IST 129 - Fall 2001 - Final Design Project

Initial Design (10% of final grade) - Due Tuesday, Nov. 20 at 8pm sharp!
Final Design (20% of final grade) - Due Saturday, Dec. 15 at 11am sharp!

LATE PENALTY: Initial projects not ready by the deadline, but ready in time for some of the class to review your site will be accepted, but your final score will be 1/2 of what you would have otherwise earned. Final versions of your final design project WIL NOT be accepted late. If you project is not done when I review it, you will recieve a 0.

General Guidelines/Requirements

• You can use any theme of your choice for your web site (within reason). The organization of the pages should support that theme. Please do not generate sites that are of poor taste (pornographic, racist, etc.) Please inform me ahead of time what the theme of your page will be.
• All of your pages should have a background image or background color, with appropriate link and text colors. White-backgrounded sites may be acceptable if it fits the design well. Discuss this with me if this applies to you.
• I stongly recommend you use frames for your site, however, this is not required. If you do use frames, I would recommend 2 - 1 for navigation and 1 for content. In any event, some form of convenient navigation tools should be provided. If you do not use frames, I will be looking harder at your use of other complex HTML ideas. Use of 3 or more frames is at your discretion. Just make sure you know what you are doing.
• A minimum of three tables are required.
• At least one form is required, and the form must contain at least 3 different types of form content (i.e. checkbox, radio buttons, comment box, etc.).
• You should demonstrate your ability to use multiple bookmarks within a document (using the A NAME tag), perhaps for navigation within a page.
• Five or more HTML files are required. You should also include files of different formats (.jpg, .gif, .doc, .txt, etc).
• Three or more links to remote sites are required.
• At least five "non-picture" graphics are required (page titles, animations, etc). These graphics should fit the theme of the page. These can graphics that you design or ones that you obtain from the internet. Please do not use any copyrighted images.
• At least two pictures are required. The pictures should fit the theme of the page. Please do not use any copyrighted images. If you must use pictures created by others, be sure to give them credit and/or ask permission (if applicable).
• At least one list (either ordered or unordered) is required.
• Apply good design practices to the development of your web site. I.e. don't use horrible color combinations, huge embedded images, etc. Use good judgement in the development of content, and in developing the layout of your site.
• Page loading time should not be irritatingly long. You'll have to check this through a modem since I will be checking it that way. Remember GCC has a high speed network connection, so don't rely on in-class load time as an accurate representation of true load time.
• You should provide at least one e-mail link to your e-mail address. I would recommend building a "footer" for each page of content which contains things like your e-mail, copyright notices, etc.
• At a miminum, your main HTML document should use META tags to identify keywords for the site and a site description.
• Advanced features such as Javscript, Java Applets, CSS, PERL, etc. may be used if you are feeling ambitious, but these are not required.
• Your project should be posted to your GCC website and a link created to it from your main index.html file. I will not accept project submissions via e-mail unless I deem the cicumstances extraordinary.

What will I be looking for when I grade your project?

• LOOK AND FEEL - How does your page strike me? Does your page have a consistent theme or color scheme? Does it catch my interest? Have you chosen good fonts and done a good job of selecting font sizes and colors within your documents?
• TECHNICAL ACCURACY - How well did you fulfill the requirements above? Does everything that you did work properly?
• CONTENT QUALITY - Does your page exist just to show the world you have a web page or does it communicate some useful information? How good is the content on your site?
• EASE OF NAVIGATION - Is it easy to move around on your site and find what I am looking for? Do pages load properly and is navigation simple?
• COMPLEXITY - How much did you challenge yourself on this project? Is your page ridiculously simple or does it show knowledge of advanced HTML/web techniques (frames, tables, forms, etc.)? How big is your page and how much content does it provide?
• THE LITTLE THINGS - Did you provide additional features that weren't required? Did you go the extra mile? Are things just a little nicer than you were expecting? Sure, you did all the requirements, but did you do all the little things that make a site good?

Absolute Essentials" Checklist

• A background image or background color on each page.
• A minimum of three tables
• At least one form and it must contain at least 3 different types of form content.
• Bookmarks (A NAME) are used.
• Five or more HTML files are required.
• Three or more links to remote sites are required.
• At least five "non-picture" graphics are required.
• At least two pictures are required.
• At least one list is required.
• You should provide at least one e-mail link to your e-mail address.
• Use of META tags to identify keywords for the site and a site description.

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