEREST

“ Making crafts allowed me really enjoy my life.

” page 7

Do you still remember the first gift you sent?

I remember the first gift I sent, it was for my mother’s birthday. I made it myself, because at that time I was too young to have pocket money. I made a decorative painting with shells, color pens, glue and an old wooden board. I can still remember how my mother was moved when she got this gift!

It was the first time I had a sense of accomplishment from making crafts, and I began to love doing it. Making crafts are allowed me really enjoy my life. Today I hope more people will love making crafts. For this reason, I did my midpoint project about a website which is called Handmade Master.

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The Number of Crafters is 62.5 Million in U.S The most popular activities are some of the easiest projects crafters can attempt. Especially considering how easy online resources have made photo scrapbooking and card making, it takes little effort for crafters to complete these projects.

Painting and drawing are naturally as simple as having paper and drawing tools.

The crafting community in the US. By type of craft, 2012

23.0 million

21.0 million

Paper Craft

Painting

18.8 million

15.8 million

14.7 million

18.7 million

Jewelry

Crocheting

Sewing

MARKET RESEARCH

Food

Source: Craft & Hobby Association/ Mintel

page 9

Base: 770 internet users aged 18+ who made crafts in the 2013

page 10

Young People Are The Target Audience

Majority of Crafters Make Crafts From Scratch

Young people are twice as likely as the average to have made popular crafts such as photo albums, paintings or drawings, and jewelry. Making crafts can attract alterative audiences besides the dominance audience of young women in the market. For example, crafts positioned as gifts can be marketed toward parents while new homeowners and young men may look toward crafts to learn something new.

Crafts made in 2013. By gender, age, 2013

male

Those who make crafts from scratch are more “serious” about their hobby and likely desire to make more intricate crafts activities that set them apart from “casual” crafters. There is an opportunity to reach younger audiences by emphasizing how arts and crafts made from scratch are more unique.

Methid of making crafts, 2013

Make items competely from scratch

female

Use a combination of working completely from scratch and using kits

51%

28% 62%

18-34 years old

Source: Craft & Hobby Association/ Mintel

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15% 40%

35-55 years old

Use craft kits or other aids/services that help get started

37%

Do the design work but use a service to make

55+ years old

Base: 770 internet users aged 18+ who made crafts in the 2013

Source: Craft & Hobby Association/ Mintel

Base: 770 internet users aged 18+ who made crafts in the 2013

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1/3 Crafters Make Crafts 6 Times Or More 1 Year

70.6% of All Waste Is Solid Waste In U.S

How often crafters make arts and crafts depends on both demographics and what type of activity they are engaged in.

Women of all ages are likely to make arts and crafts at a greater frequency, yet young men who do craft are surprisingly engaged.

Frequecy of making crafts, 2013

In millions of tons (151.6 represents 151,600,000), except as indicated. Covers post-consumer residential and commercial solid wastes, which comprise the major portion of typical municipal collections.

Municipal Solid Waste Generation, 2009

18%

14% 6%

Paper

Plastics

28.2%

12.3%

Metals

Textiles

Wood

Glass

Rubber

5.2%

6.5%

4.8%

3.1%

28%

8.6%

34% (times)

0

Source: Craft & Hobby Association/ Mintel

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1

4-5

2-3

6+

Base: 770 internet users aged 18+ who made crafts in the 2013

Source: Franklin Associates, a Division of ERG, Prairie Village, KS, Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2009 Facts and FIgures. Prepared for the U.S Environmental Protection Agency.

page 14

Homepage commecial

COMPETITOR: CRAFTSY Craftsy provides education and tools to help people bring their creativity to life. Things you can do with craftsy are take online classes, buy supplies, buy and sell patterns, meet makers.

COMPETITORS

Tutorial page

PROS -Has a lots of professional HD videos - Show student projects - UI is clear and good use typography - Easy sign-up process - Can share with Fackbook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google plus CONS -The video lessons are not free - Looks a little too commercial -Lack interactive features

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Homepage

Homepage

Tutorial page

COMPETITOR: PINTEREST

COMPETITOR: YOUTUBE

Pinterest is a place to discover ideas for all your projects and interests, hand-picked by people like you. It’s like a public visual bookmark.

Founded in February 2005, YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small.

