John Keston Classes

Week 7

Session 1: Today we’ll be discussing the final project which is a full interactive website. We will be combining several types of media within the site, but some important factors not to be overlooked are design and usability. An excellent set of usability criteria goes by the acronym SCANMIC. These guidelines can improve the design of your site in many ways. Here’s a brief overview of the criteria:

1. Screen Design (Space, choice of color, readability, image placement, etc.)
2. Content (Who, What, Where, When)
3. Accessibility (Fast Load Times, Browser Compatibility, Easy to Read)
4. Navigation (Title Bar, Headers, Highlighted Navigation Links. Good navigation is like a roadmap, know where you are where you’ve been and where to go next.)
5. Media Use (Graphics help keep users attention and can enhance usability, poor use slows down sites and distract users, Sound, Animation, and Video)
6. Interactivity (e-commerce, feedback, discussions, chat, user customization)
7. Consistency (Page size/page layout, navigation buttons/ images, menus, etc. text – font, font size and color).

Full Webiste – Interactive Website with Flash Elements
Due Date – 1st Class of Week 11
Evaluations – 1st and 2nd Class of Week 11
(5% of final project grade)

Components:
Proposal 25 pts. Due week 8 Class 2
Mockups 10 points. Due 1st Class of Week 9
Beta Version 15 points. Due 1st Class of Week 10
Final site 50 points. Due 1st Class of Week 11
Total Points – 100

Assignment Overview:
Using Dreamweaver and Flash create an interactive website with a minimum of 10 content areas. Universal navigation, text content, images, sound, and motion graphics are required in your site. Sites will be evaluated based on the SCANMIC criteria.

Content Specifics:
- Choose a subject, product or service for your site.
– Content of site must be approved by me.
– Design must be your original work.
– Include at least 2 uses of audio (background/sound effects).
– Include a minimum of 8 photo stills.
– Use a maximum of 3 font styles.
– Incorporate self designed buttons, rollovers, and headers.
– A minimum of 10 pages or content areas are required.
– Content must include text as well as graphics (all image sites are unacceptable).
– Universal navigation is required so users can easily get around your site.
– Links to related websites outside of your project are required.
– Final project must be uploaded to your OLS or comparable account and available on the World Wide Web.

Competencies:
Project planning and organization.
Resource gathering.
Using Symbols (Graphics, Movie Clips, & Buttons) within Flash
incorporation of ActionScripting for movie control (Stops & Navigation)
Publishing from Flash
Uploading Flash movies to the web
Processing of Digital Images into a web format
Using Dreamweaver to create html documents
Creating tables within Dreamweaver
Creation of consistent navigation systems.
Creating relative links for navigation and hard links for linking outside your site
Linking to an email address
Targeting links to different areas
Publishing a website to the WWW

Grading Standards:
Completion of the project by the required deadline does not guarantee a passing grade. Your project must demonstrate the knowledge of the project competencies and a moderate level of design detail.

Schedule / Points Breakdown:
2nd Class of Week 8 – Paper copy of the proposal is due (25 points).
1st Class of Week 9 – Mockups required for feedback (10 points).
1st Class of Week 10 – Beta version due for review (15 points).
Week 11 – Final Project Due 1st Class of Week 11 (50 points).
Week 11 – Evaluations: Session 1 / Session 2 (5% of Final Project grade).

Session 2: A very important part of building interactive media projects is the planning stage. Let’s discuss each of the components required for our design documents (often called development plan) for your final project. Here’s a list of components generally included in this type of document:

1. Title page (Title, Author, Table of Contents, etc.)
2. Summary/Overview (A brief summary of what the project does and what it’s for, etc.)
3 . Feature Lists/Requirements (A list of the features with brief descriptions)
4 . Flow Charts (Represent each unique screen of the project with a shape connected via navigation)*
5 . Screen Schematics (Simple pages shown with wire frame boxes for nav buttons, and images. Also include notes describing the purpose of each screen.)
6. Proposal/Bid in hours (time per pages, etc.)