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Formal Progress Update:Interactive Herbarium

General: Gather native plant species of Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and design and construct a herbarium for public viewing and interaction.Individual: Design the Sandy Hook interactive herbarium webpage so that it is accessible to the public and research plant information.

Background Information

Chelsea Soriano

Specifications

A herbarium is a collection of plants that are preserved, catalogued, stored and arranged. Herbaria are all around the world and provide easy access to the public and scientists alike. Plants in a herbarium are typically pressed and dried plants that are glued to a sheet of heavy paper. Some plants are too large for just one sheet of paper so multiple sheets may be used. Plants could also be preserved in an Alcohol-Glycerin solution, a Formalin solution, or in rocks.  Also on the paper is the plant’s label which provides helpful information on the plant including its Latin name, the origin of the collection, the time of collection, and the name of the person who collected the plant. In most herbaria, the specimens are stored in specimen cabinets or riker boxes.  Herbaria provide a record of plant life. This record is enjoyed by the public as well as used for important research and conservation efforts by scientists and the government. Sandy Hook is one of the United States’ Gateway National Recreation Areas and it has a very large variety of plant species both native and invasive. However, the general public has little easily accessible access to information on these plant species. That is what our project aims to change. We want to create an interactive herbarium open to the public. This herbarium will house plants that are indigenous to Sandy Hook and include information on these native plants. Our herbarium will be similar to the interactive, public Emily de Camp Herbarium in Island Beach State Park, New Jersey. This is one of the few herbariums that is actually open to the public. With no public herbarium, the community and visitors alike have no access to information on the vast amount of plant life of a particular area. The Marine Academy of Science and Technology is a public 4-year magnet high school located on Fort Hancock, Sandy Hook in New Jersey. It requires its students to do a senior project in either Systems Engineering or Oceanography. One of the Systems Engineering II classes has a group of students whose project is to start making the Sandy Hook Interactive Herbarium. This group consists of Chelsea Soriano, Bright Okere, Jack Dempsey, Nicholas McDonald, Sheila Haggerty, Niki Dellera, Stef Newman, Brian Kempf, and Nick Heins.

Design Briefs

For brainstorming, the herbarium team had a few group meetings. In those meeting discussed:•What we wanted to achieve •How we wanted to go about achieving the goals we set for the herbarium•What jobs there are and who would be doing those jobs•How we will press plantsWe also did a lot of research on herbaria including finding different methods we could use for pressing plants.

Brainstorming

Rationale Report

The first category of my rationale report is "easily navigated." Basically I judged each website on how easily a user could find anything they needed to find. I gave the Moonfruit a 3 because everything is laid out plain and simple in a top bar. I gave the Wix a 2 because like the Moonfruit everything is in a top bar but the pictures of the specimens are easier to get to on the Moonfruit. I gave the Utah Valley site a 1 because the main page has 1 menu and then when you click on either of the 2 topics, a whole different menu appears. The second category of my rationale report is "well organized." I gave the Utah Valley site a 3 because it has different ways to organize the specimen depending on what the visitor is looking for. Also the Utah Valley site all around is very organized. I gave the Moonfruit a 2 because it is still very organized just not as organized as the Utah Valley site. Also the specimens are divided by area of Sandy Hook only not different categories like common name, family, etc. I gave the Wix a 1 because even though most of the website is organized, it will be more difficult to get the specimen section organized.The third category of my rational report is "user friendly." I gave Moonfruit a 3 because it is very simple and to the point and would be the easiest for the "average joe" to use. I gave the Utah Valley site a 2 because even though the site can seem a little complicated when you get to the specimen catalog, you could organize the specimens by common name, making it easier for average people to find and explore our different specimens.The fourth category of my rational report is "scientist friendly." I gave the Utah Valley site a 3 because this site is mainly designed for scientists. The Utah Valley site provides a lot of scientific data and information on the plants. I gave the Moonfruit a 2 because it is more user friendly than scientist friendly but it will still have scientific friendly. I gave the Wix a 1 by process of elimination.The fifth category is "aesthetically pleasing." I gave the Moonfruit a 3 because it looks very nice. This site has a nice green and gray color combination along with a lot of pictures. I gave the Utah Valley site a 2 because it does have a lot of colorful pictures however the color scheme is not to eye-catching. I gave the Wix a 1 through process of elimination but also because the background is just a plain white background with black lettering.The sixth and final category is "sufficient information provided." I gave the Utah Valley site a 3 because it provides the most information out of all of the websites. I gave the Moonfruit a 2 because even though it still has a lot of information, it doesn't have as much as the Utah Valley site. I gave the Wix a 1 through process of elimination.The two main contenders in my rationale report seemed to be the Moonfruit and the Utah Valley site. Ultimately the Moonfruit won by 1 point but I think that if I could integrate elements from both sites, the website would be the best it could be. 

