Survey of Asian Art
(Course Website, University of Washington School of Art, completed 2011)
(Course Website, University of Washington School of Art, completed 2011)
Image 1. The website homepage. Imagery on this page was limited to symbols of the host institution (University of Washington) and an artwork (Ogata Korin's folding screen 'Irises') relavent to the course subject matter.
The goal of this project was to produce a fully functional website that presented not only essential information on a university course (in this case, an Asian Art History survey course), but also presented a large number of photographs (600+) in a clear, organized manner that allowed students to study online in preparation for slide examinations. The website is mainly written HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and JQuery.
Image 2. Text was superimposed over this imagery using CSS, and the legibility of the text was increased by adding a series of color gradations behind the text.
Image 3. Careful attention was paid to directing the viewer's gaze along a predetermined route. After selecting a topic from the menu on the left, the viewer is directed to the center panel, where a list of subtopics are presented. When one of these subtopics is selected, the text is highlighted and a colored bar (written in a combination of HTML, CSS and JQuery) draws the viewer's gaze from this text down to the bottom of the screen, where a row of thumbnails related to that subtopic is presented. When the viewer hovers over one of the thumbnails, the relavent caption information (which students are required to memorize and reproduce during examinations) is shown.
Image 4. In order to give students an opportunity to focus on specific sections and simulate an actual slide examination, an animated slideshow (written in JavaScript) appears in a popup window when one of the thumbnails is selected. Caption information is discretely shown at the bottom of each image. When a visitor clicks on one of the photos in the slideshow, the image is enlarged to its full size.
