15 Final Grade Calculation

Final Grade Calculation

The final grade adds up to a possible 110%, allowing some leeway in the satisfactory completion of all assignments, as long as the student attends and participates in class. 3 Absences are ground for Failure.

* Does not require coding. No Late Assignments accepted.

Send me a zipped version of your final project before the due day, 5 days after the last class.

Grade calculation:

Date Due Percent
2/6/15 Website Analysis* 5%
2/13/15 Landing Page 5%
2/13/15 HTML markup of Analysis 5%
2/20/15 7 Steps — Midterm Worksheet* 5%
2/27/15 CSS selections 5%
2/27/15 Photoshop comp/ HTML Wire Frame 5%
First Quarter Assessment
2/27/15 incorporate CSS Layout Strategies in web site 5%
2/27/15 Quiz:
3/6/15 Peer Review 5%
Official Midterm Review
3/13/15 Typography Poster 5%
3/13/15 Portfolio: Midterm 10%
3/13/15 class Presentation 5%
Second Quarter Assessment
3/20/15 Final: Worksheet* 5%
4/3/15 Responsive Redesign of Portfolio 5%
4/10/15 CSS3 Collateral 5%
4/17/15 CSS3 Animatic 5%
4/24/15 Final: Modular Navigation 5%
Third Quarter Assessment
5/1/15 HTML5 Multimedia 5%
5/8/15 Final: Peer Review 5%
5/8/15 Forms 5%
5/15/15 WordPress CMS 5%
15/15/15 Final: Presentation 5%
Final Quarter Assessment
Two assignments dropped: -10%
Total: 100%

13 Homework

Homework for the Final

  1. Update website with suggestions from the peer review. State how effective the peer review was in making you reconsider aspects of your site.
  2. Write review and hand in to the person whose website you reviewed right after you reviewed it.

Homework for the Unit

  • The final project is to have a form on it.

12 Homework

Homework for the Final

  1. Finish your website.
  2. Test it.

Homework for the Unit

  1. Create a page featuring multimedia, including canvas and video.
  2. Ideally, you are able to incorporate canvas and video in the final, but the final does not have to include multimedia.
  3. A link to the multimedia page has to be on the work-sheet.

11 Homework

Homework for the Final

  1. Develop and document the information architecture of the finished site in your work-sheet.
  2. As You develop the navigation, create it as a PHP include.
  3. Test it.

Homework for the Unit

  • Replace the navigation of your final with a PHP include.
  • create a JavaScript/jQuery script for use in your final website.

10 Homework

Homework for the Final

  1. Your worksheet needs to reflect your final project, and it is due today (the work-sheet, not the final, with research, wireframe, comp and user experience profiles, including links where necessary).
  2. Create a mockup and develop a look that sells your project. This can build upon the CSS3 assignment from last week.
  3. Translate the structure of the comp into a wireframe
  4. Develop coherent user experience profiles.

Homework for the Unit

  • Using these new CSS3 properties, create an animatics or animated page that sells your project.
  • It’s possible to animate the elements created in the previous homework.
  • Make sure that you use at least two transforms, transitions and an animation.
  • Ideally you animate everything by hand, but I will understand if you use Adobe Edge.
  • A link to this promotional material has to be on the work-sheet.

09 Homework

Homework for the Final

  1. You should know what you are selling on the final web site, have done the research, developed the brand and have given the target audience some thought. All of this needs to be documented in the worksheet.
  2. Develop a potential user portfolio and flush out what they would want. Guesstimate their potential browsing habits. Provide an idealized user profile in the worksheet.
  3. As you plan your web site, read through the peer review questions. Let these questions help you in developing your website, as this is the criteria by which the final will be evaluated.
  4. Develop a photoshop comp of the opening page that incorporates both the evaluation criteria of the review questions and the many of the CSS3 techniques covered today. Now that you have an idea of what CSS3 can do, do it!

Homework for the Unit

  1. Use these new CSS3 properties to pull together a collateral piece for your project. It can be a sales poster, an online brochure, or any other kind of promotional material using at least five techniques discussed in class. Include blends, multiple background images, rounded corners, shadows, transparency, etc.

    Visit this Design Festival article to get you started.

08 Homework

Homework for the Final

prepare a pitch of your final website in a new worksheet dedicated to the final.

