Web Fluency Group Project - Web Design Group Competition

Purpose: To design and develop a web site for the BSIT program offered by the MSIS Department of College of Management, UMass Boston to promote this program to potential students. 

Format: All groups will be enrolled into the three round competitions. After the first two rounds, six groups will survive the eliminations to participating in the final competition, where the final website will be presented, demonstrated, and refereed by project sponsors and other judges.

Minimal Technical Requirements: The content pages for your website will meet the following minimal technical requirements: 

• You must create an external style sheet (.css file) that configures text, color, and page layout. (No font tags, embedded CSS, or inline CSS may be used.)
• There will be one page containing a form with at least three elements
• Appropriate meta tags
• One page utilizing tables effectively
• One animated image
• One e-mail hyperlink
• One external hyperlink
• Consistent banner logo area
• Consistent main navigation
• Using JavaScript to incorporate some dynamic and interactive pages
• One non-trivial technical enhancement that is self-taught. For example, integration with Google Calendar, making your site multi-lingual, usage of JQuery features, or more advanced JavaScript programing

Additional Evaluation Criteria: In addition to meeting minimal technical requirement, your web site project will also be evaluated on the following criteria: 

• Accomplishment of project's objectives (i.e. selling BSIT@CM program to potential students)
• Well-specified target audience and objectives
• Visual appeal of your site to targeted audience
• Meeting requirements at all project milestones
• Including all required web page elements and passing validations
• Following good web site design practices (You may want to see http://terrymorris.net/bestpractices for some extra suggestions)
• BOTH Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer must correctly render each page.

Project Milestones:

Check the up-to-date schedule and course website for exact dates of the milestones and submission deadlines. Attendance to all project milestones is required. Failure to show up, even after your group is disqualified in previous rounds, will cost you individual project grades. 

Group Formation: By now you should have joined a group of 3 or 4 students depending on the class size. Please make sure to exchange contact information and get to know each other. Remember the key to team success is regular communications, especially face-to-face communications. 

Website Evaluation Project Due: You should use this project to establish group protocols to facilitate working with each other.

Competition Round 1 - Planning Analysis and Plan: Up to 8 groups will make a 10 minute presentations, which will be peer-evaluated by other groups. There will be a two-minute Q&A session after each presentation.

You presentation should include the following information (hint: at least one slide for each of the following questions, but make sure you can finish your presentation in 10 minutes):

• Targeted audience: Describe the targeted audience of your web site. This information must be based on the information you acquire from the project sponsor.
• Design scope: Identify the key messages you would like to send through your design, and key content you would like to include in your website. This information must be based on the information you acquire from the sponsor too.
• Identify one or two reference websites that inform your own design.
• Your overall design principle and guidelines: Based on your targeted audience and design scope and informed by your reference websites, what would be your overall design principle and guidelines?
• A site map showing the hierarchy of pages and relationships between the pages
• For each page (or category of pages), list the working title and identify what information you need to compose the page. Explain how you will obtain the content (facts, text, graphics, sounds, video). Also refer to the Minimal Technical Requirements of the project and indicate which requirements will be met in the page.
• Explain how minimal technical requirements can be met in your design
• Create a wireframe for a) your homepage and b) one secondary page on your web site that clearly shows the logo, navigation, content, and footer areas.
• Discuss some overall design features (e.g. some details on color scheme, font, picture, audio/video ...)
• Very importantly, discuss how your design would help you appeal to your targeted audience and meet the project sponsor's requirement.

Competition Round 2 - Mid-Project Progress Report: Up to 7 surviving groups from Competition Round 1 will make a 12 minute presentation within their sessions, which will be evaluated by all other groups. There will be a 2-minute Q&A session after each presentation. The presentation should give your peer groups a clear idea on what your group wants to do with project, what you have done, and what are left. 

More specifically, in your presentation, you should: 

• Clarify your design goals and finalize your overall design philosophy incorporating the feedback you received during the first round of competition. Feel free to "steal" some ideas from any other groups -- after all we are trying to learn from each other -- but make sure to credit the group that inspired your ideas.
• A comprehensive site map with all the pages mapped out with titles.
• A 75% completed homepage that clearly shows what your final home page would look like. This should include both CSS code and HTML code.
• At least one secondary page that is at least 75% completed. This page should clearly shows what your final secondary pages would look like. This should include both CSS code and HTML code.
• Complete at least 40% of overall workload. How to justify what you've done sums up to 40% is up to you.
• A feasible plan for uncompleted pages/workload. You have to convince the judges (e.g. your peer groups) that you will be able to finish the project in time for the last round of competition.
• A demonstration of the codes, especially the CSS code you use for the project, with explanations on how the code corresponds to the formatting of your pages.
• List the highlights of your project. This is where you try to different your project from other groups' work. One way to do so is to explain the part of the project that you will be most proud of once it is done.

Final Project Presentation: By now you should have finished your project. The surviving groups must be ready to make a complete presentation of the project and demonstrate the working website in 15 minutes to the class and project sponsors for evaluations. There will be a 2-minute Q&A session included in each presentation. Be prepared to show your web site to the class, explaining the purpose behind each page group of pages, and answer any questions from the class.

Your presentation slides can be based on what you presented for the second milestone, the project progress report. However, in the final presentation, please make sure to discuss:

• Your targeted audience
• Your design principles.
• The overall structure of your site. Show the sitemap if you have one.
• The design of the homepage. Explain why choose this design
• The design of the secondary page. Explain why choose this design
• Explain how your design follows your design principle, appeals to the targeted audience, and meet the design goals.
• Highlight the challenging, unique, and superior part of your design.