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IT S234
Web site design
| Introduction |  |
IT S234 Web Site Design is a 10-credit, middle-level course that may be taken as part of various programmes at the OUHK. The course focuses on current trends in Web site design, development and management. It will equip you with fundamental skills in Web page design, creative design, coding, maintenance and promotion of Web sites. The broad prerequisites for this course are familiarity with connecting to the Internet, the Windows operating system, using email and Web browsers, as well as basic knowledge of the use of text editors.
A Web site design process, integrated with units and case studies geared to the local Hong Kong experience, is used as the primary learning vehicle. In this course, you will take on the role of a Web designer and produce a Web site design for a small business. You will learn to implement your design in HTML, CSS and other technologies, gradually building up your skills as you progress through the units. You will have ample opportunities to put the design principles and coding techniques you've learned into practice by studying coding samples, examining the example Web sites, and building your own Web site project. By the end of the course, you will have a solid foundation in producing usable, accessible and standards-based Web sites.
Your starting point for the course is this Course Guide.It explainsto you what the course consists of -- the teaching material, learning opportunities and support services. The guide also describes what you need to do in order to pass the course.
The rest of this introductory section explains IT S234's mode of delivery, lists its aims and learning outcomes, and provides an overview of the course's organization. The following major sections set out the course outline, course materials, learning support, course assessment and course timetable.
Mode of delivery
This is a 'blended' course that combines print and online resources. The course materials consist of ten study units, this Course Guide, a textbook and a companion Web site. You will be required to spend three to four weeks for the study of each unit. To ensure that you fully understand the course materials, each study unit contains hands-on activities and self-test questions to help you check your progress. Suggested answers to all self-test questions and selected activities are given at the end of the unit or on the companion Web site for you to compare to your own solutions.
You will apply the knowledge and concepts you've acquired by going through the steps of building a Web site based on a given case study. Optionally, you may choose to acquire even more hands-on practice by working through the numerous activities and comprehensive Web design case study from the reference textbook (Sklar 2012).
| What this course helps you do | |
It is important that you know what IT S234 aims to teach, and what you will be capable of doing after completing it. You should therefore read this section carefully in order to better align your expectations, and prepare yourself to get the most from the course so that you can use it to your advantage.
Aims
The course aims to equip you with the practical and organizational skills needed to design and manage Web sites for small-scale businesses.
In short, IT S234 aims to:
Lead you through the entire Web site creation process from start to finish.
Examine current Web design principles and theories.
Demonstrate the tools, technologies and methods used to design, produce, launch, promote and manage Web sites.
Develop and enhance your HTML, CSS and visual design skills.
- Discuss how Web designers tackle major issues and challenges, including usability, accessibility, privacy and copyright ownership.
Course learning outcomes
Upon completion of IT S234, you should be able to:
Create and maintain a small business Web site focused on its users' needs and content requirements.
Follow a formal and structured Web design process when working on Web projects.
Craft visually appealing and functional Web pages that are displayed properly in different Web browsers, using standard technologies such as HTML and CSS.
Prepare and integrate the elements of a Web site, including text, graphics, layout, navigation, tables, forms, multimedia and interactive features.
Attract visitors to a Web site using a range of online and offline promotion methods.
- Assess the impact ofissues such as usability, accessibility, copyright ownership and privacy when designing and running a Web site.
| Working through this course | |
This section describes what materials are needed, how the assignments and marking are arranged, and includes a table that sets out the elements of the course for your easy reference.
Materials
Aside from this Course Guide, this course includes ten study units. There is one set textbook, and there may be a small number of supplementary readings, case studies or articles taken from relevant journals and other books. Please ensure that you have all of these materials available.
The study units for IT S234 are as follows:
Unit 1 Creating Web pages with HTML introduces you to the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). No previous knowledge of HTML is assumed. The evolution of HTML, up to the present standard (XHTML) and the still-evolving standard (HTML5), is included. You will use common HTML elements and attributes to structure and encode a basic Web page from start to finish. You will then format the page using a given style sheet or the browser's default style sheet. The importance of disciplined and standards-based coding of HTML and CSS will also be emphasized.
Unit 2 Web design basics focuses on the design principles that you will apply as you work through a Web design project. It discusses the factors that must be considered in order to produce a Web site that works well regardless of the user's abilities and the computing platform he/she uses. It outlines the steps that designers must perform on a typical Web design project. Many of these steps are only briefly introduced here, but will be covered in more detail in later sections. You will learn to upload a finished page to a Web server. Lastly, this unit provides an overview of the tools and technologies that every Web designer must be familiar with. This includes HTML and CSS, which were introduced in Unit 1.
