Weekly Agenda for December 4-6
Monday, December 4
Today you’ll continue to work on your Group Web Projects, including preparing to give your presentations on Wednesday.
Assignments for Next Class
Continue to work on your projects. Prepare to present your site to the class.
Wednesday, December 6
Today you’ll (hopefully) finish your Group Web Projects and present your sites to the class. We’ll also conduct course evaluations.
Due By December 13
- E-mail from one group member with Web address for final version of site
- E-mail from each group member with memo
- All questions of the week completed
Group Web Project: Reflective Memo Guidelines
After you’ve completed the group Web project, you will write a short reflection about what this experience taught you about writing for the Web.
Specifics
You will write a short reflection of one or two double-spaced pages where you:
- Describe your role in the project and the work you completed.
- Explain any problems that you encountered during the project.
- Describe and reflect on what you learned about writing for the Web from this project and from the course in general.
Grading Criteria
The instructor will grade the memo based on the quality of your descriptions, the quality of your reflections, and your use of English. You can earn a total of 25 points for this. The memo is due as an e-mailed attachment to the instructor by December 13.
Printer-Friendly VersionGroup Web Project: Presentation Guidelines
Specifics
After you have completed (or nearly completed) your sites, you will give a short presentation (5-10 minutes) on your site in class on December 6 . In the presentation you will:
- describe your client and purpose for making the site
- show the site and describe its features
- explain how your site is a good fit for the client and why you made the design and writing choices that you did
- answer any questions that people have for you
Everyone in your group should take a speaking role in the presentation.
Grading Criteria
The presentation will be graded on the quality of your descriptions and the quality of your delivery.
Your group can earn a total of 25 points for your presentation.
Printer-Friendly VersionNotes and Activities for November 29
Today, we’ll:
1) Discuss different types of site testing.
- Functionality: does everything work?
- Usability: can people do what they need to do on the site?
- Accessibility: can everyone use my site?
2) Conduct usability tests on your site drafts.
User testing is an important part of understanding how the writing and design of a Web site work (or don’t work) in the hands of users. It allows you to identify and correct problems at all stages of the design process.
User testing involves three stages, which you will work through in this activity.
- Task Creation
- Task Observation
- Task Write-Up
Task Creation
First, your group needs to make a list of common tasks that users might do on your Web site. Use the following questions to help you make this list.
- Why would users visit this site? What would they want to do or find on this site?
- What information would users look for on this site that is not on the main page of the site?
Based on this list, write a description of a task that users could do when they visited your Web site. Here are some examples:
Find the product page for the FreebleMaster 6000 and add a FreebleMaster to your shopping cart.
Use the site to locate information about the current movies playing at the Arty Art Theatre.
After you’ve written a description of the task, prepare several computers in your area for task observation by pulling up the appropriate page in a Web browser and getting ready to take notes.
Task Observation
In the task observation phase, your group will take turns observing users performing your task and being users for another group’s task. Your group should attempt to observe at least four, and ideally five users completing the task you designed in the first phase.
Each member of your group should observe one user. (If you have less than five people in your group, you may need to do more than one). As the observer:
- Explain the task to the user.
- Watch as the user completes the task and take notes on what the user does.
- Thank the user for their time when they are done.
After each group member has completed observing a user, you should regroup and either participate in the other group’s user test or proceed to the task write-up stage.
Task Write-Up
After you have observed all of your users and participated in the other group’s user test, your group needs to write up your results. Use your notes and observations and the following template to create a brief memo in Microsoft Word to the instructor about the results of your test.
To: Dr. Karper
From: Your Group Member’s Names
Date: November 29, 2006
Subject: User-Testing Write Up
Description of the Site
(Provide a description of the site and its purpose.)
Description of the Task
(Describe your task and explain why you chose it.)
Description of the Test
(Describe how you conducted the user test.)
Description of Results
(Describe the results of the test and what you learned about your site from the test.)
Recommendations
(Describe any recommendations for changes to the site that should be made based on the testing.)
E-mail your memo as an attachment to the instructor. She’ll grade it and it will be worth 25 points out of the 350 for the Group Web Project.
3) Continue to work on your sites.
Assignment for Next Class
Work on finishing your site.
Catch up on any questions of the week that you might have missed.
Agenda for November 27-December 1
Monday, November 27
Today you’ll work on creating pages for your Web sites. By Wednesday, you need to have a working version of the site for usability testing.
Assignment for Next Class
Continue to work on your group Web projects. Publish a working version of your sites by Wednesday at class time.
Wednesday, November 29
Today you’ll conduct usability testing on your Web sites, write a memo about it to the instructor, and continue to work on your Group Web projects.
