WRA 210 February 24, 2011

TODAY

1) Announcements

2) Module 4

3) More on Module 3

4) Discussion of Color Readings

5) Activity

6) Homework/Exit question

ANNOUNCEMENTS

I know a few of you are done already, but

for the large number of you who didn’t

want to talk about it in class but were

semi-freaked on Twitter, I’m going to

move the due date to next

Tuesday, March 1st.

Later in class we’re going to do a little

more with Photoshop to sort of give you

a sense of how the project can be

completed.

MOD 4

But first, we need to get moving

toward Module 4. This module, like

Mod 3, is meant to be done solo (as

is all the work from here on out) and

will ask you to look carefully at some

code.

This module is due on March 15th.

That’s a carved-in-stone deadline

because we need to get started

working with code. So pace yourself.

WHAT MOD 4 IS

Module 4 is going to ask you to look at the

source code for a number of pages. While

you’re doing this, you will be creating two

things:

1) A 1-2 page summary of what you learn. This

should be your reflection, so I cannot offer an

example that will work for all of you, but think

about what you discover in the process.

2) A glossary of any terms, tags, etc. you didn’t

know before (as you should be looking them

up—this will give you a place to record them)

WHAT TO LOOK AT

You should look at a total of 3

websites.

1) The site you used for Module 2

2) a major media outlet

(CNN, ESPN, USA Today, FOX

News, etc.)

3) one that is a site—other than

Facebook (the code of Facebook

is something for another

discussion) – that you read

frequently

WHAT TO DO

Go to the ―view‖ menu and select ―page

source. This will display the HTML code

for the page you’re looking at. The first

time you do this, you might want to just

give yourself a few minutes to read the

document and try to get a sense of how it

works. Hopefully some of our readings

have assisted you in getting off to a

start, but this will likely be the first time

you’ve come face to face with code.

Then you want to ask four questions.

Q 1

Look at the coding of the site. Look

specifically at and for tags.

How is the information organized and

labeled?

Q 2

How are links presented?

How are images presented?

What information exists IN THE CODE to

correspond to where these things appear

on the page in the browser?

Q 3

Which tags or terms appear most

often?

Why do you think that is?

Q 4

Does it appear that there is a lot of

information included in the code of the

page, or does it appear that there is

relatively little that isn’t part of the actual

―in browser‖ content?

IT’LL BE GRADED

1) Does your summary address all of the

issues (A-D) for each of the sites you

studied? (50 points)

2) Does your write-up articulate well what

you’ve learned from this activity? (25

points)

3) Is your glossary a useful document with

carefully defined and explained terms and

concepts?(25 points)**after this activity, we will combine all of your glossaries

into one web document that everyone in class can use as

a mega-reference, so please take this part of the

assignment seriously.

Module 3

I think some of you might be over-thinking

Module 3, or perhaps you’re fixating on

trying to use one type of technology to

get the assignment done.

I’m going to give you another quick

example. We’re going to go back to that

hideous Yale Art website and see what

we can do to it.

It’s here: http://art.yale.edu/

SPACE SAVER

This is a slide to display while we’re in

the other window.

Related Activity

So here’s what I want you to do. You had

to do some readings about color

blindness today as well as about

accessibility.

Accessibility will become very important

as we move forward, but for today, we’re

going to focus on the color situation. I’ve

made a mock-up of a website. I want you

to– using Photoshop– try to ―fix‖ it based

on what we know from our readings and

using the skills you just saw me model.

Your Task:

I am giving you a website and a color palette (on my Tumblr). I’m also giving you the site as it appears to a fully colorblind user.

Your goal is to make the site BETTER for the colorblind user while still looking good/functioning well for the typical user. You MUST use the two shades of green, though you may, if you so desire, change the accents.

You can choose other images, move the navigation, etc. Just make the site work better.

TUESDAY

Both Module 3 and your final

project proposal are due. Don’t

forget!

Read for class: Chapter 7 and 8 of

DWS (p. 135-163)

We will spend almost all of class

catching up on the readings from the

book (activities, activities, activities)