Find A Client ~ Web Design - Monday

Who Will You Serve?

Your mission is to find a client - a person or organization that needs your help.
The main goal is to create a web site where there is no web site or the existing web site needs a renovation.
You may have a parent or relative that qualifies. If so, ask.
Others are out there that don't even know they need your help. Find one.
Here are a few examples:

• Southlands HOA
• Roswell UMC
• Roswell Photographic Society
• Local clubs
• Local churches
• Local Home Owners Associations

Once you have a prospect, copy the 5 items below into a Word Document and fill it out. Submit is to wdrasku@comcast.net.

Profile of the Client’s Company or Organization:

1. Company or organization name:

2. Products or services performed:

3. URL (if client already has a site):

4. Client’s mission statement (brief paragraph summarizing their mission, i.e., what they do and for whom and why):

5. Client's goals in having a website:

Any questions? Submit them through the Comments at the bottom of this page.

Day 2

Complete the "customer profile" for visitors to your site. This will help you with design decisions as you work on creating a series of web pages that are attractive and interesting to your visitors.

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1.     Age of probable visitors to your site

·       12 and under

·       13 – 18

·       19 – 29

·       30 – 59

·       60 – older

2.     How would you characterize the level of education that the average customer has attained? Check as many as apply.

·       Attending high school

·       High school graduate

·       Received vocational or technical certification

·       B.A. or B.S.

·       Masters degree

·       PhD

3.     What expectations will they have before they arrive at your site? In other words, what do they hope to find at your site?

4.     What types of gimmicks (give-a-ways, games, galleries, etc) would attract this person?

Email your work to wdrasku@comcast.net 

Day 3

Begin to prepare for an appointment with your new client by doing the following:

•  design (or redesign) the logo 
• Decide on a color scheme for the web site
• Create a mock-up of the home page in Fireworks

When you are confident that you can present your strategy and a visually pleasing home page, email for an appointment - wdrasku@comcast.net.

Create An Evaluation Tool (Rubric)

The Plan

At the completion of this exercise:

• you will demonstrate your ability to critically examine the quality of a web site by developing a web site evaluation tool.
• you will be able to communicate to others your ideas about what makes a high quality web site and explain how you would evaluate a site.

Activities

Develop a website evaluation tool. Use the knowledge and perspective gained in the first activity to develop a rubric for measuring the quality of websites. Follow these steps:

Use these three resources: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/top-30-web-design-mistakes.html, http://www.cyberbee.com/design.pdf, and http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=NewRubric

1. Pair up and take five minutes to share and discuss the merits and problems of the "good" and "bad" websites chosen in the last activity. One site should be a clear example of good design and one an example of poor design. Discuss specific traits that could be used to evaluate sites.
2. Join another pair and now, in a group of four, review your lists of traits that were generated in step one. Synthesize the lists to no fewer than four but no more than seven general traits that could be used to evaluate most any web site. As much as possible, make each trait discrete and clear. Combine similar traits. Eliminate redundant, obtuse, or invalid traits.
3. Once you reach consensus on the traits, decide on a numeric scale to use for judging how well a website rates for each of the traits.

Create and use your evaluation tool.

1. Use Rubistar to create a rubric for your group.
2. Each member of your group will now evaluate this web site using your Rubric- http://architecture.rice.edu/ (DO NOT TALK TOGETHER ABOUT THIS EVALUATION).
3. Once all members of your group have completed the Rubric for this web site, compare your results and discuss the differences. If one person had a radically different opinion about one or more of the Rubric points, have him explain what his reason is.
4. Reach a consensus for the grade and complete a single rubric for the group.. save it.
5. Now do the same steps (5 through 7) evaluation for this web site: http://www.alpharettafarmersmarket.com/

Email your completed rubric with the names of those who created it to wdrasku@comcast.net.

 You should now be ready to begin your own web site with a new understanding of how others see your work.

Web Site Development - Assignment For Monday

Overview

The purpose of this lesson is to review what makes a high-quality website. With a partner, you will talk about these questions (then record your answers in a Word document):

• Why do you feel that some websites are good?
• Why do you feel that some websites are not so good?
• Ask at least two other groups if they agree with your opinion?
• If they disagree, what do they disagree with compared to your group observation?
• Who is the target audience for a particular site?
• How might website quality be judged differently across different audiences?
• Are there some qualities of websites that all audiences would agree are good? What are these qualities?

For many, it is the common practice to plunge in and start right away creating and developing web pages. However, since the goal for this project is for you to develop a high-quality website, we first will spend some time re-exploring our understanding of what "quality" means. This is important because if websites aren't developed with quality in mind, visitors might be unable to find the content or features they're looking for, or they might be unable to access or use these features.  

Users don't give websites many chances. If they don't like a site, they may leave quickly and never return. If they like a site, they'll return to it again and again, plus they'll tell others about it.

In addition to understanding website quality, you must spend some time planning a website before you begin to develop its content. Just as there are pre-writing steps that ought to be done prior to writing an essay, there are pre-coding steps to do before you create a website. Planning ahead will reduce the number of mistakes you'll make while constructing the site. In the work world, this will save you time and money.

Activities

1. What is a high-quality website? Grab a partner and discuss the questions presented in the Overview section above.
2. What do the experts say? Visit the websites listed below in the Resources section. Each of these resources provides someone else's opinions as to what constitutes high-quality websites. Which of these resources do you most agree with? Do you disagree with any of these authors' opinions? Do the winners of Webby Awards have features or characteristics that you don't like? Discuss this with your partner.
3. Become a web critic. Browse the web looking mainly for Informational websites, not games or entertainment sites. Choose one website that's good and one that's bad.
   • Rate each site from 1 to 5 (5 being the highest).
   • Comment on the site's design. Does the site look good? What is the eye drawn to immediately?
   • Comment on the site's content. What seems to be the main purpose of the site? Is the purpose clear?
   • Comment on the site's noteworthy features. How do the features enhance the site's main purpose?

Create a table for your notes which looks something like this:

	Name of Website	URL	Explain Design Pros/Cons	Explain Purpose	Rating
Good site
Bad site

Resources

• WWW Cyberguide Ratings for Web Site Design (in PDF, requires Adobe Reader)
• The Webby Awards for examples of websites that for various reasons have received critical acclaim

Complete The Assignment

Email your document to wdrasku@comcast.net. Make sure you include the names of those working together.