Assignment for Next Class
Finish usability testing memo and send to instructor as e-mailed attachment.
Work on finishing your site.
Catch up on any questions of the week that you might have missed.
Question of the Week for November 27
Please post the answer to this question in your blog by Monday, November 27. Remember that you can also catch up on past questions of the week if you want to get full points for this assignment. All answers are due by December 8.
What have you learned about Web writing during the semester? What do you think the most important or significant differences are between Web writing and other forms of writing?
Printer-Friendly VersionNotes and Activities for November 20
Today, you’ll continue to work on creating your Web sites.
Assignments for this Week
Answer the Question of the Week (last one!) in your blog.
Continue to work on your group web projects.
Notes and Activities for November 15
Today, we’ll:
1) Discuss issues in creating collaborative Web sites.
Certain issues arise when people build collaborative Web sites.
- How to divide work fairly.
- Creating usable templates.
- How to link up pages that individual people are creating.
- Which person will “host” the site on their NU Web space.
- How to transfer files to the person hosting the final version of the site.
How to make the site building process go smoothly:
- Assign people roles and divide up page creation before building the site. Decide who will take responsibility for the different pages.
- Decide who will host the site on their NU Web space.
- Have the host create a folder on their NU Web space that will host the files. (Ask the instructor to show you how.)
- Come up with a process for sending the host completed pages or sending the host formatted content that could be pasted into a Web page. (HTML files and images can be sent as e-mail attachments or put into Zip files and sent via email to the host. You can also put them on a USB stick and pass the USB stick to someone. Or, you could set up a site on each computer and have the person enter their FTP information and password for you.)
- Decide on how you will name files: remember to avoid using spaces, punctuation, or special characters.
- Create a template for subsidiary pages from the wireframes that you built.
- Set up a site in Dreamweaver to store the files you will be working on.
- Use the wireframe for the index to create your index page.
- Use the template for the subsidiary pages to create subsidiary pages.
- Test the site in browsers frequently to make sure that links work.
- Send your pages to the host and have the host upload the final site.
2) Discuss ways to build templates for your Web pages.
Templates are built from the wireframes that you created on Monday. They should contain:
- Logo or organization information
- Title of the page
- Navigation, including working links
- Color scheme
- Places for content (text, images, media, links)
Templates should basically be working versions of the Web pages — you simply add the necessary content to create the pages. All pages should use the templates that you built.
3) Work to build templates and create pages for your group Web sites.
Use the feedback on your wireframes to help you create the templates for your subsidiary pages and to generate an index page from your index page wireframe.
Printer-Friendly VersionQuestion of the Week for November 20
Please post the answer to this question in your blogs by Monday, November 20.
In “10 Tips for Writing the Living Web,” Mark Bernstein says, “Some parts of the web are finished, unchanging creations – as polished and as fixed as books or posters. But many parts change all the time.”
In this class, you’ve been studying and producing both kinds of writing. Which type of writing do you feel more comfortable with producing — the more fixed and unchanged types of Web pages such as some of the pages for your group Web project or portfolio, or the “living web” exemplified by your blog?
Printer-Friendly VersionWeekly Agenda for November 13-17
Monday, November 13
Today you’ll work on creating site maps and wireframes for your group Web projects. They’re due by the beginning of class on Wednesday.
Assignments for Next Class
- Answer the Question of the Week in your blog.
- Finish site maps/wireframes; they’re due at the beginning of class on Wednesday.
Wednesday, November 15
Today we’ll discuss how to create templates in Dreamweaver and you’ll work on converting the wireframes for your subsidiary pages into templates. We’ll also discuss how to host the collaborative Web projects. Then you’ll work on creating and editing content and creating Web pages for the group Web projects.
Assignments for Next Class
- Answer the Question of the Week in your blog.
- Read “Eight Problems That Haven’t Changed” and “Naming Files and Folders”
- Work on Group Web Projects.
Group Web Project: Sitemap/Wireframes Guidelines
After you’ve written your proposal, you’ll then begin to design the site by making choices about the organization and the presentation of content. You’ll demonstrate the proposed design for your site by creating a site map and two wireframes for your project.
Specifics
The site map should:
- show the number of pages on your site
- clearly label each page with a short description of its content or title
- show how the pages will be connected to each other
- be created on a computer or on paper
You will create a wire frame for the index page of your site and for the subsidiary pages of your site. The wire frames should:
- show the placement of content and navigation on the site
- demonstrate an understanding of the box model by showing the “boxes” for content and navigation and where they will be positioned
- show the possible colors for backgrounds, fonts, links, and other types of emphasis, fonts, and logos that will appear on the site
- be created as Web pages (HTML files) and e-mailed to the instructor as attachments.
