DIG3134 Media Software Design Fall 10 Syllabus



DIG 4104c – Web Design Workshop

Spring 2014 – 3 credits (repeatable)

Instructors: Dr. J. Michael Moshell

Lecture [ 001 : W 2:30 – 4:20 PM | VAB 111 ]

Lab: One of (Mon 9:00-11:00 or 13:00 – 15:00) – VAB 104

|Contacting the Instructor |

|Office Hrs: |Mon 10:45-12:45 PM, Tue Wed Thur 12:00 – 1:00, or by Appointment. |

|Office: |Moshell: OTC 500 room 156. |

|Phone |407-694-6763 |

|email |jm.moshell@cs.ucf.edu |

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|Web: | |

| | |

Course Requirements

PR: DIG 3134, DIG3716c, DIG3811, DIG3563

Catalog Description

Students will practice designing and implementing professional quality websites.

Course Objectives for Sprint 2014

1. Students will learn about the opportunities, challenges and techniques for developing websites built with the new resources provided by HTML5, and state of the art production management tools such as the git version control system.

2. Students will learn about the evolving principles and standards for constructing accessible websites; will understand different classes of disabilities and the available techniques for rendering websites useful to those with disabilities.

Required and Recommended Texts

None. Weekly readings will be provided via the Internet.

Technology Policies

|Technology |Expectations for Use |

|E-mail: |Students can e-mail the instructor with any questions and expect to receive a response in a reasonable|

| |amount of time (2 business days). |

| |KNIGHTS MAIL: Effective immediately, the University only supports student e-mail communication to and |

| |from your @knights.ucf.edu e-mail address. The instructor will only respond to e-mails sent from |

| |@knights.ucf.edu addresses. |

| | |

|Internet Access: |Students are expected to have access to the Internet at all times throughout this course. Lectures, |

| |assignments and class examples will be available through the class website, and students are |

| |responsible for checking for updates. |

|Software: |You are expected to have access to software that can perform the following functions: |

| |Browse the web and view XHTML/CSS |

| |(Firefox latest version) |

| |Debugging (Mac/Win Firebug available for free) |

| |VPN (Mac/Win Cisco VPN client available for free) |

| |FTP/SFTP (Mac – Fetch/Fugu/Cyberduck, Win – WinSCP) |

| |Telnet/SSH (Mac – Terminal app, Win – PuTTY) |

| |IDE or text editor that supports HTML and CSS (Dreamweaver, Eclipse, TextMate (Mac), EditPlus(Win), |

| |CodeLobster, Notepad++, SublimeText, etc.) |

| |git the version control system |

| |SmartGIT, a free client for git |

| |You are required to bring pen or pencil and paper to every class. You must have access to (at least) a|

| |desktop computer for homework and projects. |

|Laptop Usage: |You may use laptops and/or audio recorders for note-taking purposes. It is considerably to your |

| |advantage to bring a laptop to class and be prepared to demonstrate your work; and to work with your |

| |team during meetings. However we cannot require that you purchase a laptop. |

|Backups: |You are required to maintain your own backups. If an assignment goes missing or gets deleted from the|

| |computer you have been working on, it is your responsibility to re-do the assignment and bring it to |

| |the instructor (accepting full penalties). I can’t recommend any services, but I’ve heard that some |

| |people have had great success with cloud-storage services like and |

|Web Browser Spec: |All projects will be graded using the most current version of Firefox, running on a Macintosh laptop. |

|Server Access: |Students are required to use the Sulley web server to store their work and assignments. Since Sulley |

| |is behind a secure firewall, VPN software is required for access from off-campus. This software is |

| |available at noc.ucf.edu. Not being able to access Sulley will not be a valid excuse for failing to |

| |complete assignments on time. |

| | |

Additional Policies

|Grading and Evaluation |A: 89.5% and up |

| |B: 79.5% - 89.49% |

| |C: 59.5% - 79.49%. (D is a useless grade, so why give it?) |

| |F: less than 59.5% |

| |Grades will be reported using a spreadsheet on the course website, keyed to your unique secret number.|

| |You will receive this number on the second lecture day of class (8/27/11) |

|Attendance and Participation |Attendance will be taken in each class and lab, by passing a signup sheet at the beginning of class |

| |or lab. If you miss the signup sheet and ask to sign in late, you will receive half-credit for that |

| |day. Attendance counts for 5% of the course grade. |

|Grade Awareness |It is your responsibility to continually check your grades as they are posted. Any questions about |

