Redesign Project | English 308

unit 2: redesign project

A redesign project provides you an opportunity to think carefully and critically about the design and content of a document. For our course, you will be working both individually and collaboratively to redesign a website. This project will require you to consider audience, purpose, and authorship as they relate to a specific document. You and your team members will work together to research, propose, select, redesign, and persuasively present your redesigned site.

In this assignment you will learn to

Consider how purposes, audiences, situations, and methods affect writers’, readers’, and/or users’ perceptions of written documents.
Analyze various professional writing genres to consider how stylistic constraints (and potentials) affect the presentation and perception of information.
Write persuasive, ethically responsible documents that demonstrate—via their form and content—an awareness of the audience’s abilities, needs, and interests.
Develop a set of investigative strategies for learning unfamiliar computer technologies and applications.
Recognize and analyze the forms and roles that research plays in determining and meeting project goals and users’/readers’ needs.
Learn and apply strategies for collaborating successfully and equitably with peers on course projects.
Understand and implement theories of document design (e.g., format, layout, graphics) in course projects.
Conduct and manage a short-term project collaboratively.

What are the components of the redesign project?
To make the redesign project more manageable, you will be selecting and evaluating two possible websites for redesign, writing a rhetorical analysis of your team's selected site, drafting a redesign memo, storyboards, and Dreamweaver nodes of your redesign site, and persuasively presenting your redesign to our class. Use the following links for detailed descriptions of each project component and resources:

website selection and rhetorical analysis on site (individual, 35% of unit 2 grade)
create a redesign portfolio including storyboards of redesigned site, Dreamweaver template nodes for the starting page and a secondary page, and redesign report articulating your team's rationales for its redesign (collaborative, 50% of unit 2 grade)
write and deliver a persuasive presentation on your site redesign (collaborative, 15% of unit 2 grade).
project resources

Remember if you have any questions about these or other project guidelines, do not hesitate to contact me.

top | website selection | rhetorical analysis | storyboards | templates | redesign report | oral presentation | project resources

How do I select the two possible websites?
For the redesign project to be effective, your team must begin with an appropriate site for redesign. Thus, each team member should locate two possible websites for redesign. You must draft at least one paragraph or more providing your rationales why the sites would be suitable for this project. In addition, your website selection should reflect consideration of the following:

The scale of the site is manageable in relationship to the project guidelines. That is, the site must be extensive enough for you to evaluate its audience, purpose, context, and authorship but not so large that you cannot account for its structure and goals.
The site should provide ample opportunity for reconceptualization and redesign.
The site have a distinct purpose (commercial/business, informational/reference, advocacy, etc.), but it must not be a personal home page or blog.

You and your team will share your selected sites, and after discussion, you will determine which site is most suitable for the project and your team. You will email me your selected site and your rationales for choosing it (kimmehea@u.arizona.edu).

How do I conduct my rhetorical analysis?
Each team member should conduct a thorough and detailed rhetorical analysis of your selected website. The rhetorical analysis asks you to consider the audience, purpose, and authorship of the site. As you develop a better sense of the site's overall mission, you will be able to apply your analyses to create a more persuasive design.

To complete your rhetorical analysis, you must thoroughly and carefully complete the rhetorical analysis form. You should be ready to discuss your responses with your team and translate your collected analyses into your redesign memo.

How do we create our redesign portfolio?
Your redesign project includes three major components: storyboards of your design, starting and secondary nodes for your redesign, and a redesign report.

How do we develop the content for redesign report?
Your report should cover the following content areas, but these areas must be organized according to the formatting guidelines. In other words, your report will not merely have three sections. Instead, you will integrate your content areas into separate sections within your report. Be certain to read the formatting guidelines carefully.

overview: your discussion should begin with a brief overview of the site, which introduces its author(s), purpose(s), and intended audience(s). The overview also should introduce the team's general concerns about the rhetorical effectiveness of the site. In discussing the current state of the site, you should highlight both its problems and potentials.
recommendations: after introducing the site's rhetorical context, discuss your recommended revisions to the site. Your presentation of these concerns should be focused and organized. Rather than simply offering a random list of individual issues (e.g., the background is too busy, a link on one of the nodes is broken, no recent contact information is provided, etc.), your team should organize its recommendations into larger categories. These categories should draw upon the concerns that we discussed during our web rhetoric workshop (i.e., font choices, page layout, linking and interactivity, consistency, images, development and accuracy of content, appropriateness of tone, proofreading).
rationales: to make your report persuasive, include specific rationales for each of your recommendations. That is, in addition to describing your suggested revisions, you need to explain how and why they would improve the rhetorical effectiveness of the site. Your rationales should be backed by principles discussed in class, and they should be grounded in the rhetorical context of the site. Make certain that your recommendations are appropriate in relation to the site's purpose and feasible in relation to the author(s) presumed resources and abilities.

