Course Overview

This course focuses on introductory theories and techniques for web design. Our primary focus will be on the design of websites--how the visual and interactive aspects of websites are designed in ways appropriate for their users. We will cover an extensive range of technical features (coding HTML, CSS, and PHP, learning the basics of Dreamweaver, Visio, and Photoshop, for example), but our main emphasis is on using those technical features to create usable designs. By the end of the semester, you should be able to demonstrate the abilities to

• Use basic Gestalt theory to analyze and create effective graphical layout of web pages
• Use basic color theory to create effective color schemes for web pages (including both functional and aesthetic aspects)
• Understand the history of website design (in terms of both technology and design styles)
• Analyze and design for specific types of users and goals (in terms of both function and design styles)
• Use Dreamweaver to create and maintain websites, stylesheets (including collaborative features)
• Use Photoshop to edit and create images for Websites (including issues relating to appropriate file type and compression)
• Use Visio to map the basic structure of a website during the planning process

Textbooks

Lynch, Patrick and Sarah Horton, Web Style Guide (2nd ed). Yale UP. ISBN 0-300-08898-1. Listed as WSG in course reading assignments.

Note: As someone pointed out in class, WSG is actually available online at http://webstyleguide.com/ As far as I can tell, this is the full version of the print text, so if you want to save a few bucks, you can use the website version. I'm not making any guarantees about whether or not the site will be available all semester or whether or not the content of the website is the same as the print version, but I skimmed through some sections and it seems fine. (I prefer the print version, but I'm (a) an old person and (b) get the book for free.)

Niederst, Jennifer. Web Design in a Nutshell (3rd ed). O'Reilly. ISBN: 0-596-00196-7. Listed as WDN in course reading assignments.

You may need to also pay for additional disk space on Polaris from OIT if your projects take up more than the usual amount of space. This isn't typically an issue for this class, but it's something to keep in mind if your final project for the class involves video or a large number of digital photos, etc.

Grading

Formal grades are on a straight scale, uncurved (rounded up to nearest whole number):

90 - 100: A
85 - 89: B+
80-84: B

etc.

Pass/Fail grades (usually for in-class work) are generally assigned based on whether it seemed to me that you prepared for the work and made a valiant attempt, successful or not.

Projects

See the dedicated Projects Page for additional information and links to extended descriptions for some projects.

Demonstration Journal (300 points): Starting with the 1/28 Journal entry, your journals should be online. See the Journals page for specific assignments and discussion.

Once you learn how to create a simple website, you'll create a journal website that demonstrates techniques and concepts we're covering in class. The main page of the demonstration journal will be a simple index, with each assigned entry listed as a link.You'll need to provide both the date of the entry and a brief description (for example, "9.15.07: WDN 29 (Comparison of 3 GIF Compression Levels)" rather than "9.15 entry" or "WDN29").

Personal Website (50 points): Your main home page, which should reflect the topics we've covered during the semester. If you'd like your actual home page to defy those conventions, you can create a "fake" home page for the course. We'll work on these at various points during the semester. The final version is due near the end of the semester.

Topical Website (100 points): A small website (2 - 3 pages only) for a specific topic or purpose. This is only a demonstration site, so it can pick 2 - 3 pages from what would eventually be a much larger site. The 2-3 pages should demonstrate a coherent design (sharing design elements) but each page should have a different purpose, specific layout, and content. The site could be about an interest or hobby (anime, death metal music, hiking in the adirondacks), an organization (nonprofit, campus club or frat, etc.) or business. (Any of these could be fictional or real.)

Portfolio (200 points): Five revised and polished webpages demonstrating your best work. Can be from actual pages you've developed, fictional sites, or revisions to existing pages authored by someone else). Submitted as a URL to your own website (so HTML/CSS and other code must be relatively functional). The portfolio will also need to have an Table of Contents page explaning your portfolio and linking to the sample pages (launched in a new window). The goal for this is to demonstrate your web design skills, so this explanatory material is where you explain why you've made certain decisions and detail what (specifically) you're demonstrating.

One of the pages can be a robust Visio diagram for an existing or planned site.

One of the pages can be four variations on design sketches for one project (ideally, the final version should be one of the other pages in your portfolio so you can show how the final turned out).

