Perosnally, I identify with the green hat the most when pondering the way that I usually approach problems and the role I usually assume in group projects, as I often have many ideas and can come up with creative alternatives on the fly.
Overall, this method of thinking and problem solving was very helpful to the refinement of my semester project and working out the kinks and wrinkles within my initial idea. It was especially helpful to talk through it with one of my closest friends who is a CS major and has worked with websites in the past as it was easy to get technical with them when discussing the different questions of each hat.
For the white hat, we discussed all the basic information that will be collected and displayed in my website, which are sunset photos, 3 locations on campus for sunset viewing, a photo gallery page, a search filtering system, and a photo submission form. I will get this information by either collecting it myself or recruiting some willing friends to help me collect photos. Some questions I have regarding site creation are how I am going to create a photo gallery and how I am going to create a functional submission form.
Regarding how I am feeling, I am very passionate about this project and my excitement is boosted by the fact that my friends also like my idea and want to help me collect sunset photos. However, I am not sure how many locations I will be able to find that are easily accessible without a car and whether or not the vision for my image carosuel will come to fruition. I am also a little daunted by the level of organization and contribution from others I hope to include.
The largest fault that could hinder my project is the reality of how large my scope might be. However, the friend I was discussing my project with suggested that I keep it simple and try to find 3 locations on campus since it would be easy for her to be a good judge on whether or not the locations are accessible without a car since she doesn't have one. Also, if I wanted to look into off campus locations I would need to study the UTD bus system and where it takes students, which I am not familiar with and am not particularly interested in using myself since I have a car.
Looking at the positive, practical benefits of my website, I think that it will be great motiviation to get outside and enjoy the beauty of the UTD campus and nature in general, especially since most students are confined to the walls of their room or classroom as they labor through homework. Allowing for student submissions is also a great way to build community within UTD, as everyone has the oppertunity to see the same sunset even though all UTD students live different lives. I will need to study up a bit more on CSS grids and image carousel building to fully realize the creative scope of my website, and the most important things to keep in mind when building is a good color palette, finding accessible locations, and a quick and easy submission process.
Since one of my biggest concerns and challenges is how to best go about creating a functional photo submission form with my limited knowledge, my friend suggested I make a mock submission form and then link a google form through a button so that I can receive real input from students instead of creating fake submissions, which I thought was an ingenius idea. She also brought up the point of considering using a table of photos and styling them how I want instead of an image carousel, which might make it easier to add submissions to the gallery. Lastly, I think it would be cool to create a unique logo and use CSS to create a dynmaic gradient background that mimics the colors of a sunset to really wow users.
In the end, my goal is to create a website that informs viewers of great sunset viewing spots on campus as well as collect sunset photos to compile into a gallery so that all students can view them, as well as connecting the UTD community through the beauty of nature. I think that I need to take off the Black Hat in most situations since I am worried about the scope of my project and instead use the Yellow Hat to take a look at the practical benefits and solutions to the problems I have come up with, as well as wear the Green Hat once in a while to come up with creative solutions like I know I can.
Overall, the main concept of my project hasn't changed and all of my friends who I've told about this project are excited to help me. However, the scope of my project has been narrowed significantly. I first started out by wanting to include my friends from around the country and collect all of their sunset pictures, but I realized that I wasn't really focusing in on a problem at UTD specifically. After this realization, I decided to try and look at the DFW metroplex instead, but I still felt like my scope was too big and needed to be more geared towards UTD students. Finally I decided to concern myself with finding accessible sunset viewing spots for students who live on campus but don't have a personal mode of transportation so that I could include all UTD students in my project.