2008 lab not yet modified for 2009!

COMP1710: Laboratory 7: Design and Usability

Objectives

Gain an immediate and practical appreciation of good design, and have some fun.

Tasks

Task 1: Review

Make sure you have read all the online lecture notes, especially about well designed web sites.

Task 2: Do a BAD web site

This task is to create a copy of your assignment page (as a separate page eg bad.html, or as another Xanga page), and make changes to it which makes it still usable (by you), but is really really bad from a design viewpoint.

The web site should have 6 design flaws. Please note that I do mean design flaws (meaning mistakes in web design or lack of usability), not simple and obvious errors, such as broken links or empty pages/content.

If you used Xanga, don't take more than 20 minutes copying your assignment onto a new Xanga page, you should be able to go on with whatever you can copy over in that time. Copying files in your public_html folder should be quicker.

Task 3: Document the design flaws

Creating web pages with design flaws is easy, and is done all the time, by people all over the world. If you document which design flaws you intend to make, we can be sure which flaws you are aware of (and maybe help you identify the ones you didn't intend to make :-).

Your description of the design flaws should be among you bad pages. As part of these descriptions, please indicate how you use the new page if its not obvious.

Don't forget to have a link to your new BAD web page if you used Xanga or use a public_html/bad.html file to access the bad pages.

Task 4: Find an example of a design flaw on the web

Provide a link to a page which has a design flaw you particularly dislike, explain the design flaw, and provide an example of another page which doesn't have this flaw and (briefly) explain why the second page is better from a design or usability viewpoint.

Task 5: Reflect

This task is most easily done in parallel with the other tasks.

Reflect on (think about) what you've learnt in this lab.