| |grade computation must be raised within one week of the grade's being posted. After this time the |

| |grade is final. |

|Personal Responsibility and Ownership|If I assign optional practice problems, and then you ask me questions about an assignment that |

|of your Education |requires you to solve similar problems, I will first ask for proof of the relevant practice problems |

| |worked out. If you can’t produce this proof, my response will be “go work through those practice |

| |problems first, and come back and see me again afterwards if there is still a problem.” |

|Late, Make-up and Extra Credit Work |No late assignments will be accepted. One (1) second after the due date/time = late. Server-time is |

| |very unforgiving, so don’t taunt it! |

| | |

| |Make-up exams will only be given if one of the following conditions have been met: |

| |A student that misses an exam due to illness must notify the instructor prior to exam time and produce|

| |a doctor’s note stating that the student was unable to return to school for the exam by the date the |

| |doctor says the student will be able to return (for example, if the doctor says ‘do not return to |

| |school until Thursday’ and the test was on Tuesday, the student must notify the instructor that they |

| |will not be present for the exam due to illness, and then bring an official doctor’s note to the |

| |instructor by Thursday either in person or through mailbox. |

| |A student that misses an exam due to a death in the family must notify the instructor prior to exam |

| |time and produce a doctor’s note or funeral notice that falls reasonably near the date of the exam. |

| |A student that misses an exam due to a court subpoena or other legal obligation must notify the |

| |instructor prior to exam time and produce a note from a lawyer or judge justifying the need for |

| |missing the exam. |

| |If one or more of the above conditions are met, the instructor will work with the student to schedule |

| |a makeup exam date/time that is convenient for both the instructor and student. |

| |Note: job obligations are not valid excuses for missing class, an assignment due date, an exam, or an |

| |exam makeup time. |

|Academic Integrity |Plagiarism and cheating of any kind on an examination, quiz, or assignment will result in an "F" for |

| |that assignment (and may, depending on the severity of the case, lead to an "F" for the entire course)|

| |and may be subject to appropriate referral to the Office of Student Conduct for further action. See |

| |the UCF Golden Rule for further information. I will assume for this course that you will adhere to the|

| |academic creed of this University and will maintain the highest standards of academic integrity. In |

| |other words, don't cheat by giving answers to others or taking them from anyone else. |

| | |

| |All assignments are expected to be completed individually, except where the written description of the|

| |document (on the course website) specifies that this is a team project. |

|Accommodations for the |The University of Central Florida is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for all persons |

|Differently-abled (alternate testing |with disabilities.  This syllabus is available in alternate formats upon request.  Students with |

|opportunities, support for signers, |disabilities who need accommodations in this course must contact the professor at the beginning of the|

|etc.) |semester to discuss needed accommodations.  No accommodations will be provided until the student has |

| |met with the professor to request accommodations.  Students who need accommodations must be registered|

| |with Student Disability Services, Student Resource Center Room 132, phone (407) 823-2371, TTY/TDD only|

| |phone (407) 823-2116, before requesting accommodations from the professor. |

DIG4014c

E-mail Protocols

All e-mails sent to the instructor must follow these guidelines in order to receive a response from the instructor.

General E-mails

From: Your Knights Mail account!

Subject: [DIG4014c] – Short description of the e-mail topic

Body:

Starts with: Dr. Moshell

Ends with: Your full name

Example:

From: jane@knights.ucf.edu

Subject: [DIG4014c] – Question about assignment 2

Body:

Dr. Moshell,

I have a question about assignment 2. May I do it in Javascript?

Jane Student

Complaints. Any complaints about the operation of this course, or any other Digital Media course, must be handled in the following fashion.

1) Schedule an appointment with the instructor and discuss your complaint.

2) If the result is not satisfactory, write a clear description of the problem. Deliver it to the Chair of the School of Visual Arts and Design. He will request a written response from the instructor. At his discretion, he may schedule a meeting with you. He will then inform you of the resolution of the problem.

3) If this result is not satisfactory, then follow the same procedure with respect to the Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities.

Web Design Workshop – Spring 2013

Concept of the Course

OUTLINE:

1. Strategic Objective

2. Constraints

3. Goals for the Course

4. Structure: Teams and Projects

5. Curriculum: The Class Meetings

6. Lab: Working with your Team

1. Strategic Objective

You are Web Design specialists, and so you need to have a strong portfolio of websites that you've created. The primary objectives of this course are to add one professonal-grade site to your portfolio, and to extend your suite of relevant skills.

