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September 17 – Start Creative

Class Topics

  • Meet with Vote Oswego grassroots team: observe tabling, phone banking, and class raps. Discuss last 72 hours and absentee ballot party.
  • Updates on to-dos. Discuss expectations and how our “agency” will run now that we are working on the creative.
  • Brainstorm/discuss usage stories and design interventions for L72 and ABP.

Homework

  • Continue brainstorm for L72 and ABP. Come to next class with storyboards and sketches and ideas of how to improve the experience and create lifelong voters.
  • Read chapters 6-8.

September 17 – Measures

Class Topics

  • Individual Reflection (type and submit individually in your own folders):
    • What are your top three concerns moving forward on this project? Why? Explain.
    • What has your biggest contribution to the project been? Explain.
    • What strength do you have that the team is not taking advantage of?
    • Who has been the most valuable teammate? Why? Explain.
    • Have you pulled your weight? Have you done a fair share of work? Met all of the deadlines? Explain.
  • Look at Bulletin Board ideas and discuss relationship to web
  • Define measures of success: How will you know the site has been successful?

Homework

  • Prepare preliminary site for publication. Be sure to keep your individual process books and timesheets up to date.

September 14 – Usage Stories

Class Topics

  • Share becoming a member storyboard.
  • Finalize Personas
  • Finalize Origin Stories
  • Finalize Concept Stories
  • Start Usage Stories / Storyboards

Homework

  • Complete individual tasks assigned in class — see Slack.
  • Review bulletin board ideas (on Team Drive)

Reminder: Meet in Mahar 467 on Monday.

September 14 – Images

Class Topics

  • Critique: How well does the design meet the needs of various audience members? Focus on readability (and the optimal paragraph).
  • Image file types.
  • Adding images to the HTML.
  • Alt attribute exercise.

Homework

  • Revise Exercise 2 based on critique. Write a summary of the critique you received and what you changed and why about your design. Conclude with a reflection on how effective (or not) your design is and why.
  • Read Use of Illustrations and Use of Photography in AIGA’s Design + Business Ethics.
  • HTML for Bio part of Exercise 3

September 12 – Team Lakers

Class Topics

  • Review Grid assignment. What solution is most efficient?
  • Vote Oswego Site
    • AIR-U Updates: Vote Oswego is signed up, how is the training going?
    • What is working about the process and what isn’t? How do we fix what isn’t?
    • Prepare user tests (can you test in-class?)
    • Documenting your work: are you keeping a process book of your individual contributions? Are you spending at least 3 hours outside of class on the Vote Oswego project?
    • Review/critique completed tasks as assigned last class
    • Assign new tasks
    • What is the site evaluation plan?

Homework

  • Vote Oswego site

September 7 – Origin Stories

Class Topics

We meet in Mahar 467 again at the start of class today.

  • Review personas.
  • Work on origin stories.

Homework

  • Finish personas by Monday, September 10 at 12pm (noon) and submit the personas in the “Personas” folder in the shared team drive (Vote Oswego 2018 – Creative Team).
  • Create a Storyboard telling us about becoming a member of something or the moment you felt like you belonged to something. Remember to include all parts/elements of a story. Follow the example for an Origin Story.
  • Complete origin story for Vote Oswego (work collaboratively in a Google Doc).

September 7 – Planning

Course Topics

  • AIR-U update: accessibility training will be open to you on Monday. You’ll receive an access pin by email. Meeting with assigned mentor has not been set yet. Is Vote Oswego registered as your client yet?
  • Vote Oswego Update: I have notes for everyone from a brainstorm session with the grassroots team that you might find helpful (Kim and Nicole can fill you in more). There is a very rough draft of the site text on the drive — it is not useable in its current form, but the research is all there. They are going to clean it up during a work session on Saturday.
  • Prepare proposals/concepts for Rebecca. She’ll meet with you the second half of class.
  • Do you have a plan for testing? Test early and test often.
  • What sites have you been looking at for inspiration and for context?
  • Assign tasks for next class and a communication plan for the long weekend.
  • Post all meeting notes on Google Drive. Assign a team member to post a quick re-cap of what is decided in class to the Slack channel.
  • Timesheet needs label columns. All hours already logged need to be in the spreadsheet before Monday. Changelog probably needs a column for what file was worked on. For both, set up text-wrapping for each column. Spreadsheets are our friends.
  • Set up a system for to-dos or what to do next if people finish tasks early.

