CS 204: Software Design

A web design exercise

Due: 9:50AM Monday, November 8

You may work with a partner on this assignment.

On Monday, Nov 1, Associate Dean of the College and Professor of French Eva Posfay joined us in class to discuss her goals and concerns related to Carleton's main Academics page. For this assignment, you will prepare recommendations for Professor Posfay on how to redesign this page to improve its effectiveness.

Your report should be submitted as a single PDF document that includes the following elements:

• Your name, the date, and a title.
• A short introduction describing the purpose of your document
• Brief descriptions of the personas (see About Face 3, Chapter 5) whose goals your report concerns. Keep the descriptions to just a few sentences each, at the most.
• Brief descriptions of enough scenarios to capture the core goals of your personas. Again, these descriptions should require no more than three or four sentences apiece. Clarity and brevity are good.
• Enough mockups to enable you to show how your page redesign will support the goals of your personas via your scenarios.
• A discussion of your design and any additional recommendations you may have. You should explain design choices in the context of your personas, goals, and scenarios.

You should treat this assignment as an opportunity to practice professional writing. Make your mockups easy to read, write clearly and concisely, keep the needs of your audience in mind, etc.

I will pass along suitable reports to the Dean's Office. If they're good, your suggestions may even guide real changes in the college's website.

Have fun.