Unit 3 Cascading style sheets and typography looks at the design and organizational issues affecting the text content on a Web site. It also goes more in-depth into CSS building blocks such as selectors and the concept of inheritance. Various text formatting techniques using CSS will be demonstrated, including the ability to create a printer-friendly version of a Web page.
Unit 4 Graphics and color explains how graphics and color can be used effectively on a Web site. Topics such as image file formats, the optimal preparation of images for the Web, potential sources of images and the use of styles to present and position images are covered. Computer color basics, the associated meaning of various colors, and the ways in which colors are classified and grouped together will be discussed to help you come up with suitable Web site color schemes.
Unit 5 Page layouts expands on the HTML and CSS you'll have learned in previous units. You will create a handful of page layouts for your Web site design project and present your work using wireframes coded in HTML and CSS. Different techniques for handling the display of the same page on different screen sizes will be introduced. Lastly, you will learn how to code their page layout using HTML5 elements.
Unit 6 Information and navigation design goes back to the beginning of the Web design project and goes deeper into the techniques used to gather site requirements and understand the target audience. It discusses the ways in which content can be collected, structured and organized on a Web site. Important conventions for naming files and organizing them into directories on the server are also covered. It goes over Web site navigation design principles and methods, and lastly, the need to document the major outputs of the Web design process.
Unit 7 Data tables and forms discusses how to create visually appealing, well-organized tables that can be used to present data in a grid format. It also demonstrates the HTML form elements that can be used to build interactive Web pages that collect information from users to be processed on the Web server. Finally, additional form features and capabilities in HTML5 will be discussed as well.
Unit 8 Multimedia and interactivity deals with the production, integration and the appropriate use of multimedia and front-end interactive elements on a Web site. Multimedia covers audio and video formats, while the discussion on interactivity focuses on the use of Javascript and the jQuery framework. Some of the interactive features to be implemented in Javascript include content collapse and expand, tabbed user interfaces, image lightboxes, photo slideshows, data table sorting and filtering, etc.
Unit 9 Site launch, promotion and maintenance covers how to launch a Web site, and the digital marketing and operational issues that must be considered in effectively managing an active business Web site. The digital marketing methods discussed include email, search engines, social media and online advertising. The need for integration between digital marketing and offline marketing is emphasized.
Unit 10 Accessibility, copyright and privacy goes over important issues and challenges related to accessibility, copyright and privacy. Many of these issues can be addressed by following guidelines issued by Web standards bodies or by local governments. Techniques covered include the use of accessible markup, the proper understanding of copyright models, and the use of privacy policies.
Set textbook
There is one compulsory textbook for IT S234.
Sklar, J (2012) Principles of Web Design, 5th edn, Course Technology.
Online and multimedia materials
Companion course Web site
This course has a companion Web site for hands-on practice and exercises at:
OLE
The course is supported by the Online Learning Environment (OLE). You can find course materials and the latest course information from the OLE.
Other online resources
Students will be encouraged to explore and read other online resources from the Internet, such as the following:
- Web Style Guide, 3rd edn
http://webstyleguide.com/wsg3
- Universal usability
http://universalusability.com/access_by_design/
- W3C markup validation service
http://validator.w3.org/
- Web accessibility checker
http://achecker.ca/checker/
- Web accessibility evaluation tool
http://wave.webaim.org/
- A beginner's guide to HTML and CSS
http://learn.shayhowe.com/html-css/
- Essential browser tools for Web developers:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225073/Essential_browser_tools_for_Web_developers
- Sitepoint HTML reference
http://reference.sitepoint.com/html
- Sitepoint CSS reference
http://reference.sitepoint.com/css
- Mozilla Developer Network: Web technology for developers -- Tutorials:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/TutorialsEquipment needed (IT resources)
Hardware
A PC with the following minimum hardware specifications of:
800 MHz processor
1 GB RAM
1024 × 768 screen resolution
True color (24-bit) or deep colour (30-bit or higher) display
CD-ROM drive
2 GB hard disk space
- Sound card and speakers.
Software
The following software applications are required:
Operating systems: Windows 7 or above
Web browser: Google Chrome, Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox
Text editor: A text editor that supports universal character encoding such as Notepad2 and Notepad++
Graphics editor: A graphics editor that supports saving files in JPEG, PNG and GIF (examples: GIMP, Irfanview and Paint.NET)
- Utilities: FTP client (for uploading files to a Web server).