General:The herbarium must:Include plants native to Sandy HookBe interactive Contain plants that have been collected, preserved, labeled, and housedHave accessible information on the plants housed in the herbariumBe of professional quality Individual:As a webpage designer and researcher I must:Create an accessible webpage for the Sandy Hook Interactive HerbariumResearch information for the indigenous plants we collected.

For the alternative solutions, I worked with Jack Dempsey to come up with four viable solutions for the herbarium website. I designed the Wix, the Moonfruit, and found free coding information for a website based off of the Utah Valley Virtual Herbarium. I also designed a tentative logo for the Sandy Hook Interactive Herbarium and created a Twitter account for the herbarium. Jack designed the Webs and the Google Sites. For the Webs, I helped Jack with aesthetics and getting the website organized. On Jack's blog, you will find the alternative solutions for his two designs.

Alternative Solutions

Limitations•The group must have a permit to collect the specimens•The group must not hurt the environment in any way•The plants included in the herbarium must be native to Sandy Hook•Our portion of the ongoing herbarium project must be complete by May 2012•Our group only has access to a limited amount of money and materials

Summer Research

Testing Procedures

users will be able to access information on all of the plants we have in the herbarium. If everything we plan gets implemented the way we plan them to, we will hopefully meet all of the requirements of the visitors.Assessment tests  The concept of an interactive herbarium is indeed usable. An example of an interactive herbarium that already is functioning is the Emily de Camp Herbarium at Island Beach State Park. Visitors would want to be able to access plants and the information about them and right now that is what our plan is.In order to see if we are successful, when the project is completed and the herbarium is functioning, we will provide comment cards to see what the visitors like and what they would like to see.Validation tests These tests will come in the form of comment cards that visitors to the herbarium and the herbarium website will fill out. The cards will ask questions such as "did you find that the information provided about the plant was sufficient?" and "were you able to find the plant you were searching for with relative ease?"

Alternative Solution 1: The WixThe home page has a simple white background so the focus is more on the logo I created. The logo is centered on the home page.The title is simple, clear, and easily readable to the website visitors. At the top underneath the title all of the pages on the website are listed and when you click on the word, it will take you to that page. This allows the users to easily navigate our website. On the bottom bar, it says where we are located and a link to the Twitter page I created and a Facebook page if we choose to make one.This page is for visitors to find out more information on Sandy Hook. I thought it was important for visitors who don't already know information about Sandy Hook. For the banner of the page, I used a picture of the Sandy Hook sign. On this page there would be a brief history of Sandy Hook, information about the park including its hours of operation, costs, etc. I also included Sandy Hook's website (www.sandy-hook.com) so users could go find more information on Sandy Hook if they wanted to. This page will display information about our project including: Who we are, What our project is (the herbarium), Where we are located, and Any additional information. I chose to have an "About Us" page because it will allow visitors to get a feel for who we are and what our herbarium is all about.This page will show all of the plants in our herbarium. I divided this page into different sections, including Primary Dune and Salt Marsh, so visitors know what part of Sandy Hook the plant is from or if they already know what environment of Sandy Hook the plant is from, it will be easy to find the plant. I chose to allow visitors to see all of the plants on a smaller scale on the right side and have the plant of focus enlarged on the rest of the screen. This allows easy navigation.