2. Constraints

We are not all visually creative artists, and we are not all tech writers, and we are not all programmers. But you need all these skills to build a truly first-rate website. You can either learn the necessary skills, or barter for them, or buy them (but not in this course....)

What common skills should all Web Design graduates have, and at what level? A certain level of competency in User Centered Design is required of anyone who designs a website. Basic literacy (spelling and grammar) is a minimum requirement. Awareness of state-of-the-art techniques, and compliance with community standards, are also expected of professionals. Those community standards include the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the WorldWideWeb Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative.

Every job interview includes questions intended to determine the applicant's level of responsibility, maturity, ability to focus and get the job done. Successful candidates are often described as "self-starters"; or as having leadership abilities.

Course Background. Another fundamental constraint is that half of you have had Web Design Workshop before (mostly from me and Jon Friskics); most of these people now know how to construct a mobile-friendly website, e. g. with Jquery Mobile. However, the other half hasn't had that experience. So we cannot require the use of those skills, of all participants. You are of course free (and encouraged) to use the skills and concepts required to produce a flexible-design site, suitable for mobile media – wherever you got them.

From these considerations we can identify the concrete Goals of the course.

3. Goals of the Course

THEORY

• Review some principles of User Centered Design and Information Architecture

• Add to understanding of State of the Art: configuration control via git, HTML5

• Explore accessibility standards and requirements

PRACTICE

• Demonstrate a functional understanding of git, bitbucket and github

• Demonstrate technical mastery of HTML5

• Demonstrate technical mastery of one or more structural/behavioral tools (e. g. CMS, Jquery Mobile, Javascript/Ajax, Java, PHP/MySQL) for interactive web design with back-end support

• Demonstrate all stages of the design and construction of a rich interactive website

4. Structure

Everyone in this course is expected to be part of a team, for mutual support. However, you are free to decide whether you plan to build a single common project website, or to build a personal website. There are advantages of each approach.

A common website: you can make a more complex and realistic site if you can combine the talents of several people with complementary skills.

An individual website: you know up-front whom you're relying on (yourself), and so you won't have to put up with the usual hassles of non-performing team members.

There are also disadvantages of each approach.

A common website: When showcasing such a site in your portfolio, during a job interview ou may have to answer the awkward question: "what part of this did you actually DO?"

An individual website: it's a week before the project is due and you can't get some element of the back-end to work, and everybody is too busy to help you.

You have to decide for yourself, which approach you want to take for the main project in this course. However, you will conduct two smaller projects in the first half of the semester – one in "single user" mode,and one in "team mode", so as to demonstrate your understanding of key subject matter that we are dealing with.

Choosing a Project Theme. There's a 'chicken and egg' problem here, because the structure of your team will probably depend on the project you decide to undertake. And on the other hand, your team would probably like to collectively decide what project you're going to work on.

So we'll allocate time in the first class period, for you to work on these problems simultaneously. Here are the constraints for your project:

• The project needs to solve a problem for some community of users who are not defined simply as UCF students (see note below.)

• The project's community of users will include users with at least one disability (we will discuss and explore the various disability categories and how they impact web design.)

• Part of your work this semester, in order to get up to the B level in this course, is to identify actual members of the specified user community, get them to evaluate your website and provide feedback.

• Part of your work this semester, in order to get up to the A level in this course, is to identify at least two actual disabled members of this user sommunity, get them to evaluate your website and provide feedback.

At the second class meeting you will report on the project you have selected. Your report will include:

• the stakeholders

• the problem that you are helping them to solve

• the disability community upon whom you are focusing your design

• where the data would come from in a real implementation of your concept

• where (and how) the data will come, in your prototype

At this stage you don't have to tell us how you plan to build the website. That should be determined when you have a clear picture of the needs of your disability community, and what tools are available to facilitate their use of the website. Remember that your website must be useful and attractive to the non-disabled community as well.

Forming a Team. Most people tend to just grab their friends or roomates as this seems to be the easiest way to form teams. I encourage you to use a more strategic approach. You need at least these skills on your team:

• visual design

• front end implementation (in this case, HTML5)

• back end implementation (usually PHP these days)

For structural reasons, teams need to have 4 or 5 members, so that we will wind up with 10 to 12 teams. Give your team an interesting name.

