Homework

Assignments will be graded, and count towards 30% your class grade. Exercises will not be graded, and are for you general benefit and understanding. The lectures refer to when the assignment has been or will be made, each assignment is due the following week except the final, which is due the last day of class.

 

Lecture 1 - Exercise - Design one web page

Using any means necessary and comfortable, find a way in a page or two to convey your idea for a web site. You can draw a picture, write a proposal, critique an existing site and suggest a replacement - find a brief but explicit way to express an idea you have for a web site.

In other words, find a way to express an idea, and frame it in terms of the web.

 

Lecture 2 - Exercise - Pick a medium and stare at it

Find something that you look at or listen to every day - a magazine, a web site, a television show, a newspaper, etc. - and ask yourself what information you're being given, and what information you're inserting into the process. What's on the page? What's in your head? Think about it.

 

Lecture 5 - Exercise - Post something on the web

read the text for the lecture for more details....

 

Lecture 6 - Assignment - "Design" a web site

Using the ideas presented thus far in class, propose a web site for your final project. The proposal should include a thorough description of the site, it's purpose, and what it will offer. It should also include a proposed structure for the site itself - a site map. This assignment will be graded, alas. As always, email me the result before the next class.

 

Lecture 7 - Assignment - Propose two look and feel ideas for your site

Again, using whatever tools you like, decide how the site will appear to the user. The proposed look and feels should include the home page, and a content page. So that's two options for a home page, and two related options for the content pages - 4 in total. This assignment will also be graded - you have two weeks to turn this in.

 

Lecture 9 - Assignment - Create your site content

Now that you have a site structure, and some ideas for look and feel, create the site content - the actual words and images that will appear on your site. Due next week, also graded.

 

Lecture 10 - Assignment - Build a web site

Now that you have an architecture, a graphical user interface, and the content, use any of the available design tools we've covered to integrate all three into a coherent web site. This is your final project, and will be worth 60% your grade. You have until the the end of the semester (June 3rd at midnight) to turn this in. At a minimum, I expect 4 working pages on your site. To turn this in, you may a) post it on the class site; b) post it on the web; c) show it to me in class or lab; or d)email me a zipped up folder containing a working site.

 

Lecture 11 - Field Trip!

Tonight, if I can arrange it, we will visit a local ISP and see the inner world of the internet. We'll talk along the way about web security and the internet, then we'll eat pizza (and of course, continue talking about security and the internet, as well as the integral role and profound impact of pizza on the internet and on design in general).