Intro to Design and Usability

Week 1: Greetings and Scheduling; Why Design is Important.  We will be organizing and working to get everyone as accommodated as possible in any live interaction events (chats, presentations, etherpad). Class google site is set up, document archive is set up. Open chat times are set up. First assignment is to critique two example sites, chosen from sites mentioned by more than one person in applications.

 

Week 2 : Print vs Web; Fonts and colors in design. We will cover how print design is different from web design and the role of graphics, color choices and font styles in user experience. Reading, color-blindness evaluation tool use and user point of view assignments.

 

Week 3  User Behavior Week. We will cover typical user behavior, we'll talk about eyetracking and what it means, and we will start to look at information presentation.  This will be another reading and user's point of view task week. This is a good place to leave questions you'd like covered by the reading and discussion next week. 

• May include a short presentation on eyetracking and typical user behavior

 

Week 4 Supplementary Content Week. We will cover more in depth information presentation and supplementary content (video, galleries, interactives, downloadables), as well as a short overview of copyright for the web and where to get legal content (images, sound, fonts). There will be an assignment relating to supplementary content - probably designing a site to include some in a usable way. Maybe also finding some CC licensed content to put into use in draft sites. 

• May include a presentation on copyright for the web and sourcing legal content (creative commons licensing).

 

Week 5 Practical Application and Helpful Apps. We will cover creating your own content, free design tools on the web, and resources. There will be a short series of assigned graphic creation and design tasks, a little HTML and maybe a bit of CSS. Final project work can begin this week if desired, and can be included in critiques.

• No presentation. We may instead do live critiques of each others' work. 

 

Week 6 Wrap Up and Final Project. We will take what we have learned and apply it to a usability focused redesign of any site on the web (can be corporate, personal, etc). This can be presented as a semi- functional prototype, a presentation, a graphic mockup, etc. If a personal website is chosen for this project, it should be a functional site. Explain reasoning behind the redesign.