Okay, so, even though I’m really happy with my finished product for this assignment, getting to this point of satisfaction was NOT fun.

Homecoming weekend was this weekend, so after being awakened far too early on my Saturday morning by alums standing on Ball Circle singing jaunty tunes about beer (this was the actual song they were singing; I’m not even joking),  decided I should get started on my biggest project of the week.

Gathering up all of my electronics and coziest jacket, I went and sat in the sunlight and began. The Mozilla Goggles thankfully weren’t hard to learn how to use (and I had no idea Mozilla offered so many awesome web design tools/apps!), so the hardest part for me was to decide what sort of site I wanted to re-design.

I’m a huge fan of IMDB and LOVE to browse message boards of movies I’ve just finished watching (especially if the films have deep, whacky, open-to-interpretation endings and I’m confused and emotionally distraught and have to have someone explain the details or plot elements before I drive myself insane), but I wanted to work on a site that wasn’t provided in the examples for this week, so I decided on Buzzfeed–particularly, their Life section.

Buzzfeed is a super popular website with 20-somethings, and I myself spend far too much time taking their quizzes instead of sleeping. Therefore, I knew the website would be familiar to my audience, and the layout is rich with fun colors, text, and pictures that I could easily edit.

The twist was: instead of being aimed at humans, this Buzzfeed Life page would be aimed at pets! Featuring articles such as “Best DIY Exercises for Those Days When Your Human Won’t Take You for a Walk” and “Top Fashion Trends from the Latest Westminster Kennel Show,” the page was going to be über popular with humankind’s favorite friends.

I had half the page coded when…boom.

Or, rather–no boom. Nothing at all, actually. My entire screen went dark, Mozilla WebMaker Goggles stopped functioning, and I lost all of my work. I mentally debated screaming and throwing my laptop across the field, but decided against that, because there was a lovely family playing Frisbee nearby that didn’t need to see such a tantrum.

Rather than moan and groan and try and figure out what happened (I still don’t know what happened; I was at 74% charge, other apps would work, and the Mozilla Goggles just went kaput), I went inside to have a snack and take a breather.

I was too frustrated to try and re-do my Buzzfeed page (R.I.P. Buzzfeed Life For Pets 2014-2014), so I tried to think of something a bit simpler but still fun. I was inspired by the amusing Amazon.com Wolf T-Shirt reviews and decided to keep with my dog/pet theme and write a critique of some online item. Instead of choosing an actual analog product, though, I searched pet apps.

One of the top results was DoggyDatez. I thought it was a cute, unique way for dogs to meet other dogs in the neighborhood/town/city while their humans got to socialize, too, but then I tried thinking from a dog’s point-of-view. Sure, meeting new animals is a blast–especially for canines–but I would be mad if my mom or dad’s attention was suddenly on another person or their smartphone instead of me during our walks!

Therefore, my altered DoggyDatez: REVIEWED BY ACTUAL DOGS page was born.

If you can’t read the text super well, I apologize. My screen was being troublesome, so I had to zoom out, but hopefully you can zoom in on the screencaps or check out the live version.

I began by re-writing the description. Each detail/perk that the app company described I re-described as an angry pooch! Therefore, traveling to all sorts of different territories overseas or in different states (NO PLANES PLEASE says every dog ever) or marking/labeling territory with the touch of a finger instead of pee became cause for concern and sometimes outrage. The dogs have spoken, and they clearly prefer dog parks where THEIR socialization is the main focus–not their human’s–or one-on-one play time and fetch with their favorite person in the world AKA their owner.

Then, I edited user reviews by giving each Internet savvy dog a personality and username to match.

The first was a handsome, smooth–or trying to be smooth–perhaps over-eager Rottweiler that liked to lay on the charm.

Username “rott weiler.” What a ham.

The next was a precious, overactive golden retriever who was just really upset that her momma wasn’t paying as much attention to her because of this app. We are the center of our pets’ worlds, after all, so we should give them as much love and care as possible, right? Fetch > smartphone apps.

This shot really speaks to username “GOLDY RETRIEVE”‘s personality.

The last user to review happened to be the very same poodle with whom username rott weiler was so smitten. Clearly, the feelings weren’t reciprocated, and she officially prefers meeting dogs in person to “online dating.”

So much sass from “LittleMissPerfectPoodle.”

I then fiddled with details like the title/subtitles of the app (that also act as the title and subtitle for this post) and Compatibility.

The actual editing took forever, because X-Ray Goggles kept crashing/messing up on me, again! I’m not sure if there’s something wrong with my computer or it was just the app, but some text segments appeared completely deleted/empty after I’d just added them while others were in the wrong place or duplicated for no apparent reason. Maybe I should write Mozilla and let them know the Goggles have bugs. Do those crash/error reports ever actually help IT services and coders, anyway? I’ve always wondered.
Frustrations and app crashing aside, I had a lot of fun with this project. I’m such a dog lover that looking for material for this edit and my short-lived Buzzfeed page was a blast. The voices I have in my head for each dog are pretty funny, too, but I’ll let your imaginations run wild with those details rather than provide them, this time. (;

Enjoy & thanks!