Web Site Design (Week 8, Tuesday, October 16)
Today you'll begin the design of your website project, starting with a simple design document that focuses on the content and structure of your site.
Content and Structure
Your website should have some connection to your paper topic, without simply replicating the paper itself. It might be a series of examples illustrating aspects of your topic, or a resource site with descriptions of and links to other sites on the topic. I'm open to other approaches, as well; those are just some possible examples.
Start your design process by thinking about the goal of your site--what do you want to communicate to your audience about your topic? What information will you need to provide in order to accomplish that?
Next, create a simple flowchart diagram showing the pages on the site, and what content you think will go onto each of them. You can sketch this by hand, or use a tool like Google Drawings (available in Google Drive).
Finally, create a basic wireframe for how you want your pages to be laid out. Where will the navigation be? How will your content be organized? I strongly suggest sketching these on paper or on a whiteboard, and then taking a photo of the one(s) you like when you're done; it's much more effective than starting with a computer.
You can see examples of the those elements as applied to my development of the course website in my Google Drive.
Deliverables
Combine the three components into a single document, and upload it to the dropbox in myCourses before the start of class on Thursday, 10/18.