Some of you already took Web Design Workshop and so have been exposed to git. Others will be learning about it for the first time. It may be to your advantage to have at least one teammate who previously had the Web Design Workshop, or who has experience with git.

Another issue: Your team needs to be in the same lab section as you, because you will be working together during those lab sessions, which meet on Tuesday or Thursday, 12:30 – 2:20 PM.

To facilitate the team formation process, I'll distribute a self-assessment questionnaire at the beginning of the class.

When you have your teams formed (with team members' names etc. on two rosters (I'll provide the blanks), one for me and one for you), hand the roster and your team's student questionnaires to me. You may then claim one of the following four Disability Specialty areas (at most 3 teams per area):

Visual

Physical

Cognitive and Neurological

Auditory

First come first serve ...

NOTE 1: Your website's accessibility accommodations are not limited to your disability specialty. The best websites will incorporate adaptations for two or more disability areas. These specializations are for the purpose of focusing your study and expertise; and of course your site MUST at least accommodate your special area of disability.

NOTE 2: During the lecture phase, all students are required to prepare the brief summaries of readings, for all topic areas as assigned. You cannot just say "my topic was visual!" when asked to present a summary of the auditory readings, for instance.

5. Curriculum: Class Meetings (on Mondays, 2:30 to 4:20 PM)

Student driven presentations. It is well established that listening to a prof lecture is one of the worst ways to learn something. It is a relatively popular activity with students, because they don't have to do much but pretend to listen. But not much of what the prof says, ends up in the student's brains.

A much better use of class time is active discussion. At least those students who offer ideas and answer questions, are processing information instead of watching it go by. So in this class, we are going to follow several "active learning practices".

Starting with the second class, an assigned set of readings will be given for every class. Every student is required to

a) read the assignment,

b) prepare a brief summary of the four or five most important points in the reading assignment, and

c) be ready to present this summary to the class, usually using a Powerpoint presentation.

Each set of readings will be specified by a Study Guide which sets forth the kinds of questions and topics that you are to pursue, and gives examples of acceptable answers.

For most topic areas, you will be assigned a subset of the topics to be discussed on that day (so as to assure full coverage.) For this purpose the class' students have been divided into five Clusters of about ten students each. See the Student Clusters listing on the course website.

I will randomly call upon class members to present their summaries, typically three people per topic. If you are absent without excuse, or have not prepared your summary, then you lose 50 course points. If you are present and make a presentation, your presentation is evaluated for thoroughness and effort, and your point basis will be increased by 50 points. (Thus for instance, you are now seeking to earn 1050 points in the course, versus 1000 before you were called upon.)

These summaries are much smaller than the "Do-It-Yourself Talks" which you may have experienced, and which will be taking place in the latter half of the course. But they have the same point value. Think of them as "defensive opportunities" to avoid losing a half a letter grade.

Make up a powerpoint summarizing your points.

• Do not simply read us the text on your Powerpoint

• Do not use full sentences on your powerpoint – just bullet points

• Find pictures, use screenshots etc. whenever possible to illustrate. Web Design is a visual business for most users, so be visual in your presentation.

Remember that your audience has read (or should have read) the same document you did; so most of the value in your presentation is based on what you add, from your own experience or research, to help explain what the original text says.

How to get an A on your summary: every point that you describe from the reading, must be accompanied by an example that you find, or make up, that is not simply taken directly from the reading. If you find that you cannot understand the reading or cannio find or make up an example, you may consult with your classmates or come to my office hours, or make an appointment.

The readings about HTML5 features will on most occasions be accompanied by examples. You are expected to drop these examples into your HTML editor, verify that they work, and then modify them in some nontrivial way to verify that you can control the tools and the language features. Present your modified example, and discuss it.

If your presentation simply "parrots" what the reading says, without additional examples, expect at most 70% = 35 points for your presentation, and maybe less.

Your presentations become your reference notes, and can be used during the midterm and final exams which are open-book.

Prof driven lectures. I will provide a 'clean-up' lecture, after the student summaries, to increase the chance that the audience gets the essential ideas. My Powerpoints will be posted on the course website.

Topics for the class meetings, come in 3 areas.

1. Disability and Enabling Technologies

2. HTML5

3. Open Ended Web Topics (second half of the course)

This last category is largely driven by your answers on the Student Questionnaire, concerning what you want to learn.

Exams. The midterm will cover all material presented up to that point. The final will cover all material presented during the second half of the semester. Both exams are open book and notes, closed technology.