A draft version of these materials will be due after Thanksgiving break; the final version is due at the start of finals week.

In-Class Work (100 points): Any collected in-class work, including from pop quizzes, small group activities, etc. In-class work cannot be made up if you miss class. Each item is graded pass/fail.

Realworld Project (150 points): For the final class project, we'll be working on a redesign of the website for the Children's Museum of Saratoga. I've put up a separate page covering apects of this project as they develop.

Toward the end of the semester, you'll need to find a realworld website to work on. That website needs to demonstrate significant aspects (although not every aspect) of your learning for the class (especially the design aspects). The size of the website is variable, since some sites may have 20 pages of the same realtively simple layout and information while others may have five pages of very complex layout and varying types of information, possibly including some interactive features. The project will take around a month, so you need to pick something that will reasonably take you 40 - 60 hours. For the types of sites we're generally working on in the rest of the course, a good rule of thumb would be a 8 - 10 page site with at least three different layouts, along with associated graphics (banners, buttons, etc. if you need them).

The website needs to have a client. In other words, you can't work on your own website. The client could be an organization you're already involved with, but there needs to be some other person in the organization that you'd be reporting to, because your client needs to review your work as part of your grade.

The client does not have to be local, but I'll need to be able to contact them by email and phone.

If you're not sure whether a particular client/site will work for this, talk to me about it.

This can be a team project, but make sure that the scope/size of the project reflects the fact that multiple people are working on it.

Participation (100 points): I don't lecture much. Well, when I do, it'll seem like I drone on forever. But in reality, a video record of the course would show that much of the class is spent in conversation: full class discussion or small team discussion. You're expected to actively particpate in those discussions. We'll also be doing a lot of in-class work, reviewing drafts of projects, trying out new techniques for things, etc. I'll periodically be collecting documents you generate in class. At the end of the semester, your participation grade will reflect how active you were in class. So in addition to just showing up, participate.

Policies

Attendance and Participation: Because this class includes a lot of in-class discussion, demonstration, and work, you're expected to attend all classes. You're allowed three absences during the semester. I don't distinguish between "excused" and "unexcused" absences in this course, so you may want to save up your absences for good reasons.

On days you're not in class, you're expected to turn in any work that's due (see Due Date policy below). You'll probably lose credit for any in-class work.

Due Dates: Assignments listed as due in class on the schedule are due at the start of class. Late assignments are penalized 10% per class day late. For example, a draft of a website due on Thursday in class would be penalized 10% if you submit it at the end of class (or at 5 pm on that day or the next Monday afternoon). There may be additional implications if an assignment due is also being reviewed by your team during class (in which case you may also lose points for not having a document to get feedback on).

Academic Honest, Plagiarism, and Intellectual Property: The three terms above are related but not the same. "Academic honesty" is probably the most important one: That means that work you turn in and claim as your own should actually be your own. My job is to help you learn basic web design principles and techniques and to assess how well you've learned them. I can't accurately assess your learning if your turning in someone else's work and pretending it's your own (an act that goes by the term "plagiarism," as you probably already know). In some cases, I'll allow (or even require) you to use pre-existing work (such as clipart or stock photography) for a project. The thing to keep in mind is what I'm assessing in a project: If an assignment asks you to create a banner from scratch in Photoshop, don't use clipart.

If you violate academic honesty in ways that seem intentional (in other words, obviously dishonest), you'll be referred to the University's committee on academic honesty.

"Intellectual Property" is only slightly related to academic honesty and plagiarism. IP is a legal construct that protects the rights of creators of content ("authors") to profit from that content in limited ways (for example, by selling it to other people). One important fact to note is that someone can obey intellectual property laws while still plagiarizing (for example, by buying a term paper from an online paper mill, then turning it in to the instructor and claiming they wrote it themselves). And people can violate IP law but not plagiarize (for example, by including the .mp3 version of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's "White Lines" on a Website without permission, but with a credit to Grandmaster Flash posted prominently on their website).

To complicate things, IP law involves lawyers, politicians, and big media companies, so there aren't a lot of clear rules about when something's legal and when it isn't. Use common sense. In this class, I'm mostly concerned about academic honesty, although we'll talk later in the semester about IP law and fair use as web design considerations.

If you have questions about any of this stuff, don't hesitate to ask.