AVT 415 · George Mason University · Spring 2016
Web Design and Usability
3 credits · Prerequisite AVT 217, AVT 311 and AVT 313 · Abe Garcia
The work
| Assignment | Due | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Project 1: Single Page Website, MVP 75 of 400 points in the original scheme. A local startup's simple, responsive one-page marketing site, three weeks. | Exam week | 19% |
| Project 2: Content Management Systems 75 of 400 points. Version two of the startup site: a blog and several pages on a simple CMS. | Exam week | 19% |
| Final: Portfolio Site 125 of 400 points. A dynamic Bootstrap portfolio showcasing your voice as a designer. | Exam week | 31% |
| Weekly assignments 50 of 400 points. Due the first class day of the week after they are assigned. | Exam week | 12% |
| Class participation 55 of 400 points. Perfect attendance earned 10 credit points; critique attendance mandatory. | Exam week | 14% |
| Exercises 20 of 400 points, scored 0 to 3: a 2 is correct and complete, a 3 substantially exceeds the ask, the lowest score is dropped, never accepted late. | Exam week | 5% |
| Total | 100% |
The rules
- General format
- The semester consists of workshops, seminars, exercises and projects. Workshops are in-class lessons about specific techniques with code or processes. Seminars present opportunities to discuss and debate critical issues regarding web culture. Projects happen largely outside of class and are thoughtful investigations based on a given problem statement. Class meetings are structured around workshops, seminars, work sessions, guest speakers, and project critiques.
- Submission
- Projects are due at the beginning of class without exception, presented in person on the due date. Late submissions lose a full letter grade for each class day of delay and are not accepted after one week.
- Attendance
- Fifteen minutes late is a tardy; thirty is an absence; three tardies equal an absence. Three absences of any kind reduce the final grade by a letter, and each beyond that another. There is no makeup for a project.
- Archival record
- Rebuilt from the class log the course actually ran on: the 28 posts of the 2016 course site, still live on GitHub Pages, one per meeting, snow days included. Every session links its own lecture post — the notes, exercises and slides as taught. Weights shown as percentages of the original 400-point scheme, rounded.