Homework

  • Get a jump start on the training modules provided by AIR-U
  • Finish up grid exercise.
  • Complete your assigned task for the Vote Oswego project

September 7 – Mobile First

Course Topics

  • Web Fonts (Google Fonts)
  • Hierarchy through contrast
  • Chunking
  • Mobile First & Progressive Enhancement
  • CSS Reset
  • Chrome Add-ons: Measure & WAVE

Homework

  • Work on Exercise 2. Complete all CSS for small screens (mobile first) and prepare file for progressive enhancements. The Chrome Add-on I mentioned in class is Measure (can help you measure line lengths without manually having to count characters).

September 5 – Critique

Class Topics

  • Update on Knowability AIR-U
  • Critique: Review all of the mockups/plans. Narrow down options. Consider new ideas (do some collaborative sketching).
  • Develop a plan for next steps. Build out a reasonable timeline. A basic/functional version of the site (that matches the brand guide) needs to be up for Blitz week that starts on 9/24. Progressive enhancements could be added on through 10/3. During the progressive enhancement phase you can make revisions based on user-testing and quality testing.
  • Nominate a project manager to keep the group on task during class meetings and to keep all of the paperwork in order: copyright documentation, changelog, timesheets. This person should be very organized, never miss deadlines, and proactive.

August 31 – Meet with Vote Oswego

Class Topics

Remember that we meet in Mahar 467 for the first half of class

  • Meet the Vote Oswego team.
  • Grassroots Strategy Model
  • Memorable Exhibit Presentations

Homework

  • Read Chapter 3 of The User’s Journey. Take good notes. We’ll be using this model in class on Wednesday with the Vote Oswego campaign staff. Expect to need to explain the model to one of those staffers.
  • Story Basics: Create a simple storyboard (stick figures are fine) of a fairytale of your choice. Each panel of the storyboard should be labeled with the parts of a narrative introduced in chapters 1-2 of The User’s Journey (exposition, iciting incident/problem, rising action, crisis, climax or resolution, falling action, end).

No class on Monday. On Wednesday we meet in Mahar 467 for the first half of class.

August 31 – Vote Oswego Planning

Class Topics

  • Start planning for the Vote Oswego project.
    • Look at the outline and consider the kinds of content you will have. Based on that content, what kinds of modules will need to be developed. Include everything—don’t forget the basics like navigation and a site identifier.
    • What needs do the audience members of the site have? Consider the student body (potential voters), the campaign staff, volunteers, and potential volunteers. Don’t overlook details like where and how students will use the site.
    • What skills does this project require? Who has what skills? Where is there redundancies? Where are there holes?
    • What do you need to know from Dr. Rank?

Homework

  • Mockups that consider key modules. Modules need to work across screen sizes.
  • Make sure you submitted a summary of your peer review from last class on Google Drive.
  • CSS Selector Game (provide screenshot of completing all levels. Due on Wednesday.
  • Grid Practice: Use a single grid to create the page layout indicated in the mockup. Design it so that if there were more articles added it would continue the pattern of the page. You are only allowed to alter/add/edit the CSS. Do not manipulate the HTML at all. Do not add classes or IDs. Due on Friday.

August 29 – Vote Oswego Introduction

Class Topics

  • Set Up Google Drive Folders
  • Join Slack Group
  • Memorable Exhibit Presentations
  • Vote Oswego Intro
    • Join team drive
    • Research Project
    • Non-partisan rules
    • Voting among college students

Homework

  • Read Chapters 1-2 of The User’s Journey. Annotate and take notes.
  • Read the following from the team drive: content in research folder and the brand guide.
  • Not familiar with Slack? Use this getting started guide.

Reminder: next class we meet in Mahar 467 with Vote Oswego Campaign staff.