Alternative Solution 2: The MoonfruitI chose to use the interface Moonfruit because it allows users to create a free website that is very customizable. Also it allows users to host their website if they use ".moonfruit.com" as the ending of your web address. For example I chose the web address to be www.sandyhookherbarium.moonfruit.com. We could always pay to have the ".moonfruit.com" removed if we wanted to. The home page is a little more complex than my other website design (the Wix). It has a defined, easy to ready title and top bar so users could find their way around the website easily. Also I included my logo. On the top left underneath the menu bar, I included a short little welcome explaining were we are located. On the home page I also decided to include an "About Us" while on the other website I had it on its own page. I decided that it may be a good idea to have users see who and what we are right off the bat. On the sides of the page I included pictures that I took of Sandy Hook while we were out in the field. I chose to put an "About Sandy Hook" page on the site because I think it is important for visitors to the herbarium website to have somewhat of an understanding about Sandy Hook. This herbarium is all about the plants of Sandy Hook and I think having a brief history of Sandy Hook with a link to their website will be beneficial. I chose to have to Sandy Hook sign as the banner just to emphasize the page. The main banner with the title and menu remained the same. The last page of the Moonfruit website is the "Our Plants" page. I have an "Our Plants" on my other website as well but this one is a little different. The page has the same main banner with the title and menu as the rest of the website. I chose to divide up this page by region of Sandy Hook. The example I have shown in the picture has the "Edge" area of Island Beach State Park. Each section will have its own scroll through album and when you click on the picture it enlarges and information could be typed underneath it. The allows users to see a lot of pictures at one time so they could find plants easier if they know what they look like. Also dividing the albums by area of Sandy Hook allows users to find plants easier if they saw the plant in a certain area or know where it is from. 

The final solution of our senior project will be an interactive herbarium containing the native plant species of Sandy Hook. This herbarium is expected to be easily accessible to the general public. In this interactive herbarium, the public should be able to have easy access to all the plant information we have researched and collected. To make sure our herbarium is of professional quality, we must make sure that our plants are properly pressed, mounted, labeled, and housed. Also we have to make sure that are labels are readable and that the information is presented in a way the general public can understand. Involved in the testing will be all group members as well as the two instructors, Mr. Alfonse and Ms. McDonald. We will be testing to make sure everything meets the professional standard we have set in the lab. All testing will be done within Sandy Hook.Exploratory tests  The exploratory tests are to see if the visitors of our herbarium will get what they came to find or expect of our herbarium. Since Sandy Hook does not have an herbarium that the general public can access and learn from, our herbarium will allow its visitors to learn about the vast plant life that Sandy Hook has. The visitors will benefit from being able to learn information that we provide them with about the plants. The visitors will be able to access all of the information we have for the native plants we have collected. Also for the website,

Alternative Solution 3: Utah Valley University HerbariumThis solution involves using free codes provided to us by the Utah Valley University Herbarium. A while back I found a website put out by the Utah Valley University Herbarium called "How to Build Your Own Virtual Herbarium." This site has great information on how to format your virtual herbarium including planning the website, integrating GIS, scanning your specimens, and downloads (for the codes). This is the home page for the Utah Valley University Herbarium. The coding they provide for us will allow us to make a home page just like this one. This home page has a dark (black) background which allows the bright colors of the flowers to pop. Instead of Utah's plants, we will use the plants of Sandy Hook. On this page, the top menu bar changes and includes links to their history page, their staff page, their location page, their research page, and their documentation page. Far in the right corner is a link to their Online Specimen Catalog which also can be accessed from the main home page. For our herbarium , the staff and history page will be combined to form the About Us page. Also for our herbarium, the history page will be turned into the About Sandy Hook page. We may or may not need to use the research and documentation portions of the website.By having a separate menu bar for this set of pages, it allows for easier navigation. This clearly explains to the visitor the type of information provided to them for each plant. Also it has a keyword search so users can search for plants or plant information and it even has an advanced search. It also allows users to find plants through links showing lists of Families, Genera, Common Names, Collectors, etc. This is an example of the catalogue list that shows up when the user clicks on the link that says "common name." This allows the user to browse in a way that is easier for the average person to understand.This is the specimen page for Winged Sumac.It includes a lot of information about the plant but we would also add more interesting information like therapeutic uses, etc.It also includes where the plant was collected using Google maps. We may or may not use Google maps but the map will definitely be integrated somewhere

Plant PressSpecimen from Emily de Camp

Sandy Hook Bay