DIG3134 Media Software Design Fall 10 Syllabus

DIG 4104c – Web Design Workshop

Spring 2014 – 3 credits (repeatable)

Instructors: Dr. J. Michael Moshell

Lecture [ 001 : W 2:30 – 4:20 PM | VAB 111 ]

Lab: One of (Mon 9:00-11:00 or 13:00 – 15:00) – VAB 104

Course Requirements

PR: DIG 3134, DIG3716c, DIG3811, DIG3563

Catalog Description

Students will practice designing and implementing professional quality websites.

Course Objectives for Sprint 2014

1. Students will learn about the opportunities, challenges and techniques for developing websites built with the new resources provided by HTML5, and state of the art production management tools such as the git version control system.
2. Students will learn about the evolving principles and standards for constructing accessible websites; will understand different classes of disabilities and the available techniques for rendering websites useful to those with disabilities.

Requiredand Recommended Texts

None. Weekly readings will be provided via the Internet.

Technology Policies

Additional Policies

1. A student that misses an exam due to illness must notify the instructor prior to exam time and produce a doctor’s note stating that the student was unable to return to school for the exam by the date the doctor says the student will be able to return (for example, if the doctor says ‘do not return to school until Thursday’ and the test was on Tuesday, the student must notify the instructor that they will not be present for the exam due to illness, and then bring an official doctor’s note to the instructor by Thursday either in person or through mailbox.
2. A student that misses an exam due to a death in the family must notify the instructor prior to exam time and produce a doctor’s note or funeral notice that falls reasonably near the date of the exam.
3. A student that misses an exam due to a court subpoena or other legal obligation must notify the instructor prior to exam time and produce a note from a lawyer or judge justifying the need for missing the exam.

DIG4014c

E-mail Protocols

All e-mails sent to the instructor must follow these guidelines in order to receive a response from the instructor.

General E-mails

From: Your Knights Mail account!

Subject: [DIG4014c] – Short description of the e-mail topic

Body:

Starts with: Dr. Moshell

Ends with: Your full name

Example:

From:

Subject: [DIG4014c] – Question about assignment 2

Body:

Dr. Moshell,

I have a question about assignment 2. May I do it in Javascript?

Jane Student

Complaints.Any complaints about the operation of this course, or any other Digital Media course, must be handled in the following fashion.

1) Schedule an appointment with the instructor and discuss your complaint.

2) If the result is not satisfactory, write a clear description of the problem. Deliver it to the Chair of the School of Visual Arts and Design. He will request a written response from the instructor. At his discretion, he may schedule a meeting with you. He will then inform you of the resolution of the problem.

3) If this result is not satisfactory, then follow the same procedure with respect to the Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities.

Web Design Workshop – Spring 2013

Concept of the Course

OUTLINE:

1. Strategic Objective
2. Constraints
3. Goals for the Course
4. Structure: Teams and Projects
5. Curriculum: The Class Meetings
6. Lab: Working with your Team

1. Strategic Objective

You are Web Design specialists, and so you need to have a strong portfolio of websites that you've created. The primary objectives of this course are to add one professonal-grade site to your portfolio, and to extend your suite of relevant skills.

2. Constraints

We are not all visually creative artists, and we are not all tech writers, and we are not all programmers. But you need all these skills to build a truly first-rate website. You can either learn the necessary skills, or barter for them, or buy them (but not in this course....)

What common skills should all Web Design graduates have, and at what level? A certain level of competency in User Centered Design is required of anyone who designs a website. Basic literacy (spelling and grammar) is a minimum requirement. Awareness of state-of-the-art techniques, and compliance with community standards, are also expected of professionals. Those community standards include the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the WorldWideWeb Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative.

Every job interview includes questions intended to determine the applicant's level of responsibility, maturity, ability to focus and get the job done. Successful candidates are often described as "self-starters"; or as having leadership abilities.

Course Background. Another fundamental constraint is that half of you have had Web Design Workshop before (mostly from me and Jon Friskics); most of these people now know how to construct a mobile-friendly website, e. g. with Jquery Mobile. However, the other half hasn't had that experience. So we cannot require the use of those skills, of all participants. You are of course free (and encouraged) to use the skills and concepts required to produce a flexible-design site, suitable for mobile media – wherever you got them.

From these considerations we can identify the concrete Goals of the course.

