Here is the list of student names, web site groups (A or B), and user groups.
You have been hired to design a new web site for the residents of Stanislaus and nearby counties, a web site to help people in our region find out about either A) Eating / Nutrition, or B) Local Art. (Counties that share a border with Stanislaus -- Merced, San Joaquin, Tuolumne, Calaveras, etc, may be included as well.)
Each student will be given a particular segment of the Stanislaus County population to focus their web site design for. (Seniors, teenagers, visually disabled people, people with less than a high school education, people whose first language is not English, etc.) Your particular user population will be assigned randomly.
Students will be randomly split into two groups (A and B) and each group will design a different kind of web site. When the time comes to test your own web site design on another human, a student from "the other" group can test your site.
Group A: Eating and nutrition and restaurants...
Group B: Art, local art, art shows, museums, fairs...
Group A: Components your web site must include, and / or activities it must support:
Group B: Components your web site must include, and / or activities it must support:
(Many of the web site components come from in-class brainstorming on 4/22/2020.)
Students who want to may work on Part 1 (personas and scenarios) in pairs. Part 2 of the project (paper prototypes -- first draft, testing, final draft, report) will be completed as individuals.
Part 1: Create Three Or More Personas: (some description courtesy Marti Hearst at UCBerkeley)
Because it is unrealistic to meet all requirements and address all users, it is important to focus on a few representative types of users and goals. Based on your common-sense notions of what will be required for your project, and based on general information about your user group and Stanislaus county residents, create personas (hypothetical archetypical users) to capture the most important user types and their goals. Assign personal details to the personas in order to make them more vibrant and memorable.
Each of your personas should be distinct from the others, encapsulating a different part of your Stanislaus-resident, potential user base.
Some general information about the way some groups use web sites is available on web sites listed below.
Remember that goals:
Remember that personas:
Creating some scenarios, based on your personas, to help with your paper prototype. Create at least one scenario for each of your personas.
Drawing out a flowchart of how the web site components connect may also help organize your web site design.
Information about some types of web users:
Other potentially useful web site design insights:
Part 2: Create Paper Prototype(s): (some description courtesy Marti Hearst at UCBerkeley)
Design and construct one or more paper-based prototypes using the techniques outlined in the readings. The prototypes should bear the characteristics and needs of your user population in mind. Create paper prototypes for your whole web site, assuming the user is using a desktop or sizeable laptop.
Get feedback from another student in the class on your initial prototypes. (Take notes, for your design report.)
Redesign your prototypes, based upon the feedback from the other student and other insights.
Near or after the last day of class, but before the final quiz date, give a paper prototype demonstration of your web site to the professor (acting as a user).
Useful information, to help you understand paper prototyping:
The design project report will contain:
Spelling and grammar will count.
If you cite a resource not mentioned on this page, provide a full citation in a well-known citation style (MLA, APA, etc).
In your report, avoid making statements like: "The web site we designed is easy to use." You, as the designers, may have intended that the web site be easy to use. As we learned earlier in the semester, you, as designers, are not the best judges of ease of use. Testing with real users would be needed to test whether or not the web site actually is easy to use.
Turning in the assignment:
The design project report is to be submitted as a MS Word or Adobe PDF attachment to email by the due date for the report. The paper prototype copies must be delivered to the professor, in the form of photographs, with or as part of the final project report.
Submit the report, with photographs included or as separate files, to the class Blackboard site. There should be an Assignment available to submit files to. The report can incorporate photographs into it, or the photographs may be submitted separately.
Email the professor only as a last resort -- many email servers block emails of large files, so email may not work. (Changed from email to Blackboard on 5/11.)
Last Updated on 4/22/2020
By Megan Thomas