Critique of the code

The code that I choose displayed a slide show of five images on the home page that scrolls automatically and indefinitely and only stops when the mouse is hovered over the images. In order for the images to keep scrolling indefinitely, and not stop after all five images had passed once, a loop was created that makes clones of the original images. 

The code is very well written, and had good lines of comment says what the following large pieces of code did. This is very useful for people such as myself who have never worked with Java Script before and have no idea what they are doing. That being said, there could have been some more comment saying how to slow down the speed in which the slide show scrolls since this is an essential part of this particular code. Due to this lack of comment, it took me a while to figure out that even though the speed could not go below 1, by changing the setInterval(doScroll, 20); to a higher number, the speed at which the images scroll could have been decreased even further.

Another comment that could have been added to the code was how to change the position of the scrolling images. How do you make it located at the middle of the page? The bottom? To the right? I only figured out how to change the where it was located by looking in the comments section of the web page.

Although those two minor things could have improved the code, in general it had sufficient comment. I was also well indented to allow for easier reading and understanding. It was also error free which, surprisingly, is often not the case with code found online.

How the code improves the experience for the personas and scenarios created in unit 1

The code improves the experience of my created personas and scenarios by displaying a visually appealing home page. Many of my personas are visiting the site because they are looking for a photographer and by displaying a few of my picture on the home page, it allows them to get an idea of my skills as well as my style of photography before even going to the gallery page. I could have simply displayed the five pictures on the webpage like I did in the gallery pages, but I feel like that would have bombarded visitors with images right off the bat without having even properly welcomed them to the site. This might have annoying some visitors causing them to exit my site before they went to the gallery to have a look at my skill set. I therefore think that making the images scroll adds to the functionality of the site, and gives it a more friendly and comfortable feel.

Work Completed for Unit 4

I spent some time thinking about what I could add to increase the functionality to my site and once I had figured that out, it was a matter of finding code that I could use. After I found code that satisfied what I wanted to do in this unit, I added it to my home page’s existing code. It didn’t work at first, but after spending some time debugging, I realized my recopying error and was able to fix it quite easily.

Learning outcomes completed

• I learnt the basics of JavaScript
• I learnt that JavaScript can either be coded directly into the existing html file or an external sheet like the one required for CSS in unit 3
• I critiqued the code I used in this unit that I found online
• Modified the code so it fit my site
• Debugged the code
• Cited the code

What went well, what could be improved, what was difficult

It was a bit difficult to find code that did exactly what I wanted it to do, but not as difficult as some other things that have been required in the course so far! I was also a bit difficult to find code that was in the recommended code length; that is why the code I choose is a bit longer than 30 lines. After putting the code into my website, I was surprised to see that the scrolling images coved my dropdown menu when I hovered my mouse over the gallery tab. I took me a while to figure out how to correct the problem, but after a bit of time and effort, I was able to correct the problem.

What I would do differently

I would have kept searching the web for different code to use. The code I chose works perfectly fine; and it wasn’t until I was citing the code that I realized that even though the code uses mainly Java Script, there is a bit of jQuery. Quite honestly I started freaking out hopping that I would be ok and I wouldn’t lose any marks for my mistake. After thoroughly reading all the pages in my AU for unit 4, I came to the conclusion that my markers most likely wouldn’t make me lose marks for that mistake and so I left my code as it was. Due to the stress it caused me however, I would have defiantly kept searching for different code to use.