  1. Introduce the idea.
  2. What are you selling?
  3. This is the problem your website has to solve?
  4. How will the website solve the problem?
  5. Is the proposal sound?
  6. How it is different from other, similar websites?
  7. How does it addresses the target audience?
  8. Write down the problem you are solving and how the website will solve the problem. Include websites of similar products or competing products that helped you form your decision as to how to proceed in the work-sheet, as I will compare the pitch to the final website.
  9. You are allowed to change the problem and how you plan on solving it as time goes on. Add this to the worksheet, as this is to track your creative process.

Homework for the Unit

  1. You are to make your portfolio responsive.
  2. It is up to you to finish it.
  3. I want to see the core pages responsive to one media query, targeting small screens like the iphone.

07 Homework

Final Assignment

  1. The final assignment is to create a web site to sell something. It can be a product, such as jewelry, a service, such as a restaurant, or something abstract, such as an opinion or an issue. You can use another project you are working on in other classes, or a previously completed project. There is a lot of leeway on this assignment.
  2. The only criteria is that the design and organization of the website sells this something, and that it look professional.
  3. Students do their most creative work when they’re motivated by the work itself. I want you to choose a final project that will motivate you to do your best work.
  4. I want to be persuaded by how your final project is.
  5. Read the List Apart article Designing Fun and give the emotional basis of the User’s Experience some serious thought.
  6. Make sure the information is organized and structured accordingly.
  7. I am here to help you realize your final. If you have questions, ask me. I am always surprised by the number of students who do not ask me when they are having a problem. This happens a lot. The main reason, I think, is that all of the answers are both in the book and on this website. Students think that they can figure it out on their own. The problem is that there is so much information that it is not always easy to connect up with what you need at that moment. So you get stuck, and instead of overcoming your limitations, you problem solve within them, which is not usually the best approach.
  8. Do not hesitate. Ask me if you have a questions. I am here to help!
  9. One of the biggest obstacles is procrastination. It will catch up with you. I see it happen every semester. Post your progress each week, so I can follow your work.
  10. Come up with a proposal for your final project and create a new work-sheet. Specify what you are going to sell and how you are going to sell it, introduce research to back it up and develop a strategy based on the target audience. This is due next week!
  11. You will have the rest of the semester to finish the project. Next week we focus on making your portfolio responsive so that it works on all media. At the same time you need to research and come up with the topic for your final and be prepared to defend it in class.
  12. Homework from here on out is divided into two parts. One part concerns the unit and the other part concerns the final project.
  13. Your final site needs to be almost finished by week 13 for peer review. Do not procrastinate.

As you are selling something, keep in mind that usability expert Jakob Nielsen saw little difference in guidelines for effective ecommerce web sites in the ten years he’s been keeping track, despite the technological changes that have taken place. See article.

That means your web site has to address the psychology of the shopper, which doesn’t change as fast as the technology.

That psychology includes:

  • Address what people want
  • Don’t confuse them with anything else
  • Structure the copy and styling to aid comprehension.
  • First impression is golden or a lost opportunity

Focus on the User’s eXperience!

06 homework

  1. Watch the the Don’t be Afraid video on Web Typography. Watch it, and take a good look at the finished file, including the CSS style sheet. You’ll learn a lot!
  2. A reference typography rules.
  3. Know when to break the rules, once, of course, you consistently implement them. Be inspired to push or break the rules for typography in web design. To help you in your inspiration, here is a work by David Carson on the end of print with William S. Burroughs reading from his own texts.
  4. David carson speaking about his own work.
  5. Create a poster utilizing your work using Illustrator or Photoshop, and then scale it down to a pamphlet size and code it for the web.
  6. Include a profound statement, a saying you are attracted to, or a poem on which to exercise your newfound web typography skills.
    • Untiled poem by ee cummings (for inspiration —you do your own thing):

       
      l(a
       
      le
      af
      fa
      ll
       
      s)
      one
      l
       
      iness

  7. The Type Poster is due in Two Weeks. The new typographic possibilities have to be reflected in your portfolio. No traditional fonts. The midterm is due next week for in-class presentation and critique.

05 Homework

  • Officially, the Midterm is due next week, and is to be presented in class two weeks from now.
  • You are to create a minimum of three pages, the landing page, a product page and a bio page.
  • Your navigation does not have to extend beyond these three pages, but it’s a good idea to plan out and develop your entire online portfolio. Having your information architecture and navigation all planned out saves a lot of time.
  • Implement the HTML5 Boilerplate, build the navigation and the coding the remaining. Take the time to optimize for search engines and to fill in your Google Analytics code.
  • Note that Google Analytics will not work on the School’s servers.