Group Project

Group of 3-4 People

MM2201 Assignment for week 5: Project 2

Introduction
This will be a group project. You can select your own group partners, but make sure no one is left out. The class will split into groups of three or four students each and design a Web interface for a commerce site that is selling a certain product. In class this week, your group should brainstorm and decide on an industry and a product. It is not a branding class, but you will also need to come up with a logo, since that doubles as Site ID and a part of the navigation.

The site will need at least five major Sections, and the user will have to browse at least four levels deep to get to the product page in question (Home, Section, Subsection, Product). Keep these parameters in mind as you begin to work on these – the size of the site (including all the products you're not actually building pages for) will determine the structure of the site, and the navigation. In week 7 we will be setting up a usability lab and testing their designs on unsuspecting non-majors grabbed from the hallways.

Please brainstorm ideas for industry, product and logo. Include everyone in the group in this process; for homework you will all be working on concepting thumbnails for logos and the Home page design.

Teams
Get together with your group and divide your labor among these tasks:

Research
Determine your research methods, paying particular attention to analysis of similar/competing existing sites. Define your target audience and user needs. Write three user profiles of members within your target audience. Include this and your research methods and sources into a Word or PDF document. Be as thorough as possible. Strategy. 1-2 team members.

Site scope
Define the scope of your site (number of pages, number of categories/products at each level) and build a flow chart showing the user’s pathway through this structure. You may use Illustrator or Visio, and make it clear how many Sections and Subsections there will be at those levels. Make this a visually professional document. Scope and structure. 1 team member.

Wireframe
Design a wireframe comp for each page of the clickthrough. Consider for inclusion the elements discussed in class: the Site ID, tag line, global nav, Welcome blurb, search field, etc. Also any other elements you deem necessary, such as links to networking sites and so on. Structure and skeleton. 1-2 team members.

Design
Bring in some thumbnail sketches of your company’s logo. Design. All team members

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X -- Home
X -- Section
X -- Subsection
X -- Product

(You have to get the user 4 pages deep)
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Division of Labor
When, Who, Why, What, How
(We are building a prototype)

Project Leader (You can put this on your resume or portfolio, person who delivers)
Strategy
1. Communicates with everyone, stakeholders, and client
2. Establishes Site Objectives
3. Trouble shoot
4. Due Dates
5. Compiles and delivers the results

Researcher primary data
1. Determine User needs, target audience
2. User profiles/persona SEE User's Profile PDF
(for interface design you pick multiple people, to make sure more people can actually navigate your site)
(as opposed to in marketing you pick one person you are trying to get to use your site.)
3. Writes Documentation
4. Research similar sites (upside is that they already did the research, downside their target audience might be different, wrong, or out of date)
Ask usability questions, how does the target audience feel about and use the web?

Info Architect
Working with project leader to decide scope & structure.

Designer
Deciding the look of the Skeleton and Surface

Coder
the How
Skeleton and Surface

Final Stage: (for later)
Testing the Usability