MM4403 Senior Project Development

Class Meetings: Section A. 11weeks, 12 noon-1pm, room 309. Monday, January 10, 2012 - Monday, March 21, 2012. Punctuality and attendance are expected.

Instructor Availability Outside of Class: Immediately before or following each class and via email..

Course Description:

Students conduct project-based research of advanced topic in multimedia design.

Course Objectives:
Upon completion of the course, the student should be able to:

Research technical and design needs of project.
Develop technical specifications for project.
Understand and apply principles of structural design to produce prototype project.
Debug and refine project based on prototype testing.
Effectively meet deadlines of production schedule.
Produce an original interactive project that incorporates multimedia elements.

Required Texts: none

Credit Values: 2 Credits

Estimated Homework Hours: 3 hours a week

Process for Evaluation:
Attendance and Participation                                                                                   25%
Assignments and Exercises                                                                                        45%
Mid-Term Project/Examination                                                                                  15%
Final Project/Examination                                                                                           15%

open book icon for lecture information List of lectures and labs

Punctuality is expected. Points are deducted for excessive (more than 3) tardies. You can track your grades by your name and student id on my Gradekeeper page. Grades are updated once a week, usually Sunday morning. Students are responsible to check this at least one day prior to class. Email me at sharon@casabasa.com if you have any questions. Tutoring is available on Mondays at noon, rm. 309.

Week 1: Monday January 9, 2012

Lecture: Research a topic and formulate an effective project proposal. 6 phases of the web design/development process (from MM4402). Review of past projects/brainstorming for final portfolio project. Students will demonstrate their current portfolio planned for graduation.
Lab: Read en passim this article on the value of creating technical specifications. Technical specifications describe "the basic approach and technologies that will be used in the markup and layout of the site, but not the functionality. This spec will address issues such as whether the site will be database-driven, have cascading style sheets, require plug-ins, or be optimized for a particular color depth, screen resolution, platform, or browser." from website briefs
Homework:

Using the asset list of your chosen project, begin writing a technical brief. A technical brief "describes the visitors’ equipment, including their monitor size, connection speed, computer processor speed, amount of RAM, color depth, installed plug-ins, etc." from website briefs
Read this overview of web development fallacies (especially #4) and how you can communicate those aspects to your clients.
Write out, to be refined later, the technical specs from lab. Goal is to clearly and concisely state your technical objectives in 2 or less paragraphs. Bring to class next week.
Post to your homework site the beginning of your website specification. This will be refined as you go but should give the technical and design outline. Email me your link. Due Sunday morning of each week. Here is a template you can use for website specification, or you can research online. Another site spec article.

Week 2: Holiday. Continue working on tech specs as discussed. Email any questions.

Lecture: Develop technical specifications for project.
Lab: Strategy Documentation: research scope of content.
Homework: Create a concept model that illustrates underlying conceptual structures.

Week 3:

Lecture: Understand principles of structural design.
Lab: Apply principles of structural design to produce prototype project.

Development of an interactive project requires research and development in a systemized fashion. There are many tactics to achieve the initial development plan. Your development plan should include research, analysis of that research, testing and development. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_development_methodology gives a nice overview of the main methodology frameworks: Waterfall, Prototyping and Spiral. No one framework is suitable for every project, but all have the goal of providing a deliberate step-by-step process on which to build your final project.

Homework: Begin production log/process book, using an online software. Read and follow the links used as reference above and provide a visual detail of your proposed process.

Week 4:

Lecture: Testing usability
Lab: Debug and refine project based on prototype testing.
Homework: Test interface and navigation items.

Week 5:

Lecture: Adding interactivity and multimedia
Lab: Write scripts and test.
Homework: Create template of inner pages. Post sketches to production log.

Week 6:

Lecture: Reality check: where are you in the project
Lab: Presentation of documentation and project to date
Homework: Complete icons and visuals.

Week 7:

Lecture: HTML5, CSS3 and JQuery libraries
Lab: Update processes in production log.
Homework: Continue work on final project.

Week 8:

Lecture: Testing usability
Lab: Debug and refine project based on prototype testing.
Homework: Test interface and navigation items. Comment in production log.