Design_IfTomHanks.com

__**Design:**__

Will's Prototype Aleksandr's Prototype __**@Mir's Prototype**__ Myco's Prototype
 * Individual Prototypes:**

Sketches and Balsamiq
 * Final Prototype:**

The homepage that was designed is clean and functional and the screen is divided into three sections. The left side contains user specific data like friends on the site and recent posts created by the user and their friends. The middle section contains let’s the users to post new jokes and also lets them view the older jokes. The right side has the trending jokes based on top contributors and top rated jokes. This design allows for quick navigation while maintaining simplicity. While the design is good the left column of the site will remain blank if the user is not registered or if they are not signed. Also the design lacks viewing or posting by categories. The search bar allows multiple searches on preset filters, without taking much space. The joke threads have an arrow that expands to show a secondary panel, which displays comments and other options, a great alternative to comment sites like reddit because it allows the jokes to be displayed sequentially.
 * Prototype Evaluations:**
 * Mir’s Prototype**

This design features a scrollable frame in the top left and a static right and bottom panels. This allows the user to scroll through jokes while still being able to click the universal controls. The universal controls and search bar are basically filters that populate the frame after selection, so only the scrollable frame is refreshed. The joke threads feature comment functionality similar to Mir’s design. The scrollable frame may alienate certain users since most sites do not implement this functionality.
 * Will’s Prototype**

The main distinction between this prototype and the previous prototypes is that the threaded jokes are interlaced with comments. The design also features an anonymous post functionality allowing the user to post without having to be part of the site. For each post there are hash tags associated with the posts. This enables users who are searching for specific jokes to enter the tag to get all jokes related to that tag. The expandable left side of the joke allows the users to post to their social media site. Users can scroll through jokes by clicking the “See Comments" link taking them to a lightbox where they can view the joke and post a comment. While viewing specific jokes the user can scroll between jokes via the “next” and “previous” buttons. The design requires the use of lightbox-esque functionality, which is beyond the capabilities of the group. The hash tags were a great idea, allowing searches via tags for all jokes associated with that tag.
 * Aleksandr’s Prototype**

The homepage consists of four main frames: top themes, statistics, top jokes, and top contributor. The design is very simple but lacks the obvious display of jokes and doesn’t let the users to post the jokes from their homepage. There is a well-implemented profile page that can be viewed after signing in. The profile page will list the user’s picture and short bio, accomplishments, along with most recently posted joke by that user. The achievement tracking will entice users to register to the site instead of posting anonymously. It also lets users to be rated by other users for the quality of the jokes. This design is especially good in terms of the motivations that it offers to users.
 * Myco’s Prototype**


 * Final Prototype Features and Evaluation:**
 * Submit – We have two types of submissions, one that adds to an existing topic and the other to create a brand new topic. For adding onto an existing topic we went with Mir’s text-box-at-the-end of the thread design. While our prototypes allowed for creation of new topics they, originally, did not acquire enough information to categorize those topics. To remedy this we created a submit button that goes to a new page which has a form.
 * Viewing – There are two ways to view jokes, by glancing over a multiple topic view and an individual topic view. The multiple topic view is how users browse jokes and consists of “topic thumbnails” which contain topic name and some joke snippets. Clicking a topic thumbnail brings up the individual topic view. The individual topic view is a separate page containing that topic and all of its jokes. The topic thumbnail came from Will’s prototype and the individual jokes page was from Aleksandr’s prototype.
 * Searching – To search for jokes we will implement hash tags. Each joke has associated hash tags that can be searched. Results are populated onto the current page in real time. Search results will be displayed in the format discussed in Viewing.
 * Browsing – There will be a tree menu navigation that will display recent, top, and categories. Expanding the category section shows actors, movies, sports, games, etc. Expanding an individual category lists all the topics for that category. Clicking on a topic brings up the topic thumbnail.
 * Commenting – A comment window is associated with each topic. Comments are displayed by clicking the arrows on the side of the topic thumbnail. In addition to displaying the comments, the comment window also lets the user to enter a new comment. Comments can also be flagged as spam or inappropriate. This was a combination of Mir’s and William’s ideas.
 * Sharing – sharing is part of the comment window. These are essentially the social media buttons.
 * User Profiles- The member’s information such as username, avatar, ratings, recent jokes, etc. Other users can access the information. Each user can be rated for their quality of jokes that they posted on the site. The essence of this came from Myco’s prototype design.