Reflections Essay

DUE Sunday, Mar 18 – 6 points
(Monday NOON deadline)

  • Gradebook Declaration: I have published a blog post on my course blog that is between 300 and 1000 words long. The post contains at least one image and at least three text hyperlinks to other web sites. I have spellchecked and proofread the post.

This week, we talked about design and writing for the web. For this assignment, you will need to create a post in your course blog discussing these topics in relation to your final project. You don’t need to pick your final theme yet — there’s plenty of time you can waste wading through thousands of themes to find just the right one. Here are some ideas to get you started on this post:

  • Think back to the personas you created in the planning stages. What emotional reaction do you want them to have to the design of your web site?
    • What design elements can produce reaction (colors, textures, etc.)? What is your favorite color? Should that play into your design considerations at all?
    • Think of some adjectives that are opposite extremes (professional/personal, rough/polished, friendly/serious, relaxing/energizing, etc.): how your design should perform in a test?
  • Perform the exercise Paul describes in the Website Owners’ Manual, pages 74-75. What are the important elements? How many “attention points” should each receive? (Depending on the size of your site, you might want to try only 8 attention points instead of 15.)
  • Spend some time looking at the wide variety of themes available at Woo Themes. Which themes have layouts that could accomplish your site’s “attention points” objectives? Which themes have design styles (each theme has multiple design styles you can preview) that produce the intended emotional reaction? You might also write about a theme that doesn’t work and discuss why it’s not a good choice for your project.

  • You will not have to pick a theme from Woo Themes for your final project, but they do have a wide enough variety for an exercise like this. You might prefer to look at one of these other sites:

DUE Sunday, Mar 18 – 6 points
(Monday NOON deadline)