Ideal vs. Feasible

This week, after lots of sketching and Inkscaping, I was finally able to get my hands on some code. This, however, meant that I was confronted with the inevitable, “Oh no, I didn’t quite think though how I am going to implement my pretty pictures.”

In the original design, the remix ribbons on the badges correspond with that badge’s color. But, with css being the way it is, there isn’t an obvious way to be able to dynamically create the icons with individual colors. Instead, we would have to create four individual images for each badge - which would be a lot of pictures. Alternatively, since the stars are yellow anyway, we could just have the remix ribbons be colored yellow for all the badges regardless of its color. Jordana and I came to the conclusion that perhaps this is an acceptable solution for now. Although it would be nice to have the ribbon colors correspond with the badge color, it’s not necessary. We can shelve spending time looking for a more elegant solution to that problem in favor of getting badges on the website in a more timely manner.

Another ideal vs. feasible situation that can up this week was recommending badges. In the current design, the badges are recommended to the user on the badges main page according to the simple rule of prerequisites. Has the user completed the higher up badges? If yes, then color the ring around the badge. But, do we want to recommend some badges more than others? For instance, do we want to draw the user’s attention to a badge that they have remixed levels for versus a badge they have not? Do we want to favor badges her followees have earned over ones that she would have no role models for? I’m quite sure if I have a good answer to that question and, if I did think it would be a good idea, how I would implement it. For now, I think I’ll file it under, wish list” and proceed ahead.

In other news, I'm super excited that we can now build worlds with baby yetis :D