Progress Report Presentation

Due Date: Tuesday, November 16

Submission Name: <lastname-progress> (site folder)

Presentations will take place over two class periods, November 16 and 18.

For this assignment, you and your partner will be presenting a 7- to 8-minute progress report to the entire class, outlining in some detail the progress you've made so far on your final website project. The following is a suggested general outline for your presentation:

Briefly describe the topic and content of your site.
Discuss your analysis of the site's primary and secondary audiences and how this influenced your site design.
Describe the informational needs of this audience and how your site's information architecture addresses these needs.
Physically walk the class through the various elements of your site using our classroom's digital projector.
Describe the working proceedures that you and your partner have used to gather information and build the site so far.
Describe your remaining work and how you intend to carry it out the rest of the semester.

Submission Format

As with past assignments, you should upload a copy of your group's XHTML and image files to the directory on our class site assigned to you a few weeks ago. If you have any PowerPoint files to use during your presentation, just make sure you submit those to the Novell DropBox at the beginning of class on Tuesday.

Text and Graphic Images

Though the mid-semester prototype assignment did not require you to use any text or graphic images on your site, in this progress report, you are required to have both textual and graphical elements pretty much in place, though some textual parts of the site can still be incomplete. However, your site must contain visual elements that add to the aesthetic value of your overall site design. In other words, there should be some graphic elements to provide your site with a nice look and feel.

I realize many of you aren't graphic artists, so I am allowing you to use some images that you might have harvested from the web. In the long term, however, this would be a clear violation of United States copyright laws if you were going to use these images on a commercial website (unless, of course, the page from which you got the images encouraged you to use them as you wished). Still, you should try your best to create your own graphic images, especially if you intend to use graphics for navigation devices.

As I've mentioned in class several times, however, you should avoid excessive and gratuitous use of visual images on your site. Make sure the images reinforce the contents of your site and add to, rather than distract from, the overall viewing experience of your users.

Criteria for Evaluation

Evaluation criteria for this assignment are very similar to those listed on earlier assignments, though you will also be evaluated on how you and your partner carry yourself and how you relate to your audience during the presentation itself.

Remember, this assignment counts for 15% of your overall semester grade, so make sure you spend time putting together a logically organized and visually appealing web site to show members of the class during your progress report presentation.

As with all other assignments, please let me know if you have any questions I have not addressed here.