August 29 – Getting Started

Class Topics

  • Look at Knowability AIR-U to see if we want to form a team.
  • Join Slack Group
  • Peer Review of Copywork
    • How close is the copy? What is different? How can it be fixed?
    • Is the code valid?
    • Is the code organized in a way that is easy for someone else to edit it? Explain.
    • Is the code efficient?
    • Are all of the assets legal? Copyright law should not be violated.
  • Introduction to Vote Oswego
    • Research Project
    • Set up team drive for site development.
    • Identify strengths and weakneses of the team.

Homework

  • Review the following contents in the team drive: Brand Guide, Research, Personas, Website Outline. Create a list of questions you have about the site to ask Vote Oswego on Friday.
  • Not familiar with Slack? Use this getting started guide.
  • Look at Knowability AIR-U to see if we want to form a team.

August 27 – Intro to Experience Design

Class Topics

  • Intro to course
  • Coffee Shop Exercise
  • Intro to projects

Homework

  • Memorable Exhibit Presentation: create a short three slide presentation that describes a memorable (good or bad) experience with an exhibit/booth (broadly defined). The first slide should focus on the approach to the exhibit, the second on the experience of the exhibit itself, and the third about what sticks in your mind vividly post-exhibit. For each, provide an image (photo, sketch, etc.) that illustrates the concept (no words should be included other than the exhibit and location unless used in a diagram or other image). Consider all five senses. Be as descriptive as possible.
  • Purchase textbooks

May 2 – Challenge

  • Schedule Interview Challenge
  • Critique of Menu Boards on Big Screen
  • How-tos on remaining theme requirements

      • Deadline Reminders

      • Child Theme complete for Content Management Project (Due Friday, May 4 at 4pm)
      • Final Presentation (8-10 minutes) of Menu Boards on Big Screen (Wednesday, May 9 at 8am)
      • Installation Instructions, Portfolio Documentation, and Final Reflection (emphasize what you have learned and how you have grown as a designer and front-end developer through this project) for Content Management Project (Due Wednesday, May 9 at 11:59pm)
      • Final revisions: Menu Board, Print to Screen, one other web project/assignment/challenge (Due Wednesday, May 9 at 11:59pm)

May 2 – Testing

Deadline Reminders

  • Group Components: Website and Copyright Documentation (Due Friday, May 4 at 4pm)
  • Group Components: Final Presentation (8-10 minutes) and Website Exhibition Poster (Due Wednesday, May 9 at 8am)
  • Individual Components: Process Book, Portfolio Documentation, Survey (Due Wednesday, May 9 at
    11:59pm)

April 30 – Critique

  • Critique: be sure to document feedback in your process book, as well as what changes you have made in response to that feedback.

Homework

  • Develop a User Test script. Include a 5 second test and identify 2-3 specific tasks a user would try to complete on the site.

April 25 – Challenge

CHALLENGE: Choose a topic on design that you feel like you now have good insight to that you didn’t when you started designing for screens. Write a 500 word blog post that shares that insight with new or less-experienced designers. Imagine you are writing on a platform like medium. Include images. Bonus points if you actually publish it on Medium.

April 23 – Custom Templates and Fields

  • Critique challenges from last week.
  • Thinking about the editor role in WordPress: Create a user who has editor privileges.
  • Custom fields: Make sure users are entering the correct content.
  • Custom templates: Pull custom fields in to custom templates.

April 23 – Development

  • Strategies for modular design and development.
  • Working with templates.
  • Navigation exercise.

Homework

  • Finish up HTML of templates.
  • Revise any content or assets after geting feedback in class.

April 20 – Challenge

It is important, as designers, to make sure we are design for the whole user experience—including when things go wrong. This is where 404 error pages come in. If someone mistypes a URL within your domain, the error page is displayed. If you don’t have a custom error page, the browser supplies an unuseful generic one. Your challenge today is to choose one of your completed website projects (not your menu boards) to implement a 404 error page for. Remember that a good error page should be consistent with the brand.

404 Error Page Resources

April 18 – Work Day

  • Work with group to refine concepts.
    • Develop a complete site map.
    • Determine key pages that would need to be built for a working prototype.
    • Work on needed content (text, image, video, audio, etc.)
    • Refine mockups. Consider multiple screen sizes. What are the templates you will need?
    • Double check your content to make sure that you are not preferencing one species or reinforcing stereotypes. Check text, images, and accessibility features.

Homework