IDCC 380 Assignment 3, Spring 2010
The Completed Web Site
Due: Tuesday, May 5, NLT 4:30 p.m.
Value: 500 points
The final assignment is your
completed portfolio Web site, which will house your prototype Dream Site. This 380 Web site, demonstrating excellence in design, 
functionality, and mastery of principles and practice, will be the repository of everything
you've done in IDCC 380 this semester. You will build your site using
Cascading Style Sheets, templates, and
selected navigation components. Your site must be attractive, consistent,
and above all, functional (It must work). Your prototype Dream Site will be
interactive (XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript, with a blog core, and a response form), have thematic (graphic) consistency,
and be constructed entirely from a master page template. It should make you, your classmates,
and me very proud.
By the time you have completed this assignment, you should be reasonably comfortable with site creation using a template, divs, Cascading Style Sheets, information architecture, and interactive navigation (CSS tabs, QuickMenu, and Spry Ajax widgets).
What follows are my expectations for your final project deliverables:
- Complete your class 380 portfolio Web site, with links to all top-tier gateway pages fully operable. Your site must function in I. E. 7.0, Firefox, and Opera. For new material, print out all rendered and XHTML views. Be sure to make all corrections that have been noted on previous assignments .
- Lay out and design all pages using divs and floats. If you need to use a table for layout, be sure to offer sound justification for it (e.g., a photo gallery).
- Design clear, concise, and accurate global navigation (using css); the global nav must appear either horizontally or vertically on all pages. Ideally, visited pages must not be recursively linked (i.e., not to self) and must have hyperlinks visually distinct as markers (i.e., grayed out). Every page must have a complete signature with a text global navigation bar at bottom.
- Pay attention to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by providing a specific <title> tag for each page; also, remember to supply key word and description tags in the head of each page.
- Design all pages using an XHTML transitional Doc type. Perform on all pages a test for their XHTML being well-formed and valid, using W3C markup validation service.
- Develop high quality content: all top-tier gateway and second-tier pages should have excellent final content, layout, and design.
- About page: this page must contain a thorough discussion of the purpose, audience, and scope of your IDCC 380 class site. Also introduce and discuss the rationale for various aspects of your Dream Site.
- For both your 380 class site and for your Dream Site, provide a complete site map (one for each site) with hyperlinks to all top-level, second-tier, and content pages of each site.
- Dream Site background discussion pages: these pages will focus on the purpose, scope, audience, navigation, labels (information architecture), layout, color palette and banner graphics, navigation media, graphics, media, written content, and the like.
- Dream Site Future Plans discussion page: this page will discuss your Dream Site's scalability (growth possibilities). Clarify your plans for short-term development, referring, of course, to what you've already developed. Here you should also discuss any technical limitations of your Dream Site at present and what you would do if given enough time and resources.
- Using your Dream Site, discuss a potential usability test that you would run on various aspects of your site (5-7 tasks). Be as detailed as possible. Demonstrate your knowledge of design and usability here. Use the test script provided in class as a model. For each task, specify the steps involved, the goals, and the follow-up questions. Do not create the actual script. Do not just copy the model script, but be sure to credit it as your source on the sources page.
- For your Dream Site, develop the home page and all top-tier and second-tier navigation as presently envisioned. At this point, you should have a number of pages fully developed with content and content placeholders. Pay special attention to design aesthetics (layout, palette, banner, graphics, navigation media, and the like). See handout.
- Provide a credits page detailing borrowed code or code ideas, competitive sites that inspired you, usability articles and scripts, PowerPoint slides, readings, and the like.
- Supply any other bells and whistles that will blow my socks off.
When your assignment is complete, deliver it to Gail Wessell in Smith 121. Be sure to sign the sheet provided.
