Week 5: Assignment #05

Frontpage Design Notes

DUE: Tuesday, 2/14 @ 5pm

Individual Website Frontpage

For this assignment, you must create and post a first draft of your individual major project frontpage. This should include a main graphic you create to represent the topic/idea of your project, some text describing the project (in other words an introduction), and some initial navigation for the site.

Navigation should reflect the site structure and organization of the individual projects; although the individual sections of your site are of course not completed. It would be best if you created 'dummy' fronts so that the navs go somewhere, but your nav buttons do need to have links (anchor tags) on them, even if there are not pages/files for the links to go to yet.

Although your initial navaigation may change (exact wording, graphics, etc.), the nav should convey the thematic and aesthetic approach you intend for your final navigation (and site).

General requirements:

• Real content: Not just placeholder/lorem ipsum text. Of course you will change, edit, add to, etc., the frontpage text. But a frontpage is more than just a title graphic and a nav. Well, at least in most cases.
• Major title graphic: Should integrate at least one image or illustration as well as the title of your site. Fairly large in size (not just a small button) and prominently placed.
• Navigation: Buttons with the real text referring to sections/pages of your site. They should be hyperlinked to pages. Although it is best if you create dummy pages (page1.html, sports.html, etc.) it is not required at this point. But the navs do need to have links (even if they go to "Page not found"). If the nav buttons are not actual graphics they should look like buttons (not just text links) and have interactive states (i.e. :hover css if text buttons).
• General design: The page should have a fairly unified style, look, color scheme, etc. Even though inner pages of a web site often have different layouts than the front (think of how different the frontpage "headlines" page of a news site is versus inner article pages) -- the general look, feel, color scheme, etc., should be laid out and consistent from the homepage to the inner pages you build later.

Frontpage Design Notes

Go to our class Piazza page and to the discussion thread "Assignment: Frontpage Design Notes". On that thread create a post under "Start a new follow-up discussion". Post information about your project and frontpage, including URL, notes on the intended site and design notes.

• Start your thread with the title/topic of your project along with a link to a "steady" build of the frontpage URL.
• In the rest of the thread explain:
  • the purpose, audience and content for the intended overall site.
  • your design choices.
• Give enough detail so your peers understand enough about your goals and assumptions to critique your frontpages.

Please note you need to post this on time so that selected peers can post replies in your follow-up sub-thread with their critiques.

If this is not posted on time your group peers will be asked to post their critiques on a thread for you created by the TAS or instructor, without your design notes, and your homepage will be open to criticism without any consideration of your intentions, thoughts, etc.


Upload your completed assignment by the due date specified above and make sure that you add a working link to it on your class page, otherwise it will not be reviewed and you will not receive credit. If you expect to be late submitting an assignment, you need to email the instructor and grader prior to the deadline to notify them of the late submission, then later follow up once your assignment has been completed, uploaded, and linked from your class page. The latest a late assignment can be submitted is a week after its original due date. This assignment is time sensitive and is not eligible to be turned in late for partial credit.