Web Design Guidelines Developed and Applied

CSC 397 Lab Assignment 4

 

Assigned 1 October 1998

Part A due 7 October 1998 at beginning of class
Part B due 8 October 1998 by the end of class
Part C due 15 October 1998 by the beginning of class

 

100 points, 5% of your course grade.

 

This is a written assignment, to be completed with a partner (teams of 2).

 

Many sets of Web site/page design guidelines are available on the Web. The resource information page for this course has links to some, and Shneiderman's page for chapter 16 has links too. I'm sure there are many others as well.

 

Part A:

Read as many of these design guidelines as you can, and develop a master list of the ten most important guidelines. For each of the ten, provide justification along with a count of the number of sites that listed it. Also submit a list of the names and URLs of the guideline pages that you consulted. You may include a guideline of your own if you can build a strong enough case for it.

Turn in a printed copy of your report at the beginning of class on Wednesday, October 7. I suggest you type it into a Word document, and keep the document handy.

 

Part B: In-class exercise

Each team will get a summary sheet of all the submitted guidelines. The class as a whole will then decide on a master list of Ten Web Design Guidelines. The class will then determine a "grading scale" so that any web site/page can be evaluated according to the Guidelines and assigned a score of 0-100. The resulting Guideline will soon be posted in a prominent place on the course web page. You may wish to add a link to it from your personal web page.

 

We managed to develop a set of Ten Guidelines on 8 October 1998. The SMSU Computer Science Department Web Site Evaluation Guidelines.

 

Part C: Apply the Guidelines

Using the guidelines developed in Part B, assign a score of 0-100 to the following Web Sites. Amendment of 12 October 1998: Evaluate 5 of the sites listed, not all of them. Try to pick a variety (ie., include the .edu and .gov). Each guideline will yield a rating of 0-10 (10 being best). Then add 'em up.

  1. www.smsu.edu
  2. www.ibm.com
  3. www.whitehouse.gov
  4. www.twa.com
  5. www.alcatel.com
  6. rockhall.com
  7. cnn.com
  8. www.westpub.com (West Publishing; make sure you find their Computer Science textbooks)
  9. www.ncweb.com (My next visit to Mom will be Nov 13-15. Will I be able to catch my all-time favorite folk singer Alex Bevan that weekend? How can I get his latest CD?)
  10. One other site of your choice. It should be either really good or really bad.

 

Record your results in a table (record the score for each guideline item along with the sum). Also be sure to jot down any comments you have as you conduct the evaluations. These will serve both as justification for ratings, and possibly as evaluation of the guidelines themselves.

 

Turn in a Word document named named Webrank.doc, by copying it to your eccentric upload folder; one copy per team. This document should contain: