Travelblog (2006-2008)

Once I knew that I was leaving the University of Manchester, and started making plans for ‘Round the World’ travels, I decided to jump into the world of ‘blogging’. This site was the one that first came up on ‘Googling’ ‘travelblog’, and seemed to fit the purpose. I have religiously updated it on my travels, although the writing is very rough in form, and the images have not been particularly carefully chosen!

The primary audience of the site was myself – it was designed as a record for my own memories, back-up storage of images, and possibly to provide raw material for travel writing at some point.

The secondary audience of the site was my friends and family as with limited (aka internet cafe) access to the internet I wanted to be able to contact many people at once, and have them know that I was safe, plus give them some insight into what I was doing/seeing and learning!

The joy of updating the site has disappeared somewhat, and my ‘big travels’ come to an end in November 2008, so I plan to do some quick entries (all the photos are on, which is all most people are interested in, but be good to have some brief text), and then bring it to a close!

http://www.travelblog.org/bloggers/drbexl

Law at the University of Winchester (2007)

  • Following discussions with David Chalk, I produced an online presence for the new law degree at the University of Winchester in under 10 hours, using information prepared for print, re-purposing/structuring for the web, and uploading information using the University’s Content Management System. I suggested appropriate image types, which were then provided by the University marketing team.
  • Further time was then spent investigating other University Law websites to look for other possiblities for web content, some of which was implemented. It was noted that few sites had an interactive element, so further time was spent investigating possible blogs to use, and researching types of questions which could usefully be used upon the website to engage potential students in legal debate, thus building a relationship with the University.
  • The remaining time in the 40 hours allocated was spent providing a comprehensive document and training session for David Chalk to enable him to keep the website updated, and particularly advice on what would usefully work for ‘Blawg’, and the extensive amount of offline work which would need to be done to encourage participation. It was noted that it would be best that blog content was best provided by David, as Head of Law.

Client Feedback:
What impressed me most about Bex’s work was her ability to take a brief from a total web site novice and make sense of it and produce in a rapid time a site that more than met my expectations. Very well laid out with imiginative links from what have been an unpromising brief!”
David Chalk, 2009
Head of Law, University of Winchester

Visit: http://www.winchester.ac.uk/law

Web Usability (2001-2002)

These pages are the result of a 5 month project investigating what makes a web page usable, and thus effective.

  • Members of staff in all departments of the University of Winchester (formerly King Alfred’s College/University College Winchester) were questioned as to the use that they would possibly make of webpage design (within teaching, research, and assessment).
  • Usability and information structure were deemed more important than aesthetics, although this was still a consideration.
  • Designed primarily for use by students, the site offers options for web design, rather than hard and fast rules, the site was also designed to meet the needs of academic staff who were seeking to teach theories of web design.
  • The site was designed to be largely static, as it is more issue-led, rather than a ‘how-to’ of the latest web building software. Although the site is now rather out of date, a lot of the issues to be thought-through remain relevant.

Client Comment

“Dr Bex Lewis was the designer and implementer of a pioneering website at the university which aimed to support lecturers in teaching about web design. This was at a time when web sites were put together hurriedly with many basic mistakes. That website is still available and and stands up remarkbly well, giving sound advice. Would that more web designers would take the time to look at it”

David Rush, 2009

Business IT

University of Winchester

Visit: http://www.winchester.ac.uk/designproject/

WW2Poster Blog (2009-2010)

Having been quoted in the Daily Express, I started to track the success of the Keep Calm and Carry On slogan. With time, I will add some of the material that I collected for my PhD thesis to this blog (although preferably not losing out on publication opportunities). This blog is designed to complement my website: http://www.ww2poster.co.uk (which seriously needs updating), and is the first time I have seriously published on WordPress (although I’ve been playing around with the platform since January), and extracts earlier entries from my random blogger blog.

http://ww2poster.wordpress.com/ (now integrated with the website)

Success: Led to an article in the New York Times.