3. Goals of the Course

THEORY

• Review some principles of User Centered Design and Information Architecture
• Add to understanding of State of the Art: configuration control via git, HTML5
• Explore accessibility standards and requirements

PRACTICE

• Demonstrate a functional understanding of git, bitbucket and github
• Demonstrate technical mastery of HTML5
• Demonstrate technical mastery of one or more structural/behavioral tools (e. g. CMS, Jquery Mobile, Javascript/Ajax, Java, PHP/MySQL) for interactive web design with back-end support
• Demonstrate all stages of the design and construction of a rich interactive website

4. Structure

Everyone in this course is expected to be part of a team, for mutual support. However, you are free to decide whether you plan to build a single common project website, or to build a personal website. There are advantages of each approach.

A common website: you can make a more complex and realistic site if you can combine the talents of several people with complementary skills.

An individual website: you know up-front whom you're relying on (yourself), and so you won't have to put up with the usual hassles of non-performing team members.

There are also disadvantages of each approach.

A common website: When showcasing such a site in your portfolio, during a job interview ou may have to answer the awkward question: "what part of this did you actually DO?"

An individual website: it's a week before the project is due and you can't get some element of the back-end to work, and everybody is too busy to help you.

You have to decide for yourself, which approach you want to take for the main project in this course. However, you will conduct two smaller projects in the first half of the semester – one in "single user" mode,and one in "team mode", so as to demonstrate your understanding of key subject matter that we are dealing with.

Choosing a Project Theme. There's a 'chicken and egg' problem here, because the structure of your team will probably depend on the project you decide to undertake. And on the other hand, your team would probably like to collectively decide what project you're going to work on.

So we'll allocate time in the first class period, for you to work on these problems simultaneously. Here are the constraints for your project:

• The project needs to solve a problem for some community of users who are not defined simply as UCF students (see note below.)
• The project's community of users will include users with at least one disability (we will discuss and explore the various disability categories and how they impact web design.)
• Part of your work this semester, in order to get up to the B level in this course, is to identify actual members of the specified user community, get them to evaluate your website and provide feedback.
• Part of your work this semester, in order to get up to the A level in this course, is to identify at least two actual disabled members of this user sommunity, get them to evaluate your website and provide feedback.

At the second class meeting you will report on the project you have selected. Your report will include:

• the stakeholders
• the problem that you are helping them to solve
• the disability community upon whom you are focusing your design
• where the data would come from in a real implementation of your concept
• where (and how) the data will come, in your prototype

At this stage you don't have to tell us how you plan to build the website. That should be determined when you have a clear picture of the needs of your disability community, and what tools are available to facilitate their use of the website. Remember that your website must be useful and attractive to the non-disabled community as well.

Forming a Team. Most people tend to just grab their friends or roomates as this seems to be the easiest way to form teams. I encourage you to use a more strategic approach. You need at least these skills on your team:

• visual design
• front end implementation (in this case, HTML5)
• back end implementation (usually PHP these days)

For structural reasons, teams need to have 4 or 5 members, so that we will wind up with 10 to 12 teams. Give your team an interesting name.

Some of you already took Web Design Workshop and so have been exposed to git. Others will be learning about it for the first time. It may be to your advantage to have at least one teammate who previously had the Web Design Workshop, or who has experience with git.

Another issue: Your team needs to be in the same lab section as you, because you will be working together during those lab sessions, which meet on Tuesday or Thursday, 12:30 – 2:20 PM.

To facilitate the team formation process, I'll distribute a self-assessment questionnaire at the beginning of the class.

When you have your teams formed (with team members' names etc. on two rosters (I'll provide the blanks), one for me and one for you), hand the roster and your team's student questionnaires to me. You may then claim one of the following four Disability Specialty areas (at most 3 teams per area):

Visual

Physical

Cognitive and Neurological

Auditory

First come first serve ...

NOTE 1: Your website's accessibility accommodations are not limited to your disability specialty. The best websites will incorporate adaptations for two or more disability areas. These specializations are for the purpose of focusing your study and expertise; and of course your site MUST at least accommodate your special area of disability.

NOTE 2: During the lecture phase, all students are required to prepare the brief summaries of readings, for all topic areas as assigned. You cannot just say "my topic was visual!" when asked to present a summary of the auditory readings, for instance.