Project 2: Web site analysis

The files that comprise your Project 2 should be on your Clayton State Web site, readable using Mozilla Firefox, by the beginning of class on the date listed on our Schedule page.

Content

Your project will analyze a Web site recognized for excellence. You should choose a finalist from the SxSW festival's interactive web awards for 2007, 2008, or 2009.

To analyze both good and bad aspects of the site's design, you will apply the guidelines presented by Curtis and Horton/Lynch. Specific and detailed information from both our texts and from the analyzed sites should be cited and incorporated into your argument. Don't waste time on minor points: your analysis should emphasize the most important elements presented by our texts.

Recent projects by Jennifer Sawyer, Melissa Rolle, and Shana Latimer provide useful examples of what CMS students have done in the past. Please note that none of these projects is perfect; use their choices as a spark for your own creativity rather than blindly copying aspects that may not be effective design.

Minimums

The minimum (i.e. "C" level) length for your analysis is twelve detailed paragraphs of six to eight sentences each. This will include the two introductory paragraphs that will appear on your home page. In addition, your project must include at least five separate html pages and five screen shots from the analyzed site that illustrate your major points. Finally, links to relevant pages within the analyzed site must be included.

Format

In general, the project should conform to the guidelines for good design as presented by our texts. Your interface should be clear and aesthetically pleasing. Use colors and graphics that reinforce a professional tone and that do not interfere with the text.

All words must be spelled correctly, and links to pages outside of your analysis should open in a new window. All hyperlinks to internal documents must be relative.

Citation

You should use in-text parenthetical citations to credit the authors. Use page numbers for Curtis and live links for Horton/Lynch. Here are examples:

  • Curtis depended on inspiration from the Swiss designer Josef Müller-Brockmann to focus his corporate site re-design on the beauty of precision and simplicity (115).
  • Horton and Lynch note that designing flexible-width layouts is in many ways more challenging than designing fixed-width layouts (Page Frameworks).

Your project pages should be placed in a folder called "project2" located within the "3710" folder in your Clayton State Web site. The link "2" on our class roll page should connect readers to the first page of your project.  

In addition, your 3710 home page should include a prominent link called "Project 2: Web Site Analysis." This link also should take readers to the opening page of your analysis.

Grading

Projects will be evaluated using the CSU Writing Guidelines. See the link in the blue bar for the basic Guideline standards. The project will earn a letter grade for each of the Guideline's three components:

  1. Content,
  2. Organization,
  3. Mechanics, Grammar, and Style.

No project earning a D or lower in any of the three components may earn an overall grade higher than D. Once this basic standard is met, the project's overall grade will be determined by an average of the three component grades.

Content

To earn a C or higher in this component, the project must meet or exceed all of the requirements detailed in the "Content" and "Format" sections above.

Organization

Every page of your analysis must include the "Who, What, Where, When" information necessary to orient readers on the Web, including an appropriate page title, top-level <h1> heading, and subheadings. In addition, your site should conform to the organizational standards presented in the Web Style Guide and MTIV. See particularly the WSG discussion on "chunking" information as well as the chapter on site design. Your pages' navigational tools should be obvious, easy to use, and logically structured for your readers' needs.

Mechanics, Grammar, and Style

All links must work. To ensure that this is the case, test your completed project on someone else's computer. [Because of a software glitch, Dreamweaver sometimes creates absolute links pointed at files on a particular C drive rather than creating the properly relative links. If you fall victim to this error, your links will seem to work on your computer, but they will be broken on everyone else's.]

Spelling: Dreamweaver includes a spell-checker, accessible under the "Text" menu. Use it.

Punctuation: The basic rules of punctuation must be followed. Please note that American style requires placing commas and periods inside quotation marks. For models of these conventions, refer to books published in the United States. 

Sentence Structure: The basic rules of grammar and sentence structure must be followed. Ask a friend or family member to read over your final draft before the due date.

Style: Clarity, conciseness, and concreteness are vital for Web-based communication. In addition, your language should convey and maintain a professional tone.