7. Lab: Working with your Team

(Tuesday or Thursday, 12:30-2:20 PM)

Adam Lenz, an accomplished web developer, will be your lab instructor. The purpose of the labs is to provide an environment where you and your team can push forward with your projects. Attendance in Lab is mandatory, due to accreditation requirements for class contact hours.

I strongly recommend bringing your own laptop to the lab, and working with it – if you have one. That way, you can take your work home and keep right on using the same tools and files. For those without laptops, the lab's Macintosh computers will be available.

Project 1: (Individual): New HTML5 features and your individual git repository. The purpose of this project is to make sure that you learn how to use SmartGIT to maintain files in your own repository. We (and you!) will lecture about some of HTML5's key features, and you will create an individual "hello world" website.

Project 2: (Team): A Level Zero Prototype of your Project. This is a website with little or no actual content. However, it must incorporate the basic accessibility features which you have identified in your Design Document for Project 3.

Special Requirement: All Project 2 must be able to pass the No Visuals Test. That is, a user must be able to get the essential information from the site, using ONLY a keyboard and screen-reader software such as that which is built into the Mac OS or Window.

NOTE: If you are part of a team, but are planning to conduct an individual Project 3, then your team will select one of the team member's Design Documents, in order to extract the skeletal specifications for Project 2.

Testing Project 2. Due to the Iterative Design requirement of the User Centered Design, your Project 2 must be submitted to some user group. Because our disabled user groups are likely to be busy people, you do not have to use them for this purpose; you may exchange user-testing with another group within the Lab. However you will administer questionnnaires and gather data, as a first test of your questionnaires that will be used for the final project evaluation in April.

This user testing will include the No Visuals Test. Your test group for the No Visuals Test must have never seen or interacted with the normal visual version of the project.

Project 3: Team or Individual:You will develop a Design Document according to a standard plan (as in DIG3563, with augmentation for accessibility considerations), and present it to the class for criticism. You will then spend the latter half of the class' lab time, plus out-of-class work time, implementing the website.

Your lab instructor's task (in addition to supervising and grading Projects 1 and 2) will be to assist you in finding solutions to problems as they arise in your website construction.

Your Design Document will include a schedule, which must yield a feature-complete and working website by 1 April.

During April you will schedule and conduct usability tests with clients outside this class. You will be required to provide contact information for your subjects, so that we can verify that you didn't creatively imagine your test subjects. The more subjects you can enroll, the better your grade will be.

Note: these subjects may include UCF students, but they must meet the basic criterion for this course's projects: Your users are part of a real-world community. Examples of real world communities:

- collectors of Pez dispensers

- parents of small children

- owners of shih-tzu dogs

- operators of service businesses in a specific sector

- people wanting to learn a foreign language

- descendants of a specific immigrant or ethnic community

The kinds of 'lazy' student-oriented projects (for which the user community is simply "UCF students") which will be rejected are exemplified by:

- find musical groups performing around Orlando

- find cheap beer or bars

- dating service

Why are we rejecting these? Because they won't do your portfolio much good. Employers need to see evidence pf your engagement with, and understanding of, actual wage-earning people and their problems, not the convenient place where you are now, at UCF.

You will present your final website and usability results on the last class day, 22 April. Some of the best projects may be selected for display in the Digital Media Showcase, tentatively scheduled for the evening of 17 April.

Participation in the Showcase will earn you an exemption from the Final Exam.

DIG4104c Web Design Workshop

Syllabus Signature Page

I have read and understand the DIG3134 Media Software Design syllabus and agree to abide by the policies and procedures contained within. I also understand that all dates, assignments, and elements of this syllabus are made at the discretion of the instructor and can be changed at any time, and if any changes are made that I will be notified in class and via the course website.

In particular, I understand that the honesty policy for this course is as follows:

Plagiarism and cheating of any kind on an examination, quiz, or assignment will result in an "F" for that assignment (and may, depending on the severity of the case, lead to an "F" for the entire course) and may be subject to appropriate referral to the Office of Student Conduct for further action. See the UCF Golden Rule for further information. I will assume for this course that you will adhere to the academic creed of this University and will maintain the highest standards of academic integrity. In other words, don't cheat by giving answers to others or taking them from anyone else.

All assignments are expected to be completed individually, except where the written description of the document (on the course website) specifies that this is a team project.

I also affirm that I have read the "Complaints" procedure in the syllabus, and that I will follow this procedure if I have any issues with the conduct of this course.

Print Name Signature Date

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