Guidelines for Midterm and Final web site Report

What should be in your report:

Acover page with:

Name and Surname

University name

Course name

Title of your web site

At least one pagewhere you describe your page/site both in general terms and, more importantly, by fulfilling the following, numbered tasks.

For each task you also examine and analyze how your web site satisfies/achieves a list of design principles (some of them are only applicable to the final project and marked as such)

Screen resolution issue

The current most common resolutions are 1024 x 768 and 1280 x 1024

  1. Explain your design choice (flexible, fixed, jello?) (only for final project)

design principles

•Flexible design adapts to different screen resolutions

The design must account for the movement of elements on the screen at different resolutions

Flexible designs:

–User controls the view of the content

–Less chance of horizontal scrolling

–More flexibility for multiple devices

–Better suited to text-based layouts and simpler designs

•Fixed design has consistent width and height

Fixed-width designs:

–Designer controls the view of the content

–Allow more complex page layouts

–More control over text length

•Jellois fixed design centered in the browser window regardless of screen resolution

Balance Design and Content

  1. Justify the presence of potentially distracting elements (typically they are moving images and such) (only for final project)
  2. Justify the presence ofunnecessary design elements (usually they are only aesthetic items)
  3. Explain how you created a simple and direct design that showcase content and allow easy access

Easy access to andeasy presentationof your information

  1. Describe the organization of content – how it is structured (refer to the appendix).

design principles

  • Users can access content easily (no(t too much) scrolling, no hidden/implicit info)
  • The set of information is easily navigable
  • The user has a number of navigation choices (only for final project)
  • It is easy to look for specific information(only for final project)
  • Text is broken into reasonable segments
  • contrasting colors providedare easy on the eye
  • Plenty of active white space is usedthat reduces clutter and clarifies organization (passive white space is the result of mismatched shapes).

Unified Site Design and Smooth Transitions

  1. Describe how you created a unified look (only for final) (only for final project)

design principles

  • Navigation elements are in the same position on each page (only for final)
  • Navigation graphics are the same throughout the site (only for final)
  • There are unifying themes and structure for your site

Designing for the User

  1. Describe how you satisfy the users in terms of what they want when they get to your site andhow they want to interact with your information(only for final project)

design principles

•Don’t overcrowd your pages with information (only for final)

•Be conscious of the cognitive load of the user

•Carefully divide content into smaller sections

•Present content in a structured manner

•Provide plenty of navigation cues

Appendix