The Steps

Part 2: Design Your Final Project Site

Time to start designing an integrated website. It will have to be 1 homepage and at least 5 other pages.

The final project website will require you to work independently for much of the rest of the semester.

You will choose what kind of project you want to work on, to be approved by me. You should spend some time deciding what to work on, so that it is a project that:

1. you enjoy doing
2. about something you are interested in
3. has enough scope that you can make a substantial project out of it
4. does not have too much scope so you aren't able to finish or make it high quality
5. and is potentially useful to you and/or the community at large.

It is always easier to design a web site for a real purpose. There are several areas of the LS web site that need attention. The Activities section and Athletic sections have areas that you might be able to work on -- for example, are you a member of a club or a sports team?

You could work with a teacher to design a web site for her or him if they don't yet have one. You could work with a town office or department to create or update their web site. You could also create a site for an organization or business you or someone you know has started.

If you cannot think of an acceptable project, choose a class you are currently in, and make a web site about the class, or about one unit in the class. You could make a site about a book you are reading in an English class, about Rocks and Minerals from your science class, etc.

Ideas for your final project:

• Site for a LS club or sports team
• Site for LS teacher
• Site for non-profit or town agency
• Site for activity, organization, or business you or someone you know has started
• Sample commercial site (pretend you have a business and are trying to sell a variety of products)
• Site about one of your classes
• If you have an idea, ask Jim

You will be working on your final project along with our regular assignments. It should be high quality and include the different effects and features you learn in the class. You should use books and on-line help to put in advanced features we did not learn in class.

If you find yourself with nothing to do in a web publishing class between now and the due date for this assignment, you probably picked a project that was not challenging enough. What can you do to improve the site or add to the content in a meaningful way?

Questions to think about as you start to design your site and plan your 6 new pages:

1. What is the purpose of this site?
2. Who will use this site?
3. What information will the site contain?
4. What links need to be on the main page?
5. What images will be used (and where will they come from)?

You should have a written plan for your project. This plan will be created in Inspiration. This plan should be linked from your assignments page.

Create an Inspiration document and sketch the basic design of the site with your main page and other pages. In each bubble (one per planned page, see example to right) specify the name of the page, links that will occur on the page, any media that might be on the page, general information about the content of the page, and any other thoughts you have about the page.

For an example of a completed Inspiration diagram, click here.

Once you have completed this, you may export the document as an .html document. Name it FPdesign.html and save it into your Sites folder. Create a link from your Assignments page to this web page.

The Assignment

1. Create a plan for your website called FPdesign.html, so that:

• The website plan is created using Inspiration.
• The website plan contains information about one homepage (default.html -- this website will be in its own folder within Sites, so we can name a new file as default.html) and at least five other new pages.
• The website plan shows the following for each page:
  1. page title
  2. file name (e.g., portraits.html)
  3. content overview
  4. ideas for images
  5. proposed links
  6. page design
• The website plan is saved as a .html document and linked from assignments.html.

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