David+Hiwa+Unit+1

David Hiwa Unit 1
Investigation Stage The aim of our unit is to research the culture of one of our classmates and create a website from it. We have to investigate by creating a questionnaire and look up certain things on the internet. Then we have to hand-draw a couple of designs for the layout of our website. Then we must make a plan about the steps we will take when producing our product, talk about what things we will need to include on the website and the time it will take us to complete the project. After that we create the product based on our design that we picked and the plan. Then we evaluate it against the design specifications that we created and try it out using the tests. Then we explain how well it worked and what ways we could improve it.

I picked my classmate Fatima because she has a mix of cultures and I thought that would be a challenge. I didn’t know a lot about her except for the fact that she was born in England and she lives in Malawi. I devised a questionnaire so that I could understand how many different cultural standpoints there are. These are the questions I asked and the answers I got back:

1. Where were you born? Leicester, England

2. What types of food is common to eat in you culture? Curry

3. Where do you call home? Lilongwe, Malawi

4. What holidays/festivals does your family celebrate? Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid-ul-Adna

5. What language do you speak mostly? English

6. What clothes do you wear mostly? Normal shirt and trousers and sometimes black dresses

7. What kind of music do you like to listen to? Indian music and music in English

8. What rules and restrictions do you have in your culture? Can’t eat pork or drink alcohol

9. Does technology play a big part in your culture? Yes

10. How much would you say that you affect the environment? Very little

Based on the answers I knew I had to do more research on Muslim festivals and traditions. I also needed to look into website design and things that will help me in creating a nice website.

Research: Ramadan: Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and in Muslims will not eat food in the hours of daylight. Muslims believe that the gates of Heaven are open and the gates of Hell are locked for the duration of Ramadan. Ramadan is a time of worship and a time to strengthen family ties. Every Muslim is expected to fast from sunrise to sunset. During Ramadan, Muslims get up early before dawn and have a light meal. At the end of each day, Muslims traditionally break their fast with a meal. Following the custom of Prophet Muhammad, the fast is often broken with dates, and then followed by a prayer and dinner. Ramadan concludes with the celebration of Eid-ul-Fitr.

Eid-ul-Fitr - Marks the end of Ramadan Eid ul-Fitr or Id-Ul-Fitr is a Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. Eid is an Arabic word meaning "festivity", while Fitr means "to break the fast" and so symbolizes the breaking of the fasting period. Eid is celebrated over a three day period in Islamic countries.

Eid-Ul-Adha Eid-Ul-Adha is the celebration of sacrifice and marks the end of Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. It takes place on the 10th day of Dhul-Hijjah, the last month of the Islamic calendar. Eid-Ul-Adha is a day of happiness and a day to forgive and forget any differences The day often starts with visit to the Mosque where a special Eid Namaz (prayer) is read. After Eid Namaz everyone embraces each other. Special foods eaten on this day are are lamb and sweet dishes. After visiting the mosque in the morning, Muslims often eat sewayian, a sweet vermicelli dish cooked with milk, like rice pudding. Presents are exchanged and some people have fireworks and decorated their homes.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets):
 * CSS helps you to easily manage the fonts and colors of the writing that you have
 * It helps you to organize the text and the page in general
 * It makes it easier to change any unappealing aspects of your work.

Dynamic Drive: Dynamic Drive is a website that helps you to improve your web page and add different effects to it. It shows examples of the different things that you can add and then it has the code that you can copy into you website too add the effect. Some of the effects need you to download the files for them to work. The ones I tried didn't really work in the test website that I tried, so it is more complicated that I thought. Design Brief: I have concluded that I will create a website about Muslim-English cultural diversity. Product Specification:
 * What it needs ||  How to include  ||  Reason  ||  Tests  ||
 * Talk about the environment ||  Have a page about both cultures affect on the environment  ||  The project is about the persons culture in relation to the environment  ||  Read to check that there is suitable information to do with the environment  ||
 * Include references ||  Depending on the design I pick, Either a separate page or on the bottom of the page  || If I use information without referencing then it is plagiarism ||  Check that the pages for the references all work  ||
 * Nicely presented ||  Pick appropriate colors and color schemes  ||  The website needs to be presentable to all the readers so they understand  ||  Get a few people to look at the website and check the designs  ||
 * Talk specifically about the classmate ||  Put basic information about them on the homepage  ||  It shows a background for the whole project  ||  Ask the classmate to check if there is suitable and appropriate information about them.  ||
 * Proper page links ||  n/a  ||  It enables you to move from 1 page to another  ||  Open the website in browser view and try out the links.  ||
 * Good pictures that are easy to see ||  Get pictures of an appropriate size and don’t mess around with the dimensions  ||  So that it is easy to view  ||  Ask people to look at the pictures for understanding  ||
 * The writing must be easy to understand ||  Write simply and don’t use words you don’t know the meaning of  ||  If it is easy then anyone can access the website  ||  Try using the synonyms to check if there are easier words to use.  ||

Design Stage For my design stage I made 4 designs each being unique and different. All the designs had to be hand drawn with paper so i just scanned them in. These are my 3 designs.





Out of these 3 designs I picked the 3rd design because it seemed the best design for presenting information. Design 1 is too much text based and it doesn't have enough visual information which makes it less appealing. Design 2 is ok but i think that it will be harder to create than the other 2. Design 3 is a good balance between text and pictures and it can help include all the information with as little space wasted as possible. I also have a reference page in Design 3 and in Design 1 I would have also had a reference page. On Design 2 I had the references on the page itself and i realized that it wasn't the most practical and it would be harder to create. Plan Stage This is the timeline of things i have to do for my unit:



These are my web pages that I will have in my website:



Creation Stage

In my final website i decided to remove the general info page because i decided that I would be able to include that into my home page. These are my 4 web pages for my creation stage:









It wasn't that difficult to plan out the design and make it on the computer, but just adding the information and the pictures took a bit of time.

Evaluation Stage
this is my design specifications and how well my website did:


 * **What It Needs** || **Test** || **How Well It did** ||
 * Talk About the environment || Read to see that there is suitable information related to the environment || I had a whole page about the impact on the environment and the information is relevant ||
 * References || Check that the references are there || I didn't put references on the page ||
 * Nicely Presented || Get a few people to look at the website and check the design || I asked 3 people and they said everything was clear and design was good ||
 * Talk specifically about the classmate || Ask the classmate to check if the information is correct and suitable || The classmate was ok with the information ||
 * Proper page links || Open the website in browser view and test the links || The links are all correct and working ||
 * Good pictures that are easy to see || Ask people to check the relevance and good quality || The 3 people I asked said the pictures were appropriate but I should had pictures on the personal info page ||
 * Writing should be easy to understand || Make people at different reading levels read the page to see if they understand || The 3 people I asked could understand most of what I was reading and it wasn't to challenging ||

Based on this assessment I think that my website was quite well designed and it passed most of the tests well.