project 3: web site re-design

Project 3 Overview

the assignment

Project 1 is a collaborative project which involves an imaginative redesign of a section of an existing informational web site. Very often, web designers are asked to re-design a web site which already exists. The site may be clumsy, confusing, hard to navigate, aesthetically unappealing, or simply outdated and in need of restructuring. It may lack enough content to interest readers, or provide so much content that is hard for readers to navigate.

For this project, we will work in groups to redesign one section of a Rowan University web site: the Writing Arts Department. In order to make this project succeed, groups will need to work collaboratively, innovatively, and thoughtfully. There are multiple tasks associated with each of the three stages. The stages — inventory and analysis, prototype, and final re-design — correspond to the chapters in Web Re-Design 2.0. We will be working on each stage, in order, over the course of 2 weeks.

steps to complete the assignment

  1. Become very familiar with the web site as it is currently posted and complete site inventory to find out what information is available at the site. Please be strategic in reviewing what is there in order to develop a fairly complete inventory. The inventory can be stored on a web page, a Word document, Visio document, or other electronic form.
  2. Conduct comparison research, reviewing and making notes about other sites with a similar purpose or audience. What kind of content is provided? How is it organized? How well is it presented? How usable is it?
  3. Analyze the potential audiences for the web site and their needs. This involves fieldwork research. You might conduct an email survey of users, do face to face interviews, and/or observe users who are accessing the site to get a sense of how they use the site and their opinions about its content, organization, and design.
  4. Think through the categories of information, organization, and navigation structure for a proposed redesign of the site.
  5. Prepare a final design proposal with a prototype (about 10 web pages) and a two-page rationale for the design.
  6. Complete the re-design for the pages in your prototype.

the groups

Group numbers link to the group’s Web page.

Project 3 Groups
Group 1 Group 2
Joe Sabatini John Schoen
Jackie Yaeger Katrina Shand
David Brennan Mark Buckalew
Bonitto Daley Geraldine Malone
Andrea Lynch Don Stoll

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