Mr. Wortzman | Room 3209 | Issaquah High School, Issaquah, WA
Tourism is a key source of income for any state, and Washington is no exception. In 2011 alone, the tourism industry in Washington generated $1.8 billion in tax revenue for state and local governments (source: http://whytourismmatters.com/). In today’s modern world, with an increasing percentage of travel decisions and arrangements being made online, having an attractive, intuitive, and useful website to attract visitors is key to a state’s financial health.
You will be creating a website to attract visitors to the state of Washington. In order to entice visitors to our state and help make their visit enjoyable, your site will need to include at least the following information:
The State Tourism Board is hoping to attract new visitors from all over the country and the world, so your audience will be quite varied; make sure your site will be useful to anyone who visits it. Also, don’t forget that you are representing the entire state! You may be less familiar with the central and eastern parts of the state than you are with the Puget Sound area. That means you’ll need to do some research.
Lastly, the Tourism Board wants the site to promote and support local businesses and establishments, so you should provide a link to the website of any business or organization you mention.
Your site will need to be attractive, easy to use, and well-organized. You will also need to have a minimum of three separate pages on your site and intuitive ways to navigate among them. Each page should have a distinct purpose and design, but should also clearly be part of the larger overall site. Your site should also have a clear, attractive color scheme—use the tools we have discussed in class to help with this. You will want to include images and/or photographs on your site, but remember not to use anything that is copyrighted! (Most of what you find on Bing or Google Image Search will not be safe to use.) Use the resources you have been shown to find free-to-use imagery.
You must conform to all technical guidelines and standards we have discussed in class. You should organize the various files that make up your site into folders (main, styles, images) and all your code (both HTML and CSS) must validate. In addition, your code should be clean and easy to read, including proper nesting and indentation, good use of blank lines, and comments where appropriate.
As we’ve discussed in class, web designers do not start writing code right away. There are several phases of planning and design that must take place before any code is written. These include researching relevant data, sketching the page and site layout, choosing a color scheme, and generally developing a cohesive vision for the site as a whole. For Phase I of your project, you will develop a proposal to discuss with your “client”. This proposal should include, at a minimum:
In addition, you should provide options to your client, in case they don’t like you’re primary design. You may develop one particular design to focus on, but you should have other options (wireframes, colors, etc.) available.
Once your proposal has been completed, you will “present” your proposal to a classmate, who will pose as the client. You should describe how your site will look and feel and why you made the decisions you made. Your partner will provide you feedback on your design ideas, and then you will switch roles and your partner will present his or her design to you. Keep your feedback constructive and act professional in these discussions. Your goal is not to prove your superiority or make your partner’s site look like yours, but to help each other improve your designs.
After presenting your proposal, you will respond to your partner’s feedback and develop your site. Keep in mind the iterative design process we have discussed in class. You should not attempt to build the entire site at once. Code up one chunk at a time, evaluate, make changes, and then move on when you are satisfied. You will likely have both your code (in Notepad++) and your site (in a browser) open at all times, and you should be constantly refreshing the browser to see how your latest changes look. Keep in mind also that an idea that seemed effective during the design phase might not work well in practice. Don’t be afraid to go back to the drawing board if you find yourself needing a new approach.
You will also want to start by focusing on the presentation and not the content. For your first checkpoint in Phase II, you will be required to demonstrate the “look and feel” of your site, but you may have placeholder content present. This will allow you to evaluate your design without being distracted by the specifics of the information or pictures you choose to include on the site. Remember, your site will need to be effective even if the content changes!
Have a complete proposal and be ready to present to a partner
Create a mockup demonstrating the “look and feel” of your site with placeholder content
CANCELLED
All required program elements are implemented and functional
| Proposal | |
|---|---|
| Proposal describes site organization and structure | 1 points |
| Proposal includes a wireframe sketch | 1 points |
| Proposal includes a color scheme | 1 points |
| Proposal includes sample information and/or images | 1 points |
| Proposal provides options for client | 1 points |
| Proposal describes rationale for design choices | 2 points |
| Student provides useful feedback to presentation partner | 2 points |
| Total | 9 points |
| Design | |
| Site includes interesting and relevant information about Washington | 2 points |
| Site describes the various parts of Washington | 2 points |
| Site highlights things to see and do in Washington | 2 points |
| Site provides useful travel information | 1 points |
| Site includes recommendations for lodging, dining, shopping, etc. | 1 points |
| Site links to mentioned businesses, organizations, events, etc. | 1 points |
| Site represents Washington as a whole, not a particular region | 1 points |
| Site appeals to a wide range of visitors | 1 points |
| Site design shows thoughtfulness, creativity, and effort | 3 points |
| Total | 14 points |
| Implementation | |
| HTML and CSS code validate | 2 points |
| Code is well-written and easy to read | 2 points |
| Site file structure conforms to guidelines | 1 points |
| HTML/CSS elements are used effectively and as intended | 1 points |
| Site consists of at least 3 separate pages | 1 points |
| Site is well-organized and easy to navigate | 2 points |
| Site has a clear and attractive design | 2 points |
| Site makes effective use of colors and imagery | 1 points |
| Proposal (3/28) | 1 points |
| Checkpoint 1 (4/04 | 2 points |
| Total | 15 points |
| Project total | 38 points |