Course schedule

Assignments

Please note: late assignments will have points deducted!

participation & technical proficiency (15 points)

Everyone is expected to improve their technical proficiency from where they entered the class. Certains skills are necessary and all students are expected to master those skills. Other skills demonstrate an ability to "figure it out" and that is what computing is all about. Grades are based on students' motivation and willingness to figure out problems and hurdles they encounter.

Technical proficiency includes:

• comfort using CSS
• understanding of how and why to use tables for format
• creating a working form
• spotlight on you flash movie
• graphics created in photoshop
• graphics created in fireworks
• rollovers and image maps
• ability to upload files (know which are the correct file formats to insert into your pages and how to upload those files)
• ability to go into the HTML code when something does not work in order to figure out and solve the problem

Team presentation (15 points)

Each team will make 1 presentation on a topic assigned by the instructor. You should spend about 45-60 minutes on the topic, demonstrating a certain skill within the appropriate application. In addition, you should hand out instruction sheets and make these instructions available online. You should come up at least 1 mini project utilizing your team's skill for the class to add to their homepage. Finally, you will assist the instructor in guiding the class as we all work on that skill. Teams will be formed the first day of class.

Team 1 Scott Patrick Jason S.

Team 2 Tom Alex Sean

Team 3 Jason F. Adriel Kyle Eric

Team 4 Jim Devon Kristina

Team webpage (5 points)

Each team will create a team webpage and present this page on June 20. Your team webpage must include:

• visually and technically interesting features
• links to each individual team member's redesign project
• contact information for each team member
• link to ist 361 homepage
• link to team presentation project (your team's project)
• anything else your team thinks would add to the uniqueness and look and feel for your temporary web development company!

Let your team page be an opportunity for your team to "show off" your skills and creativity.

web design project (65 points)

One of the best ways to learn how to create an entire website is to, indeed, create an entire website. You will use this summer session to create a website.

Part 1: Initial Research (10 points)
due end of class: Thursday, May 31 (email to me at jjpowers@uamail.albany.edu)
Read and review WebPagesThatSuck.com for guidelines on good and bad web design. Find an additional 3 sources (online or print) about web design. Write a 2-page paper about web design (remember to cite your sources) and create a 1-page checklist/rating sheet to evaluate websites.

Part 2: Additional Research (10 points)
due end of class: Thursday, June 7 (email me at jjpowers@uamail.albany.edu)
Find 10 websites that use poor design elements. Evaluate these sites according to the research you used for your paper and the evaluation criteria sheet you created. Email me the 10 evaluations.

Part 3: Client Contact (15 points)
due: Thursday, June 13 (email me at jjpowers@uamail.albany.edu)
Make contact with at least one of the websites that you evaluated last week (this may take a while and you may have to contact all 10 or even additional clients before getting a response). Have a list of questions prepared for them. You are offering to redesign their site using good design elements, but you must know what they want and expect from their website. This contact is for that purpose. You might also want to ask how likely they are to use your revised design. You will hand in to me the questions you asked and the responses. You can also forward to me the email correspondence (put it all into 1 email message to me rather than sending a series of messages). You need to also use this information in the client site redesign.

Part 4: Client Redesign (30 points)
due: Friday, June 22 by 5 pm (email me at jjpowers@uamail.albany.edu)
According to the feedback you get from your client contact and the poor/good design principles you started the session identifying, you will redesign the homepage and 1 level-one page. It is essential that you incorporate the feedback from the client while maintaining good design ideas. If you show the client the redesign and they accept it as a redesign, you will automatically recieve full credit (unless the owner of the site is someone you have known previously). If you show the client and they do not accept it, but it does address their concerns as well as the design criteria you identified, you will recieve credit at my discretion. If you do not address the client's concerns or do not eliminate the bad design elements, you will recieve partial credit. If you do not address the client's concerns and do not eliminate the bad design elements, you will recieve no credit.

What is due?

• print out of the original site's homepage and one page of the interior of the site and turn these in for comparison
• hand back in your evaluation of the site with the URL of the original site
• email me the URL of the redesign and the email address of your contact person
• write up a 1 page (bullet points are ok) outline of what you did to improve upon the orignal site and how you incorporated the client's feedback into your redesign.
• do a 5 minute presentation on June 21 about the improvements/enhancements you made to the site

Grades

Participation & Technical Proficiency = 15 points
Team presentation = 15 points
Web Design Project = 65 points
Team webpage = 5 points

Points will be deducted for unexcused absences, lateness, and early departures.

Design websites for ideas

http://www.thecoolhunter.net

http://www.core77.com/

2nd Nature

IST 361 Home

Last updated 20.06.2007 15:45