Web Design Proposal

1. Short goal statement This section should contain a brief discussion to explain the overall purpose of the site and its relationship to your proposal argument.  What purpose will this site serve in furthering your proposal?  (1 short paragraph)

1. Detailed goal discussion This section should discuss the site's goals in detail - not just that you hope to persuade your audience to enact your proposal, but how you hope the website will accomplish this goal.  (1 short paragraph)
2. Audience discussion This section should profile the users that would visit the site. Who will benefit and how from this information being available electronically?  Use the questions below to write a brief paragraph identifying your users and their purposes.  You won't know the answer to every question.

• How might your web audience be different than your text document audience?  What changes to your paper will this change necessitate?
• Where are they located?
• How old are they?
• What is their gender?
• What language do they speak?
• How technically proficient are they?
• What kind of connection would they have to the Internet?
• What kind of computer would they use?
• What kind of browser would they probably use?

Next, consider what the users are doing at the site:

• How did they get to the site?
• What do the users want to accomplish at the site?
• When will they visit the site?
• How long will they stay during a particular visit?
• From what page(s) will they leave the site?

3. User scenario discussion Imagine a typical user for your site and give him/her a name:  Congresswoman Hepzibah, for example, or UT administrator Thad.  Discuss a visit scenario for the site's users. Start first with how the user will arrive at the site and then follow the visit to its conclusion. Is it important that the user enter your site through the homepage?  Is there a specific exit page?  Will the user need to download anything? 
4. Content requirements The content-requirements section should provide a laundry list of all text, images, and other media required in the site.  Consider:  a logo, a home button, an email button, navigation buttons, images for pathos or logos, any .pdf files (should you provide an image or .pdf of your survey form?)... Would the text of an interview be useful?  Will you need to provide them with the ability to print a page?  Or, better still, to print your original paper?  Will you need a background pattern or just a color?  Will you want a sidebar?  Will you want a decorative navigation bar at top, bottom, or side for all the pages?
5. Text Modification Discuss changes in the structure of your paper - how will it be subdivided and why? Discuss changes in length - what will you expand or condense and why? Are you providing amplification or a summary?  Will you use an outline?  Table of contents?

Web Design Architecture

This stage of the process helps you plan the construction of your site in greater detail.

6.      Select a layout:  TLB, Header-Footer, Floating Window, or Frames & explain why you chose it.

7.      Suggest a general feeling for your design scheme (which includes colors, buttons, graphics, sidebars, and so on).  Use words like contemporary, futuristic, rustic, Victorian, retro, professional, institutional/bureaucratic, juvenile to discuss discuss your design in general.  Also describe the color palette you have in mind - not necessarily naming colors, but thinking in terms of styles:  camouflage, primary, girlie, industrial, patriotic, pastel, sporty, safari, jungle, autumnal, neutral, high-contrast, tone-on-tone, metallic, urban...

8.      Justify this design scheme - what do you hope to convey to your audience, and why?

9.      Select 2-3 fonts for your website.  Usually these would include 1 text font, 1 heading font, and one font for your navigation buttons (if any).  Remember that the heading / text fonts need to be different classes:  a serif and a sans serif, or a sans serif and a script, for example.  You can choose a non-standard font for the headings / navigation buttons - see me to discuss how.

10.  How will your website reach your intended audience?  Discuss keywords in the META tags, the possibility of sending out emails or a cover letter, posting signs, &c.

11. Paste the graphical elements you will be using on your site into this document; if there are too many to put in a Word file, deposit this assignment and your images in your Teacher project4 subfolder.
12. Identify a website that does either a really transcendent or and appallingly lousy job of presenting a subject similar to your own (a presentation to a city council, a petition, a discussion of recycling, consciousness-raising...) and explain in 10 or more sentences what makes it so good/bad.