Tier 3 – The Information Station

tier3image

Number of People: 4+

Basic Skill List: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, TweenMax, Ajax, PHP, JSON, MySQL, Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, communication, cooperation, problem solving, working to a brief, meeting deadlines.

Extra Skills: InDesign, Final Cut Pro, simpleWeather.

What skills are needed to create a project of this level?

For this project you will need a minimum of four people.

You will need a coder with a good amount of experience in front and back end web development to set up a database and bring in the data. They will be responsible for collating everything to be put online as a website—testing and solving “bugs” is a part of this process.

They will need to know HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery and possibly various jQuery plugins like TweenMax or simpleWeather, which could be shown to the rest of the team, enabling them to each control the design of the visualisation they are working on. MySQL, PHP and JSON are must haves for the coder in order to extract, connect and use the data.

This person may or may not also be the coordinator, so they must be able to explain clearly what they need to the artists. There is also the option of bringing in a facilitator to hold workshops for your young people and teach them the code they need.

You will need a techy to assist the coder and communicate between the rest of the team.

They will need to know HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery and possibly various jQuery plugins like TweenMax or simpleWeather for web animation. It may be useful for them to know or learn from the coder bits of MySQL, PHP and JSON in order to link data to the front end designs.

You will also need two or more artists; a team with the ability to draw all the illustrations for the website and widgets or create any animations that might be needed for visualisations.

The artists will need to know at least the basics of Flash, Illustrator and Photoshop. They might also be able to use InDesign and video editing software like Final Cut Pro. They must be able to work to a brief.  Knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery and TweenMax would allow the artists to entirely control the design and function of the visualisations, taking some of the workload away from the coder and the techy.

The whole team must be able to communicate and cooperate with each other, as well as be able to problem solve and meet deadlines.

Depending on the size of the project, this may be enough people to complete it. For a team of five or over, it is recommended that you have a separate project coordinator whose role it is to take into account all of the tasks to do, and hand them out accordingly to each team member. This will ensure that no two people are doing the same job through a lack of communication, which can often happen when deadlines are near and time is tight.