PROS - UI is quite clear and beautiful - Good use of typography -Easy to use - Easy sign-up process -Can connect with many sites CONS -Most Pins are images, and no clear description - Only one image for each pin -Category is hard to find - Users lack of communication -Not only focuse on crafting

page 17

Tutorial page

PROS - Has abundant resources and a huge storage - Users communicate well -Easy to use - Easy sign-up process -Category is clear CONS -UI is a little old fashion - Only has video tutorials -Not only focuse on crafting

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COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

page 19

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TARGET AUDIENCE

My target audience will be the 18 to 34 years old, male and female, who love making crafts. They have creativity and passion for crafting. They want to share their works, they hope to learn more skills from others, and they try to make friends by crafts. They are environmentalist, and prefer use the recycled materials to making crafts. They have access to the Internet and are avid Internet users. These people love their life; they are always trying to find interesting and beautiful crafts. However, with the busy lives that they’re living, it’s hard to find friends with the same hobby. And there’s no a good platform for them to display works, or learn from others. page 21

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Persona 1

DORA Age: 28 Job: High School Teacher Location: San Francisco, CA, US

Background Dora is a high school teacher who lives in San Francisco.

Her working is teaching high school students fine art and crafting, so she made some beautiful crafts. She usually learn how to make crafts from books, but one day she can’t find new crafting books. So she want to learn through other ways. Also, she hopes show her crafts to more people, not just display at high school.

PERSONAS

Needs A crafting website that teaches her how to do crafts.

A platform to share her crafts to more people.

“ I love making crafts! I want to share my work, and learn from others!

” page 23

Goals Exploring the new crafting tutorials.

Sharing her crafting.

Task Flow explore tutorials

upload tutorials

show crafts

follow others page 24

Persona 2

“ I want to make friends by crafting.

” page 25

Persona 3

KATHY

ERIC

Age: 31 Job: Freelancer Graphic Designer Location: Berkeley, CA, US

Age: 20 Job: Computer science student Location: San Jose, CA, US

Background

Background

Kathy is a full-time freelancer graphic designer live alone in San Francisco. She always stay in her apartment, and has no chance to make friends. The big hobby in her life is making crafts, and it allowed her really enjoy her life. However, she still feel lonely sometimes, and she hope to make friends by making crafters! Because of she usually stay in home, and she want to make friends online.

Eric is a computer science student who lives in San Jose.

He has a very lovely girlfriend. The Valentine’s Day is coming, and it’s their first Valentine’s Day. Eric want to sent a special gift to his girlfriend. He thinks if he made a gift himself, his grilfriend would love it and know how much he love her.The problem is Eric is not a crafter, and he doesn’t know how to make a beautiful gift.

Needs

Needs

A user-friendly website that recommended some people who also love making crafts and commuicating.

A user-friendly website that teaches him how to make a gift for valentine’s day.

“

Goals Make some friends by crafting, and communicate with them online.

Task Flow explore crafters

follow crafters

talk to them

be online friends

I have to make a gift for my girl friend in Valentine’s Day.

”

Goals To make a beautiful and special gift.

To explore a craft that girls like.

Task Flow explore crafts

watch tutorial

write feedback page 26

VISUAL DEVELOPMENT

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

Adobe Photoshop Adobe illustrator

MYSQL LIBRARY

PHP

to store all the users database

users sign-up / log-in uploading text, images, and video

API Facebook Friends API Facebook Share API

HIML5 / CSS3

JAVASCRIPT

create the responsive web pages

add Interactions to the website

Handmade Master will build as a responsive website, so that users can easily visit our sites on their smartphones and tablets. page 27

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FEATURE 1: Interactive way to browse the newest update and most popular crafting tutorials.

1. The tutorials on the top are the most popular tutorials.

2. The tutorials on the left side are the newest tutorials.

FEATURES

page 29

3. You can scroll images top to bottom, or left to right.

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FEATURE 2:

FEATURE 3:

FEATURE 4:

FEATURE 5:

Users can raise their levels by post crafts and get likes. When you get 1000 points, you will be our handmade master!

Show the weekly top 3 crafters

Users can use the materials tag to search crafting.

According to tutorials, users can post their own work.

Weekly Top 3 Crafters Name

Name

Name

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FINAL DELIVERABLE I will create the content for users by myself,and my upload function will be simulated.

SITE MAP

page 33

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WORKFLOW This workflow chart is going to show you the brief walkthrough of how Handmade Master fuctions.

SCREEN #01: HOMEPAGE This is the page where users will first see when they open our website. They can see the newest update and most popular crafting tutorials, categories, search button, materials tags, and weekly top three crafters.

