Assignment Two

School of Library and Information Science
San Jose State University  		Kenley Neufeld, Instructor
kenley@wahoo.sjsu.edu 

LIBR 240: Information Technology: Tools and Applications
Summer 1997
Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:00 - 6:30

DUE: By midnight the day before your class presentation. (must be uploaded to the server)

Discussion of the Assignment

You will work with a partner on this assignment. You will be creating a professional web site for an organization of your choice. As part of the assignment, you will create a specifications document designed to assist you in creating your web site. The specifications document can be thought of as a working document. Changes can be made as you go along, provided that (1) you both agree, and (2) that the changes are recorded as part of your specifications. The specifications document should include all your decisions related to your web site. Below you will find some hints as to what you should consider.

Please create the specifications document in HTML format, and save it in your directory with the name specifications.html.

Considerations

Overall Picture
  1. Clarify your concept. What information community do you want to reach?
  2. Have you mapped out both the structure and the function?
Personnel and Scheduling
  1. Writers, HTML builders, editors, graphic designers, proofreaders.
Overall Structure and Design
  1. Do you have one document or multiple documents?
  2. What purpose will the document(s) serve?
  3. Who is your likely audience?
  4. What kinds of overall design considerations should you take into account to serve the needs of the audience?
  5. Will your audience come from outside the United States?
Specific Structure and Function
  1. Home Page
 
  1. What information will it contain?
  2. What will this page look like? The cover page of a brochure? Title page of a book?
  3. How many topics will be linked to the home page?
  4. What are they?
  5. Should these topics be constructed within the main document (and addressed through internal links), or as separate documents (connected through external links)?
  1. Editorial style guide (set of specifications that apply to every document)
 
  1. Standard choices for text.
  1. Look and consistency of your navigational graphics or navigational techniques.
  2. Heading levels.
  3. Make HTML title self-explanatory.
  4. No verbiage around anchors. Avoid "click here"
  5. Paragraph layout in HTML document -- can the document be easily read?
Links
  1. The links should be appropriate to your content and audience.
  2. Are the links clear?
Accessibility for non-frames browsers.
Have you incorporated any search engines?
Graphics
  1. Size of graphics?
  2. Are the graphics merely decorative, or do they convey hard information?
Files
  1. Set conventions on file naming.
  2. What file formats? HTML; GIF
  3. File maintenance
Status, authorship, and responsibility
  1. Link your project to your personal home pages. Include in your specifications document a statement of who did what.
Testing
  1. Check if all works with mulitple browers.
  2. Check the links.
  3. Usability testing.

Be prepared to give a 20-30 minute presentation on your project. If you are having trouble coming up with ideas for the project, check out Innovative Internet Applications in Libraries.

I will be evaluating your project based on all of the above mentioned considerations. I will expect to find all the features we learned in class to be incorporated into your final web site.

[Green Sheet] [Course Links] [Course Outline] [Assignment 1] [The Examples]