Please notice that these guidelines may be revised during the course. Whenever that is the case I will let you know what the changes are
Guidelines for the final project
The purpose of these guidelines is to provide students with the criteria that will be used to grade the project so they can use the same criteria to design and build it.
We will have several gradual project milestones since the beginning of the term from the initial proposal to the prototype due the last day of class. After that prototype you can change the implementation, design, and other details but you cannot change the purpose and general description of the website, which we approved at the beginning of the term. In other words a new project that hasn't gone through the term-long process of progress and approval will not be accepted.
For your project to be graded it must be published and accessible over Internet.
Your website must attain its final form before the last day of class, one week before the final exam. Whatever state your website is that day is what will be used to compute your final grade.
The last day of class you must give a team presentation of your project. The quality of the presentation will be reflected on your final grade. You must be able to say everything that is important about your website and its design in no more than 20 mins. We will determine exactly how long each team has before that day.
You must have several web pages. I don't expect you to create content for each of the pages. But you must have pages that would be "place holders" for content to be provided. In other words most of these pages are going to be almost empty place holders. It must be clear what each page would be about even if it has no real content. But you need enough pages to demonstrate that your navigation scheme would effectively help users find any of the web pages with a minimum of clicks. Each one of the place holder pages should have a title and a short description (10 words or less) that describes concisely what the content is. Each page must be part of a project-wide navigation scheme. If you do have some meaningful content for some pages, that's fine. You can go ahead and use it.
The site MUST use CSS. Each page must have a W3C icon that allows the reader to verify the validiity of the CSS.
The site must display the appropriate W3C icon link at the bottom and it MUST validate. You can use either HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.0. Whichever you choose you must stick to it and all your pages must validate. No excuse is accepted for pages that do not validate. If any of your pages does not validate you will lose points in the final grade.
Neither report nor project should contain typos or bad grammar. You will lose points for that kind of mistake.
The first page must have a very clear and concise explanation of what the web site is about. For any page, users should be able to tell at a glance what content to expect from that page and what kind of content to expect from the website of which that page is one of the components.
You must have some navigation scheme. Whatever navigation technique you use it should be possible for a user dropped on any of your webpages to be able to navigate to any other with a minimum of clicks. It is ok, and even desirable, to have multiple paths between pages. On the other hand you cannot have too many links on each of your pages. That would use space that should be devoted to content.
Your navigation bar should indicate where you are (like the navbar example presented in the book).
Your project must use pictures in some way. But when you use pictures they have to be used carefully. Use pictures only to deliver your message more effectively. Do not use pictures just as decoration. They are expensive they should be there only for a good reason.
Use every pixel to deliver your message (don't waste space or resources)
No annoying effects (flashing, animation, scrolling text, etc.) If you decide to use a certain technology or effect it must be only if it makes your website more effective. If the effect does not increase the usability of your website or does not convey your message more effectively, it should not be there.
You can have some dynamic and/or interactive aspect in your website. You can use Javascript, Flash, Java, ColdFusion, or any other technique you prefer.
You must use the top left hand side for something you don't want users to miss (it would be a mistake to leave that space blank). It is accepted practice to put the logo of the website there and to link it to the homepage.
Each website (the project and the report) must have some graphical unity (i.e. graphical design, look, etc.) achieved through color, fonts, grids, pictures, etc. Each one of the two sites may have a different look.
It must be clear for the user what to expect if he clicks on a link. In other words, avoid "mystery meat" links.
Scrolling is bad (especially lateral scrolling). Nothing important, specially any part of the navigation, should end up "below the fold". There should be absolutely nothing that requires lateral scrolling. This has to be true even if the user makes fonts bigger.
There must be a pointer from your project to a website that contains your project report. This is the "about" link.
The project report should be a design document that describes and justifies all the decisions you made. It has to be presented clearly and concisely. It should not be longer than it has to be. That would just waste my time and yours. You should also highlight the features of your project you don't want me to miss. If there is anything you are particularly proud of, or you think it goes a little beyond the minimum requirements, highlight it in the report. In other words.
Each project page should download very fast. If there is any page that is going to download slowly (because it has a very large picture, for instance) you must warn the user that the download is going to be long and there has to be a good reason for having a large picture.
You must allow users of your website to change the font size.
Your site should be able to adapt if the user changes font sizes
The site must have a site map. the site map must include a link to every page of the project and the report. The links must be organized so a user could find what she is looking for easily.
Use alt field to name graphics
There is a last requirement: each team member is required to submit a confidential report (over email) where they grade the rest of their team. You should itemize in that, very short, report what each member of the team did and evaluate their performance
