Module Information
Course Delivery
| Delivery Type | Delivery length / details |
|---|---|
| Lecture | 36 x 1 Hour Lectures |
| Practical | 4 x 2 Hour Practicals |
Assessment
| Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
|---|---|---|
| Semester Exam | 1.5 Hours Written Exam: | 60% |
| Semester Assessment | Design of a website | 25% |
| Semester Assessment | Evaluation of a website | 15% |
| Supplementary Exam | 1.5 Hours Supplementary Exam | 60% |
| Supplementary Assessment | Supplemenatry Assessment Produce a web site that provides users and good user experience. | 40% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
Critically evaluate the usabilty of a web site.
Describe responsive design, design for accessibility and design for internationalization.
Describe the usability issues of rich content.
Describe the process of good user interface development.
Produce a design of a small, rich content web site interface.
Brief description
The course considers the big picture of user experience development, from strategy and requirements to information architecture and visual design, and also considers methods and tools for achieving good interface design.
Aims
Many of our students go into employment as web developers and need a good feel for web design, and almost all software requires an interface. This module covers some of the basic theory and tools that are likely to be important in creating a good user interface. The module should enable a student to work in a development team to produce and evaluate a fully responsive and accessible interface providing good user experience.
Content
Fundamental principles of the user experience. An overview of the user experience as it fits into the objectives of an organization or business.
2. User evaluation of site design - 5 lectures
Making prototypes and getting feedback. Usability evaluation of web sites.
3. Beyond design: web analytics and your users – 2 lectures
How can you keep track of what your users are doing?
4. What is a user? – 3 Lectures
Human cognitive abilities, attention, short-term memory, accessibility issues.
5. What is design? – 6 lectures
Principles of design, Standards. Checklists. Is your system usable and your content findable, desirable and accessible? Rich pictures. Use case analysis. Dataflow diagrams. State diagrams. Hierarchical Task Analysis. Wireframe designs.
6. How to deal with rich content for the web – 6 lectures
Your design will inevitably involve multimedia. How do you create attractive and appropriate material? How can it improve the user experience?
7. Web site aesthetics - 2 lectures
Planning appropriate use of colour, typography. The Golden ratio, using proportions.
8. Responsive design and advanced CSS: the present and the future – 5 lectures.
Creating dynamic changes to the appearance of a website - an approach to the problem of designing for the multitude of available devices. Designing for novel interfaces
9. Accessibility - 2 lectures
Discussion of the web initiatives to make web content accessible. This will look at international guides on producing accessible sites. Of particular focus for anyone working on projects funded by the public sector.
10. Internationalisation - 2 lectures
How do you make your site available outside the UK and to non-English speakers?
Module Skills
| Skills Type | Skills details |
|---|---|
| Application of Number | |
| Communication | In the assignment associated with the module |
| Improving own Learning and Performance | |
| Information Technology | In the assignment associated with the module |
| Personal Development and Career planning | |
| Problem solving | |
| Research skills | |
| Subject Specific Skills | Web site design and evaluation. |
| Team work |
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 5