WORKFLOW

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SCREEN #01: HOMEPAGE

SCREEN #02: USER SIGN-IN / SIGN-UP PAGE

This is the page where users will first see when they open our website. They can see the most uppdate and popular crafting toturials, categories, search button, materials tags, and weekly top three crafters. If users click this button, they can hide the left menu.

After reviewing this website, if users think this site is interesting, then they can cilck log in to this page. This is the page where users can either: Log-in or Sign-up if they are new visitors. They can log-in or sign-up by connect their Facebook for convenience.

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SCREEN #02: USER SIGN-IN / SIGN-UP PAGE

SCREEN #03: CUSTOMER HOMEPAGE

After reviewing this website, if users think this site is interesting, then they can cilck log in to this page. This is the page where users can either: Log-in or Sign-up if they are new visitors. They can log-in or sign-up by connect their Facebook for convenience.

After Log-in, users will go into customer homepage. Compare to the homepage, and the customer homage has more functions. Users can check their level, set their profile, see feedback, and receive the messages.

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SCREEN #04: TUTORIAL PAGE

SCREEN #04: TUTORIAL PAGE

This is the page show the tutorial details. Users can share and like this tutorial, or add some comments. According to the tutorial, users can upload their own crafts below the tutorial. Also, crafters can set the background image by themselves.

This is the page show the tutorial details. Users can share and like this tutorial, or add some comments. According to the tutorial, users can upload their own crafts below the tutorial. Also, crafters can set the background image by themselves.

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SCREEN #05: MESSAGES PAGE

SCREEN #06: FOLLOWING PAGE

This is the page show the messages.

This is the page show the people you are fllowing, and it will recommended users some people they might like to follow.

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SCREEN #07: UPLOAD PAGE

SCREEN #08: EDIT IMAGE PAGE

This is the page for users to upload text, image, or video tutorials.

This is the page for users to edit their tutorials.

page 46

Remember Dora? She’s one of the personas I used for this project. Now, I’m gonna use her task flow to briefly walk you through the functionality of the site.

PROOF OF CONCEPT “

-Dora, A high school teacher love making crafts.

I love making crafts! I want to share my work, and learn from others!

” page 47

page 48

01. She goes to our website.

02. She looks around, and check the categories.

05. She receive a new message from Handmade Master, and it noticed her just got 20 points.

06. She views a tutorial.

03. She think this site is cool, and signs up.

04. She visits her customer homepage.

07. She follows this tutorial author, and then visit the following page to check.

08. She is uploading her crafting.

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With Dora posts more and more crafting, and her level is getting higher.

A lots of people like her crafts, and she also learn a lot from others...

09. After upload the images, she is typing some text.

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10. She earned 5 points for post her crafting.

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MOODBOARD

page 53

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LOGOS

M HANDMADE MASTER

page 55

HANDMADE MASTER

HANDMADE MASTER

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TIMELINE

page 57

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EDUCATION Master of Fine Arts (MFA) | Web & New Media Design Academy of Art University | Expected to graduate December 2015

Bachelor of Arts (BA) | Graphic Design Chengdu University of Technology | 2008–2012

Bachelor of Science (BS) | Business Administration Chengdu Electronic Technology University | 2008–2012

RESUME

SKILLS Design: Photoshop | Illustrator | InDesign | Flash | After Effects | CorelDraw Programming: Html5 | CSS3 | JavaScript | PHP | MySQL

EXPERIENCE Photographer MyPlay | Chengdu (2010-2011)

Freelance Graphic Designer Bawangbing | Chengdu (2011)

Visual Designer Lytic LLC I Los Angeles (2013)

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PORTFOLIO

Project Name: Sunset Type of work: Photo Time: Fall 2013 WNM_622: Digital Capture

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Project Name: Bubble Type of work: Photo Time: Fall 2013 WNM_622: Digital Capture

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Project Name: Julove Store Type of work: Web Design Time: Fall 2013 WNM_608: Web Technology 1

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Project Name: Julo Restaurant Type of work: Web Design Time: Spring 2013 WNM_622: Typography for Digital Masters

Project Name: Close Eye Type of work: Printing Time: Fall 2012 FA_629: Letter-press Printing

Project Name: A Thirsty Crow Type of work: Flash Time: Fall 2013 WNM_642: Time Based Media

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CONCLUSION

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Making Crafts, enjoy your life!

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