Competitive Analysis and Tagging

It's been a while since I last blogged, so I thought I best update it before it went on even longer. Although I haven't blogged, I have still been working on my project during this time, carrying out a competitive analysis of 3 websites that have some relation to the website I am creating, and trying to add the tagging feature to the website.

The competitive analysis comprised of me looking at 3 different websites and evaluating them on different criteria. The three websites I looked at are:

• http://www.analysedreams.co.uk/
• http://dreamcrowd.com/
• http://twitter.com/

The criteria that I looked at whilst carrying out the analysis are:

• Homepage
• Navigation
• Site Organization
• Links and Labels
• Search and Search Results
• Readability
• Performance
• Content

During this period I have been trying to get the tagging function to work on the website. This has proved to be a challange. I have now created a field in the form that allows users to submit tags when they are submitting a dream to the website to the site. The tags are stored in the database.

I have created two other tables in the database. These are dreams_tagged and dreams_tags. The dreams_tagged table contains 3 fields; tagged_id, tag_id and dream_id. The The dreams_tags table also contains 3 fields; tag_id, tag_name and num_dreams. The idea of these two tables is to give each tag it's own unique ID and then count how many times the same tag has been submitted into the database. It will then increase the num_dreams amount by every time the tag with the same tag_name has been counted.

This is where I have struggled. I understand the concept of what I need to do, but I now need to try and implement it. I need to run a query to count the number of tags that have been entered. Also to make the tag cloud, I need a CSS file that changes the size of the font depending on the number in the num_dreams field. So the higer the number in this field the bigger the font will be in the tag cloud.

I feel I will be able to get this function to work, but it may take some time, and alot of trial and error. However, this is the only way I am going to learn, so it is very beneficial to me.

Form Validation

After having the problem of the form submitting blank data into the databse when the submit button was pressed, I needed a way o overcome this. I decided to use form validation with JQuery. So now when the submit button for the form is clicked, a message will be shown telling the user that they have to fill out the fields before they can submit the form. Even if one of the fields in the form are not filled in then the data will not be submitted. Both the name and dream fields have to be filled in for the data to be sent to the database.

Blank Data Being Input

The form I have created to submit the users dreams is really starting to annoy me now! I can submit the name and dream into the database fine. I've even added a timestamp field in the table to record the date and time the data was submitted (which is very useful). The problem I've been having is to validate the form. When the submit button is clicked on and there is no data in the fields, blank data is submitted to the database. This is not what I want to happen. I want the fields to be mandatory and if they are not filled in and the submit button is pressed then a message will show the user that they need to fill in the required fields. I have the error messages coming up when the fields are not filled in, which is great. However, the problem is blank data is still being submitted to the database and I'm struggling to find away around the problem.

Submitting A Dream

After yesterday's troubles with lack of inspiration I decided to make a start on one of the main functions of the website - submitting a dream. To do this I needed to create a form to allow the user's to fill in and a database that would store the data that is being input via the form. After creating these two elements of the website, I had to link them with PHP. It took me a while to write the code. I first got the ID number of the dream increasing when the submit button was clicked. However, I could not understand why the data that was being entered in the fields were not being entered into the database. It took a while of going back and through the code until I realised that the variables I set at the start of the PHP script were not written in all lowercase as they started with a capital letter. As soon as I changed this and clicked on the submit button with data in the form, the data was being submitted to the correct fields in the table of the database. This was a good learning point for me, as I now realise that I need to write all code in lower case letters.

Design Block

So after coming up with several layouts by wire frames, I chose the layout I thought was best for the site and started to code it. This was done easily, as the layout is quite basic, (it's intended to be) and so I wanted to make a start on the visual design of the site. However this has proved to be a problem at the moment. I came up with one design and soon decided it wasn't up to scratch, so scrapped it completely. Now as I write this I cannot seem to picture how I want the website to look visually. I know what goes where, but I cannot think of the right colour scheme that corresponds well with dreams. I'm thinking of a rainbow/many bright colours theme, as dreams can be so random, it seems that having a mix of bright colours may be the right way to move. I'm also unsure of what textures, if any, I should use. Hopefully some inspiration will come to me soon.

I've currently moved from my first logo that I made









To this much more colourful logo

What's Happened So Far

OK, so the first month has been quite hectic! We had to come up with the initial idea of what we were going to do for our projects. The idea I came up with was a website that allowed users to share their dreams with other users. People would be able to say if the dream was a good dream or a nightmare, and add their comments too.

Before even creating the website, I needed to collect as many dreams from people as possible. This is so I can populate the database when building the site, allowing me to get an actual sense of how the website is going to function. To do this I created a Facebook group and invited all my friends and asked them to submit dreams that they have had recently.

I have also started to create some wire frames to see the different layouts and designs that could possibly be used. These give an indication of how the users will navigate around the website and how the site will be used in general. By using wire frames, I can easily change the layout of the website before implementing it fully. So I can come up with the ideal layout before I have even started designing the website.