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Intro to Design and Usability

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Intro to Design and Usability

B. Maura Townsend's picture
Course organiser: B. Maura Townsend
About the Course Organiser: 
I came to p2pu as a hopeful student, since I want to go back to work in web design with current skills after taking several years off to parent (small amounts of freelance and hobby work do not count as "work" in this statement). I noticed  a lot of calls for classes for beginners and classes that focus on backend, code, and the "bones" of web work, but not much mention at all of basic design and usability for those who are new.

After college, where I majored in Graphic Communications and minored in Theatre, I came to web design as a traditional graphic designer with a love for computers. What this means is that all my formal training is in traditional methods, paper and ink, and I am and always have been a voracious learner when it came to computers and ended up teaching myself HTML and several different graphics programs. I worked for several years in Silicon Valley and later Austin, TX, doing web design and graphics work, most recently illustrating technical manuals and making icons in Tivoli's Interface Design group.

An abbreviated list of interim activity:

B. Maura Townsend

No of Seats: 
20
Course Status: 
Completed

Members

B. Maura Townsend's picture
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Why is web design important? What is Usability and what does it mean to my site design?

Summary

This is a basic introduction to usability and design fundamentals for absolute beginners. Designing for the web is all about presenting your content so it works best within a relatively fixed environment, such as an HTML/CSS document, and usability is all about making it work well for users who have fairly fixed expectations of how to navigate a website, so they enjoy using your site and stay to use your content.

The goal of this course is to get you thinking about design from the point of view of the audience, not the designer, and not the client. The focus of this class will be on understanding design and introductory usability concepts for people who already have some very basic HTML skills. We will look at what constitutes typical user behavior; eye tracking and how designing to typical behavior means certain layouts are more usable; why contrast, text sizes, type styles, choice of graphic elements, and color choice are important; and a basic overview of what user experience is and why it's important for any page. We will also cover what copyright means to you as a designer and where to get images and content legally, as well as looking at freely available online tools.


We will be using the publicly available work of Vincent Flanders and Jakob Neilsen as our main resources.

Copyright vs. creative commons resources:

Learning objectives

  • Why design is important on every site
  • How web design is different from print design
  • The role of graphics, color choices and font styles in user experience
  • Eyetracking and user behavior, and what they mean in site design
  • Basic information presentation (menus, graphics, main and additional content)
  • How to present supplementary content (video, downloadables, interactives, galleries)
  • Where to get images legally plus a brief overview of copyright and how it applies to the web
  • Tools and resources for the beginner (including online tools like Aviary)

Schedule/Syllabus

Comments

will there be an email or

Luis Armando Mercado's picture
Luis Armando Mercado
Sun, 2011-01-09 05:25

will there be an email or some sort of reminder of the course? (just to know =) )

I will be sending out a

B. Maura Townsend's picture
B. Maura Townsend
Sun, 2011-01-09 05:40

I will be sending out a broadcast a few days before the course begins.

In the third task to sign up,

Gualberto Escalante's picture
Gualberto Escalante
Mon, 2011-01-10 04:52

In the third task to sign up, we have to provide an example of each mistake that appears on the links? For example: One for "Bad search engines", another one for "PDF Files for Online Reading", etc.

No, you need to select one

B. Maura Townsend's picture
B. Maura Townsend
Mon, 2011-01-10 05:25

No, you need to select one issue, from each linked list, to describe in your own words.

Hi Maura, I put a link to a

Marcus Santiago's picture
Marcus Santiago
Wed, 2011-01-12 00:18

Hi Maura,

I put a link to a pdf on my drop for the first task. Is that ok?
-Marcus

Yes, that's fine!

B. Maura Townsend's picture
B. Maura Townsend
Wed, 2011-01-12 00:26

Yes, that's fine!

Hi, Should I send the screen

Jayalaxmi Arasalike's picture
Jayalaxmi Arasalike
Thu, 2011-01-13 00:10

Hi, Should I send the screen shot of my HTML test score?

The text of it is fine.

B. Maura Townsend's picture
B. Maura Townsend
Thu, 2011-01-13 05:09

The text of it is fine.

Will we be notified if we

Marcus Santiago's picture
Marcus Santiago
Thu, 2011-01-13 16:28

Will we be notified if we don't get into the class?

Applications officially

B. Maura Townsend's picture
B. Maura Townsend
Thu, 2011-01-13 21:37

Applications officially opened yesterday, and numerous applications are still coming in. This is not a first come, first serve signup. This class has a limited number of seats, and I will be evaluating applications this weekend.

I will be considering whether to expand the class based on the number of excellent applications at the same time, and sending out a scheduling link, as well.