You do not have to include content on the wireframes, but you can include “dummy content” to show what a page might look like.
Grading Criteria
The site map and wireframes will be graded on the creativity and audience appropriateness of the organization, navigation, colors, images, and presentation. You can earn 25 points for this project.
Due Dates
Both the site map and the wireframes are due on Wednesday, November 15 at the start of class. You will have time in class on November 8 and November 13 to work on these projects.
Printer-Friendly VersionNotes and Activities for November 8
Today, we’ll:
1) Turn in your site proposals.
2) Discuss the guidelines for the next stage of your project: site maps and wireframes.
3) Discuss how to translate your proposed content into a site.
- Develop a plan for how many pages the site will have, what each one will contain, and how they will be connected to each other.
- Create a visual representation of this plan on the computer or on paper: this is called a site map.
- Use the site map to develop and plan navigation.
Please draw a preliminary site map in your groups. You’ll turn in the final version on Wednesday the 15th.
4) Discuss creating navigation for a Web page/Web site.
Navigation should:
- Emerge from your plan for the site: show readers the choices available to them on the site.
- Explain the various categories of information available
- Provide readers with clear choices for where to go next
- Use unambiguous language and/or images to label links (no mystery meat navigation)
- Provide short and clear labels for each category of information
- Be provided in multiple places on a page:
- Top
- Bottom
- Sidebar
Navigation can take the form of:
- An index page
- A link bar (with or without images)
- A list of links
- Links in the text
4) Discuss what a wireframe for a Web page contains.
Web page content usually includes:
- Navigation
- Text
- Images
- Any other content (logos, consistent graphics, embedded media)
A wireframe or a sketch of a page indicates where this content will be placed and also what types of fonts, logos and colors will be used. Wireframes are usually first drawn on paper and then created as Web pages so that people can see how they will look on the screen. Before you can create a wireframe, let’s talk a little bit more about color.
5) Discuss choosing colors for a Web page.
In the past, Web-safe color was important, but most browsers have evolved beyond the need for Web-safe color.
In any case, you should create a color palatte for your Web site. This should include:
- Page background color
- Link colors (unvisited and visited)
- Text colors
- Dominant colors in images: you might want to create a color palatte based on the colors in a client’s logo or an image representing the company.
To make it look professional, try to limit yourself to no more than three to five colors, and make the colors match each other. You’re creating a color scheme similar to designing a print document or decorating a room.
Make sure to provide enough contrast between background color and link and text colors.
Color scheme designers for you to use: Web Color Theory || Spin the Color Wheel
6) Work on creating site maps and wireframes for your Web pages.
Assignments for Next Class
Read “Home Page Goals”
Work on creating sitemaps/wireframes for your group’s project.
Answer the Question of the Week in your blog by next Monday.
Question of the Week for November 13
Web design (which controls the appearance and format of Web writing) goes through trends much like any other form of design or fashion. Take a look at Current Web style to see some examples of the current trends in Web design. What do you think about these current trends? Would you want to use any of the common features described in the article in the design of your group’s Web site?
Printer-Friendly VersionWeekly Agenda for November 6-10
Monday, November 6
Today your groups will work on the site proposals for your clients. Proposals are due at the start of class on Wednesday.
Assignments for Next Class
Finish your site proposals.
Answer the Question of the Week in your blog by next Monday.
Wednesday, November 8
Today your groups will turn in your site proposals. Then we’ll talk about how one frames a site — creating information architecture and generating visual representations of a site. You’ll work in your groups to build site maps and wireframes for your sites: first on paper, and then as Web page mock-ups.
Assignments for Next Class
Read “Home Page Goals”
Work on creating sitemaps/wireframes for your group’s project.
Answer the Question of the Week in your blog by next Monday.
Question of the Week for November 6
Please post the answer to this question in your blogs by Monday, November 6.
As we’ve discussed in class, the Web means that anyone with access and knowledge can publish content. The Web also allows people to use written content, sound, video, animations, and images with much more ease than in other types of media. This has lead to an explosion of creative content online.
How do you think this explosion of creative content online will affect the more traditional outlets for creative content such as publishing houses, magazines, films, and television? Is the Web serious competetion for those outlets, or is it just a bunch of amateurs?
Printer-Friendly VersionNotes and Activities for October 30
Today, we’ll:
1) Go over the site proposal guidelines.
2) Review ways to generate and organize content for a Web site.
- Assets list
- Outlining
- Mapping
- Listing
- Card sorts
3) Generate lists of content for your group Web projects.
Please create a list of content for your Web sites.