Internet connections and server resources
A Hong Kong Internet service provider (ISP) dial-up or broadband connection to the Internet
A 'public-html' directory for serving Web pages over the Internet, with a minimum of 5 MB disk space for presenting assignments and working on activities. This facility will be provided to students by the OUHK
- Access to run PHP programs on a Web server -- the OUHK server for IT S234 supports this.
Presentation Schedule
The Presentation Schedule is available on the OLE, and it gives the dates for completing assignments, and attending tutorials, day schools, and so on.
Assessment
IT S234 consists of continuous assessment worth 50% (assessed by three tutor-marked assignments) and a final examination worth 50% of the total marks for the course.
There are a number of rules and regulations relating to both, given in the Student Handbook. Students are strongly recommended to read this handbook, as it explains the general requirements for all assessment and the way grades are actually determined.
Assignments
The assignments are intended as practical exercises to allow you to demonstrate your analytical, design, coding, testing and evaluation skills as you complete the Web site projects and hands-on activities. You will be graded on the quality of the Web site you produce, as well as the accompanying documentation.
Four assignments have been set for the course, and the marks for the best three (3) will count towards your final course grade. The combined marks for the three assignments account for 50% of your total grade. All assignments will be made available on the OLE, and your work is to be submitted through the OLE also. Instructions on how to do this are provided in the OLE User Guide and in the rubric for each assignment.
An important part of the continuous assessment relates to your work in developing the Web site for the given case study. The work is usually integrated in the units either as activities or self-assessed questions. In completing these during the study of each unit, you will be preparing the work to be submitted as part of the associated assignment.
Final examination and grading
There will be a compulsory three-hour, closed book written final examination, which will account for 50% of the total course assessment. The paper will cover materials from all units.
The following table summarizes the assessment requirements for IT S234.
Assessment Course area covered Weighting The three highest marks from the four assignments will be counted towards the overall continuous assessment score (OCAS). 50% Assignment 1 Units 1–3 Assignment 2 Units 4–6 Assignment 3 Units 7–8 Assignment 4 Units 9–10 Examination All units 50% Total 100%
| Course organization | |
The following chart gives a general overview of the course structure.
Units Weeks Assessment 1 Creating Web pages with HTML 3 2 Web design basics 4 Assignment 1 3 Cascading Style Sheets and typography 4 4 Graphics and colour 3 5 Page layouts 4 Assignment 2 6 Information and navigation design 4 7 Data tables and forms 3 8 Multimedia and interactivity 4 Assignment 3 9 Site launch, promotion and maintenance 4 10 Accessibility, copyright and privacy 3 Assignment 4 Total 36
| How to get the most from this course | |
Most of IT S234 is taught through the printed materials or the Internet, but these are not your only means of learning.
Various kinds of support are available to you during the course. They include:
tutorials; and
- online support.
Tutors and tutorials
You should contact your tutor as your first line of support. There are a number of means by which you can contact your tutor for help, which including telephone, email and other online communications. You are welcome to use whatever channel is most convenient for you.
You should also attend the tutorial and surgery sessions for in-depth discussion with your tutor. The course includes 10 tutorials and 12 surgeries of two hours each -- 44 contact hours in total. The tutorials and surgeries provide an opportunity for you to receive some guidance from your tutor. In addition, you have an opportunity to share their questions and difficulties with other students. Although the tutorials and surgeries are not compulsory, you are strongly encouraged to attend them.
Online support
The course Web site on the OUHK's Online Learning Environment (OLE) includes a course discussion board that allows you to interact with your fellow students and with your tutor and Course Coordinator. You are strongly encouraged to make use of the discussion board to share experiences, resources and perspectives during the course.
| Summary | |
You should now have a better understanding of this course -- the teaching materials, course organization, mode of learning, required textbook, equipment needed and the available support services.
You should also have a good idea of the time and effort you must put in, as well as the assessments you will go through in order to pass the course.
I wish you a pleasant and enjoyable learning experience as you embark on your studies for IT S234.
| A note about the developer of this course | |
Jenny Lim is currently teaching and developing tertiary-level courses on e-commerce, information technology and information management in Hong Kong.
She was a Program Manager in a New York Web services firm, where she developed Web-enabled database applications for clients in the financial, professional services and entertainment industries. She was also a Project Leader in the Business Solutions group of a leading e-commerce retailer, where she was involved in implementing Web-based procurement applications.
Prior to her Web industry experience, she was a systems analyst and programmer in the financial industry. She was also a senior technical staff member at a Big 4 consulting firm, where she participated in systems development, testing and integration projects on the mainframe, mid-range and personal computer platforms.