BMT

Hi Maura, Thank you for what

Thorsten Boeck's picture
Thorsten Boeck
Thu, 2011-01-13 23:25

Hi Maura,
Thank you for what looks like a very exciting course.

I am one of those that 'managed' to subscribe prematurely. Now I cannot unsubscribe myself, which means I cannot resubscribe submitting the sign-up task.

I saw your note that you will unsubscribe us. Please send us a note when you have done so. Then I will submit the sign-up task.

/Thorsten

I have manually removed

B. Maura Townsend's picture
B. Maura Townsend
Thu, 2011-01-13 23:41

I have manually removed everyone, so you should now be able to re-apply, using the "apply" button in the School of Webcraft course list: http://p2pu.org/webcraft

Very excited for this class!

Ms.Receptionitis's picture
Ms.Receptionitis
Fri, 2011-01-14 19:50

Very excited for this class!

when will be the anouncement

Gualberto Escalante's picture
Gualberto Escalante
Wed, 2011-01-19 04:38

when will be the anouncement of the people who got in?

Applications closed today,

B. Maura Townsend's picture
B. Maura Townsend
Wed, 2011-01-19 23:15

Applications closed today, and we have over 150 of them! I have been evaluating them as they come in, but there are still more to look through. I will be going over my list of potential approvals to narrow those down this evening, and approvals will occur tomorrow.

After that, I'll be doing a broadcast to work out scheduling, so all approved people will get an email from P2PU in their inboxes.

Thanks for your patience!

BMT

ok, thanks | hope to get

Gualberto Escalante's picture
Gualberto Escalante
Thu, 2011-01-20 03:30

ok, thanks | hope to get approved

First off I just want to say

Arash Dave's picture
Arash Dave
Fri, 2011-01-21 22:56

First off I just want to say thanks for running this course. I know you have a lot of applications on your hand but I just want to say that this course really deeply interests me.

After all, aren't design and usability some of the key components to having a great website these days? People can major in architecture, which is basically the study of designing buildings. Aren't websites like electronic buildings? In the future will people study website design in the same way they study architecture now?

I hope to learn a little bit more about design and how I can improve the user experience on my websites in this course. I really hope I will be considered, thanks.

Hi all, I'm happy to be

nada A.S's picture
nada A.S
Sat, 2011-01-22 12:32

Hi all,

I'm happy to be admitted to this course ,and eager to learn about design and usability very soon.

Good luck all..

Although I did not get a

ZM L's picture
ZM L
Sat, 2011-01-22 14:28

Although I did not get a place this time, I wish all the best for those who get into this course :). Have a good time =).

Thanks for accepting me into

Roger Davis's picture
Roger Davis
Sat, 2011-01-22 17:18

Thanks for accepting me into this course Maura! I cant wait to begin learning with everyone!

Thank you for accepting me

Kelvin Jayanoris's picture
Kelvin Jayanoris
Sat, 2011-01-22 18:02

Thank you for accepting me into this course. I look forward to learning a whole lot from you. Can't wait to meet everyone else. :)

Look forward to learning!

Roberta Romero's picture
Roberta Romero
Sat, 2011-01-22 18:35

Look forward to learning!

Thank you for having me in

Paul Ortega's picture
Paul Ortega
Sat, 2011-01-22 20:53

Thank you for having me in the class. I look forward to learning with you all. I have never taken a course here, so I am curious to see how this all works.

Thanks for accepting me to

Marianna Breytman's picture
Marianna Breytman
Sun, 2011-01-23 02:01

Thanks for accepting me to the class! Can't wait to learn a lot and meet everyone :]

Thanks for accepting me, I'm

Georges Duplessy's picture
Georges Duplessy
Sun, 2011-01-23 02:50

Thanks for accepting me, I'm looking forward to learning.

Thank you for accepting me to

Chuck Johnston's picture
Chuck Johnston
Sun, 2011-01-23 03:30

Thank you for accepting me to the class! I'm super excited to meet everybody and can't wait to learn!

awesome! glad i was able to

Dennis King's picture
Dennis King
Sun, 2011-01-23 08:12

awesome! glad i was able to get into the class. looking forward to it. :)

Hi all! Very excited to

Eileen Sierra's picture
Eileen Sierra
Sun, 2011-01-23 18:04

Hi all! Very excited to participate. :)

very happy to be part of this

Anna Sophia  Schenk's picture
Anna Sophia Schenk
Sun, 2011-01-23 19:27

very happy to be part of this course, - exciting! thank you!

Very excited to be part of

Jayalaxmi Arasalike's picture
Jayalaxmi Arasalike
Sun, 2011-01-23 20:14

Very excited to be part of this course. Thanks to the instructor and co-facilitators for constituting such a needed course. Looking forward to understand and learn more about design.