Digital Rhetoric
English 8123
Website Project
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In
small groups (2-4 people) you will create and develop a website of
about 10-14“pages” or “nodes” (more is fine, if less
talk to me). The website should respond to some real need of a group or organization
of some sort and fits into a genre of website (it can fit into a few
genres, but should have a dominate genre). This could be an actual
service project where you create the website for the group or
organization with the need and the group uses the website. Or your
group could just create a website to fit a perceived need, but never
show it to the group. I recommend the former, if possible.
Do consider ways your project can help the community—whether this be
the GSU community or another community. Perhaps you could develop a
website for some part of the department or perhaps some local community
service group needs a website. There are several options below for you to select
form, or you can choose your own project idea.
This project will have several parts:
•Proposal: Due 3/13 by email. Worth
5% of project grade
You
will need to submit a short proposal to me with your idea via email.
This is a casual email to me which will provide me enough information
on your project to approve it or to provide ways to make the project
work for the assignment. Tell me what site you plan to do, a bit about your plans, and the audience, purpose, and use of the site.
• Website
Draft & Usability Tasks: Due
4/1, needed for usability testing. Email to jennifer.l.bowie [at] gmail. com.
Send me the link to your site and a brief explanation of what pages are ready for testing. Also, include your three tasks for testing and any other testing resources you will use. Please CC all group members. This counts towards your reading response grade.
During class on 4/1 you will have workshop time and time for usability testing. Remember you must test at least four users.
• Website Report: due
4/22 on paper, worth 30% of project grade.
This will be a 5+ page report (single spaced) which will include your
usability testing results and analysis, along with a discussion of your
website. You will describe your design decisions and explain how the
site responds to your audience, purpose, and uses. You will also analyze how
the site responds to issues like usability. I will use this report when grading
the final website, so it is a good idea to especially discuss issues for which
you think I might need more information (such as going against a rule). I do
recommend you use screen shots, especially when showing what changes you made
due to the usability testing. This report should be written in the report
genre. I have provided a potential and recommended outline below. Do
make sure that if you include any appendixes that you refer to the
appendixes within the report; don't just stick items in the appendixes
that are not discussed, explained, and referred to in the body of the
report. You may use the content from previous items (like your
proposal) as needed, just make sure you adjust them appropriately. Hint:
think of this report as a way to convince me your site is fabulous.
Show me how it is fabulous and convince me of your informed design
decisions.
Outline:
- Introduction
- Problem/Need for the website
- Description of Project:
- Purpose for site: explain the purpose or mission of the site. Why did you create this site? Discuss what the users will do on your site. What goals will the users come to the site with? What needs does the site respond to?
- User Analysis & Profiles: discuss who is the site for. Provide a detailed audience/user analysis, perhaps even niches and personas of audience.
- Site overview: summarize site content, should include an outline or site map in the appendix (does not count towards the 4 page paper minimum) which is properly referred to in this section
- Site Design: explain all design decisions from colors and layout to navigation, redesign, usability issues, and the writing style.Tell me why you made the design decisions you did, especially if any decisions go against what we covered in class. Discuss where your content came from, including images. If any content is from outside sources discuss how you handled copyright issues.
- Usability Testing Report: Include the testing objectives, type of test, tasks, performance objectives, test materials (the test materials such as your task list should be appendixes, which do not count towards the report minimum page count), list members roles in testing, test plan, data & findings, and analysis including the cause of problems, scope/severity of problems, and changes and recommendations.
- Conclusion: Summarize the report and provide any final comments
• Final
Website: Due 4/22, worth 45% of project grade.
This is it, the final website. It should be an original website 10-14
pages/nodes long (more is fine). It should follow the design guidelines
discussed in class—it should be usable, readable, and so forth. It
should clearly respond to your audience, use, and purpose. It should
also apply the strong web writing techniques including: short text,
scannable text, hot links, chunky paragraphs, reduced cognitive
burdens, and meaningful menus. All images should load and all links
should work. Email the URL to me in an email with all group members
CC:ed.
Do make sure that anything on the website that was not created, written, or designed by your group members gets proper credit. This means that any text that you take directly or paraphrase, any information, any images, any buttons (and so on), and any designs that are not original to your group should be correctly acknowledged.
• Website Presentations: Due
4/22, worth 20% of project grade.
Your group will present the website to the class. Tell us about your website
and the process you used to create it. Walk us through the site,
discuss your usability testing, and present the testing results.
Show us changes that came about because of the usability testing.
Talk about your audience and purpose. You will have 10-15 minutes
of presentation time and up to 5 minutes of Q&A.
Project ideas:
These are all options I received when I emailed the English department to see if anyone needed a site.- Sheri Joseph Author's site: "I need an author website--something to promote my books, with links to reviews, interviews, excerpts, bookseller sites, a calendar of appearances, etc. And I've been hoping maybe one day magic fairies would come along and make it all appear for me. " Contact: Sheri Josep <engslj@langate.gsu.edu>
- Beth Gylys Professional site: "It would be a website that highlights my publications and poetry." Contact: Beth Gylys" <engbag@langate.gsu.edu>
- Sindiwe Magona website: A "website on Sindiwe Magona, a South African writer, that will serve as a bibliography of all her works and the criticism that has been done to date". Contact: Renée Schatteman<engrts@langate.gsu.edu>
- Thomas McHaney Professional site: "I'd like to have a website for my southern literature courses, my book-club lectures, my scholarship, present and forthcoming, and my fiction writing. " Contact: Thomas McHaney <engtlm@langate.gsu.edu>
- Pearl McHaney Professional site: "I do need a web site for my teaching and research-- something more than just the dept.'s info page." (no. 3). Contact: Pearl McHaney <engpam@langate.gsu.edu>