4) Discuss ways to generate an information architecture for a site.
What do users ask when they visit a site?
- “Am I in the right place?
- Do they have what I’m looking for?
- Do they have anything better?” (Wodtke 90)
How can you help users find what they’re looking for or accomplish their tasks?
- Show the range of your offerings.
- Give people a clear indication of how they can get to them.
- Provide various ways for people to find their way around the site.
- Organize and label information based on how users think and talk about that information.
How do you organize based around user needs?
- Observe organization in the physical world.
- Observe how other Web designers have accomplished similar tasks.
- Ask users to sort, categorize, and label content. (Wodtke 96)
5) Do a card sort activity to determine organization for your sites.
5) Generate a possible information architecture for your sites.
Assignment for Next Class
No class on Wednesday.
Answer the Question of the Week in your blog.
Work on your group Web projects.
Group Web Project: Proposal Guidelines
Proposals are an important part of communicating your proposed work to a client. Often clients will review competing proposals for a Web site and decide on the one that they like best. Your group must write a short (2-4 page) proposal which analyzes the primary and secondary audiences for the site and explains the proposed content (or revisions to content) that the site will contain.
Specifics
Your proposal should:
- Describe the client (organization, group, business, entity).
- Describe the purpose of the site.
- Describe the competition and how your site will be distinguished from the competition. (Hint: use material from the purpose analysis you did in class.)
- Describe the primary and secondary audiences for the site: include demographic details, their reasons for visiting the site, why they would be repeat visitors to the site and how you will keep their interest. (Hint: use material from the audience analysis you did in class.)
- Describe the possible content (or revisions to content) that your site will contain: include the categories that you will use for organization/navigation and a list of topics that the site will cover. Also mention if you will need to get any permissions for content before it can be used.
- Describe your timeline for creating the site, and your plan for site maintenance.
Formatting
Your proposal should:
- Be between two and four pages (single-spaced) using a 10 or 12 point font.
- At the top of the first page, list your group members’ names and the title Proposal for Client Name.
- Use headings to make distinctions between sections.
- Attribute any words, ideas, or information that you get from other sources by using in-text references.
- Be clear, concise, precise, and use conventions for standard written English.
- Be e-mailed to the instructor as an attached Microsoft Word Document.
Grading Criteria
The proposal will be graded on:
- The quality of your description of purpose, client, and competition. (15 points)
- The audience description and analysis. (15 points)
- The description of content and your timeline for creating the site. (15 points)
- The clarity and precision of your language use. (5 points)
Your group can earn a total of 50 points for this project.
Due Date
Final version due at the beginning of class on November 8th.
Printer-Friendly VersionMy Web Workbook #8: How do I build an entire Web site?
This assignment asks you to work with all of the principles you’ve learned so far this semester. It also asks you to use the work that you did for My Web Workbook #7.
Tasks to Complete
Your assignment is to create a small online portfolio of at least three pages, using the work you did last Wednesday as a starting point. The portfolio could include:
- a resume (Web and print-friendly versions) detailing your accomplishments, presented in a style that is appropriate to your field
- evidence of your experience and accomplishments in the field, such as writing samples, music samples, video samples, images, or other ways of demonstrating your skills and creativity
- a statement from you that explains your self-presentation and provides context for visitors to your portfolio
- links to professional sites or sites where your work is featured
In terms of content and Web page elements, your portfolio should should contain:
- a main index page
- at least three pages (including the index) which contain content
- navigation on each page which provides links to the different pages on your site
- at least one image
- consistent choices in colors, use of images, placement of content, and page design
By the end of class, you should upload all of the files for your site to your Niagara Web space and send the instructor an email with the Web address for the main page.
Helpful Links
- Previous My Web Workbook Instructions
- Free Stock Photos
- MorgueFile
- Clip Art Directory
- Color Palette Generator
- Color Picker
Notes and Activities for October 25
Today, we’ll:
1) Review principles for Web design and Web writing.
- Writing (concise; using headings and lists)
- Organization (obvious and simple)
- Navigation (clear and consistent)
- Color (contrast and limited palettes)
- Consistency (repeat your choices)
2) Do My Web Workbook #8, which asks you to create an entire small Web site using what you’ve learned so far in the course.
Assignment for Next Class
Answer the Question of the Week in your blog.
Read Chapter 3 in Writing for the Web
Question of the Week for October 30
Please post the answer to this question in your blog by October 30.
In Hot Text (and as quoted in Writing for the Web), the Prices describe attention as the “currency of the Internet.” What do you think they mean by that? How will you apply that principle to your group Web project and to any future Web writing work you might do?
Printer-Friendly Version