CMS 222 (Fall 2007)

Section A: Mondays and Wednesdays, 4:10-5:30 p.m. || Section B: Mondays and Wednesdays, 5:40-7:00 p.m. || VINI 115

Instructor: Dr. Erin Karper || E-mail: ekarper@niagara.edu or ekarper@gmail.com || AIM: ProfKarper || Office: Dunleavy 350 || Office Phone: 286-8631 || Office Hours: MWF 12:30-2:30 p.m.; by appointment

Download Syllabus (PDF File) || Download Course Schedule (PDF File)

Monday, December 3

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 5

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 reflective memo
• All questions of the week completed

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 12.

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 5 . 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.

Today, we’ll:

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?

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.

1. Task Creation
2. Task Observation
3. 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 three users completing the task you designed in the first phase.

Each member of your group should observe one user. As the observer:

1. Explain the task to the user.
2. Watch as the user completes the task and take notes on what the user does.
3. 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 28, 2007
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.

Continue to work on your sites.

Assignment for Next Class

Answer the question of the week in your blog.
User testing memo due by beginning of class on Monday.

Please post the answer to this question in your blogs by December 5. 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 10.

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? Here’s one more video to help you think about these issues:

Monday, November 26

Today you’ll work on generating content and creating Web pages.

Assignments for Next Class

Answer the question of the week in your blog.
Continue working on group Web project; working version of your site (at least two pages) needs to be published to the Web for testing by beginning of class on Monday.

Wednesday, November 28

Today you’ll conduct and report on user testing and then continue working on your Web sites.

Assignments for Next Class

Answer the question of the week in your blog.
User testing memo due by beginning of class on Monday.
Continue working on your Web sites.

Today, we’ll:

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.

Discuss ways to build templates for your Web pages.

Templates are built from the wireframes that you created. 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.

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.

Assignments for this Week

Answer the question of the week in your blogs.
Work on the group Web project.

This week we’ll work on creating and editing content for your Web pages. Plan to work in your groups both days.

Assignments for this Week

Answer the question of the week in your blogs.
Work on the group Web project.

Please post the answer to this question in your blogs by Wednesday, November 21.

In his discussion of his “Long Tail” theory, Chris Anderson says: our economy and culture is shifting from mass markets to million of niches. It [the book written about it] chronicles the effect of the technologies that have made it easier for consumers to find and buy niche products, thanks to the “infinite shelf-space effect”–the new distribution mechanisms, from digital downloading to peer-to-peer markets, that break through the bottlenecks of broadcast and traditional bricks and mortar retail.

Two questions for you:

1) Are you seeing this “long tail” effect in your own consumption/production habits?

2) What does this have to do with writing for the Web?