How do we format our redesign report?
Using Microsoft Word, your redesign report should follow these specifications:

as many pages as necessary,
1-inch margins on all sides,
separate title page including the title of your report, team member names, submission date, and appropriate graphic,
14-point Arial bold level one headers and 12-point Arial bold italic level two headers,
12-point Times New Roman font for body,
descriptively titled subsections,
full block formatting (left justified, no indents for paragraphs, and one line space between paragraphs),
name, last updated information, and page number in footer, and
appendix with your storyboards and Dreamweaver templates (see description of these components).

How do we create our storyboards?
A web design storyboard is an outline of the content and layout of a website before it is actually created. Thus, your storyboards should depict a suggested layout for your website redesign much like your thumbnail sketches of your quick reference project. These boards should provide the overall organizational structure of the website, paying particular attention to linking and navigability. The boards also should reflect the placement of information on the proposed nodes. These rough sketches don't need to provide details in terms of design choices. Instead consider your storyboards the "skeletons" of your website architecture. They demonstrate the overall layout of the site and the links among the pages as well as the placement of images, text, and links within a particular page. See the storyboarding handout for information about the page follow chart with navigation.

Your storyboards should include the following three items:

1. A layout for your suggested starting node.
2. A layout of a secondary node.
3. A chart depicting all the nodes and links among them.

Use Microsoft Word or Publisher to create the layout of your storyboards. You may want to create a hand-drawn sketch before you translate your layout into electronic form. Each of these three items should be clearly labeled, and each one should fit on its own separate page. You will include the boards in your appendix of the redesign report.

How do we create our Dreamweaver templates?
Your example redesigned pages should demonstrate a suggested layout for the starting node and a secondary node of your team's chosen site. Your starting node should convey both visually and textually the audience, purpose, context, and author considerations of your website. In other words, your design will need to include specific images, colors, themes, links, and organization and appropriate content. Your template nodes will provide us with a "fleshed out" and specific redesign.

Your examples should include the following two items:

1. A Dreamweaver template of a specific layout for starting node.
2. A Dreamweaver template of a specific layout for a secondary node.

Your templates must include color scheme, images, textual description, links, navigational tools, and interactive elements.

Use Dreamweaver to create the layout of your nodes. Each of these two nodes should be clearly labeled, and each one should fit on its own separate page. You will include the nodes in your appendix of the redesign report.

How do we create our persuasive presentation on our redesign?
Your 10-minute oral presentation should engage our classroom audience with your rhetorically sound website redesign. Your presentation should be accompanied by a PowerPoint slide show. To organize your presentation, you should develop the following sections:

project overview
Your team should give an overview of your what you will address in your presentation.
Note: Your overview section should summarize the content of your presentation not describe the general assignment.

history and research into website for redesign
Your team should explain its research into different websites for redesign. You should identify why you choose your specific site and provide us with your team's early assessment of the site.

overview of current site
Describe the current site in terms of design, content, navigation, and interactivity. Relate these concepts to your rhetorical analysis of the site.

recommendations and redesign
Explain your recommendations for redesign. Include visuals of the new nodes as well as a chart of its navigational structure. The most important aspect of this section is to include your rationales for how your redesign is more rhetorically sound in terms of audience, purpose, and authorship.

visuals
Your team should integrate visuals throughout the presentation. Your visuals should not only have a professional appearance but also enhance the rhetorical effectiveness of your discussion.

How can we learn more about different unit 2 project components?
Aspects of this project are covered through the following supplemental resources:

storyboards
storyboarding by Jane Stevens
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/multimedia/course/storyboarding/

reports
writing reports
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/service/ltd/campus/reportwr.pdf

dreamweaver
dreamweaver tutorial
http://www.adobe.com/support/dreamweaver/documentation/dreamweaver4_tut.html

video tutorials for dreamweaver mx 2004 users
http://cals.arizona.edu/ecat/dreamweaver2004/2004videos.html

dreamweaver tutorial
http://www.oscr.arizona.edu/downloads/tutorials/current/dreamweaveruser.pdf

oral presentations
making effective oral presentations
http://web.cba.neu.edu/~ewertheim/skills/oral.htm

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