Coursework 2: Build a website for students who are new to the University of Edinburgh
Build a website that will be helpful to students who have recently been admitted to the University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics. The primary users of the site will be students who have either just accepted an offer and are preparing to move here or who have just arrived on campus. The majority of users will be incoming undergraduates and masters students, though some international visiting students may want to use the site as well.
The website you create should meet the following requirements:
- The website can be a single page or multiple pages depending on what you think is best.
- I expect the website will be mostly HTML with some Javascript. You are allowed to use backend programming languages like PHP, but I would not recommend doing so unless you are very familiar with them. It is very possible to complete the whole project with only HTML and some minor Javascript.
- The website must have at least one of the following types of interaction: instructing, conversing, or manipulating.
- The website must be usable by an average Informatics UG or MSc student.
- The website must be fit for purpose. That is, it must fulfill the requirement of helping new students who are joining the campus community.
For this coursework you are welcome to make use of the output of the tutorial affinity diagramming session, as well as the upcoming co-design tutorials. There will also be a tutorial session where you are encouraged to conduct evaluations with fellow tutorial attendees. Please make use of these resources.
Tools and templates
The primary goal of this exercise is to test your ability to design something that is usable by your target population.
You are free to use any tool or template you would like in the construction of the site. The end result must be a website which can be loaded in a web browser. The tools you use must produce code that you are able to turn in. It is fine if it calls out to standard libraries like jqury, but the main code needs to be turned in. In your write-up you must list all the tools you used.
Group size
Groups can be of size one to size four. The amount of work expected scales with the size of the group while still keeping it in the reasonable range for a 10 credit course.
- One
- The student has the option of only using the evaluations done during the tutorial sessions. The student is expected to use either the affinity diagram or co-design exercises to identify design requirements. They are also expected to perform at least one usability evaluation which can use someone else from the HCI class as the participant.
- Two
- Same requirements as a group of size one, except that the group must either find a person not currently in the HCI course to do their usability evaluation with or add an additional topic to the website.
- Three and four
- Same requirements as a group of size one. The group must also do one of the following for each additional member: 1) conducting an additional usability evaluation, 2) conducting a design requirements study, 3) incorporating another type of interaction (instructing, conversing, or manipulating) into their website, or 4) add another topic to the website. For example, a group of size three might create a website which addresses three of the topics identified in the affinity diagram.
The easiest approach to this coursework is for each member to select a topic from the affinity diagram and then create a web page that addresses the topic. Then have at least one member attend the tutorial session to test the website design.
Turn in
A copy of your code in a zip or tar file. You will need to use the submit command on DICE to submit this part. If you created a website that requires a custom back-end such as a PHP based site or anything that cannot be viewed by opening the contents of the zip file on a standard DICE machine, then you will need to provide a URL where the site can be viewed. Projects that are using standard HTML and Javascript should not need to provide a URL provided all the code is actually included in the zip.
For the write-up you will be turning in 1-2 pages, plus an additional page per evaluation beyond the first that you decide to run.
- A list of any tools or templates you used to construct the website.
- The topic(s) you decided to cover in the website. What kind of information you were trying to convey.
- Reasoning behind why the website is usable. This section will likely include the outcome of any evaluations you conducted. Unlike the last coursework I do not expect you to do a full formal analysis and description. A few sentences on the method you used is fine. The key is providing reasoning on either why the site is usable, or what you changed to make it so.
- Reflection paragraph: what you have learned from completing this coursework. What worked, what didn't, and if you could go back and do this coursework again what might you do differently the next time.
- How the group would like me to allocate marks. Two options: 1) everybody gets the same mark, 2) a clear list of who is responsible for which part of the website or evaluation. In the case of #2 10 points will be marked group wide for the general design of the website and the remaining 40 points will be marked based on the individual portion of the work.
Submission
Submission
Deadline: 17th of November by 4pm
If possible, please submit one document for the whole group. Electronic submissions are preferred but you may also turn in a paper copy to the ITO.
To submit the document electronically use the submit command, replacing "report.pdf" with your document name:
submit hci 2 code.tar
submit hci 2 report.pdf
