Assignments guidelines

Technical Exercises (35%)

You will complete weekly technical exercises for the first nine weeks of class, to develop familiarity with web design and development workflow from webpage to mobile application. Each week, you will create a new webpage to host your reading response for that week. Each week, the technical exercise will include some special prompts, which will be described at the end of the class, and each assignment builds on the previous one, ensuring that students master each skill at each level. Students are expected to submit the result of their technical exercise before class since it is part, and to be able to present their progress each week to the class.

Submission

All technical exercises will be part of the Glitch website you will be creating on the first session of class, and which will be listed on the discussions page.

See the section below for more details.

Late submission will ensure a grade deduction of 5% per day after the submission deadline. If you're stuck doing the assignment, here are two pro tips: don't start at the last minute, and reach out (also if you need an extension; extensions will not be granted less than 24 hours before the due date)!

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Participation - 20%

Participation includes (a) in-class presentation of readings, (b) writing a weekly response to the required readings on your Glitch websites, and (c) contributing to the class resources — whether by finding current exhibitions and cultural events, or innovative web- or mobile-based projects not mentioned during class, and sharing them with your instructor and classmates.

Participation will be graded on two parts:

1. Making a weekly website to post your reading responses.
2. Once per semester, giving a presentation of a week's required and optional readings.

For reading responses, you should:

• create a new page on your Glitch website.
• add a link from your home page to your new response page.
• write the content and styling markup according to the week's prompts.
• write a few paragraphs for the required reading of the week. what did you think? what did you agree with? what did you disagree with? are there any things that resonate with something you've read previously? are there anythings that you feel have been overlooked?

For a successful presentation, you should:

• prepare a visual support for your presentation (slideshow/canva/figma/website/etc.) and do not to read from your notes.
• make eye contact, speak slowly and take pauses between points ant themes.
• read all of the readings, provide a short summary of each individual readings and, more importantly, touch on how they articulate together.
• highlight out some of the points you find most interesting, and whether or not you agree with them.
• bring in some examples to illustrate the points being made in the readings.
• prepare at least three questions to open up for a class discussion, which you will be leading.

The presentation should be between 15 and 20 minutes.

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Final group project - 45%

Due on the last session (Wednesday, 11 December) - Develop a web app that asks as a compendium for a knowledge field of your choice. Think about the many ways a field of knowledge is maintained: human testimonies, artifacts, library records, references to other fields, etc. It should act as a guide to this particular field of knowledge, told from your perspective. It can be as personal and quirky as you want, as specific as you deem it necessary, or as broad and exhaustive as you can. You should use text, images, hyperlinks, interactivity and audio, and if possible 3D objects and networked resources through APIs, and overall try to keep in mind what are some of the strengths and affordances of the digital medium.

• A functional mobile application implementing your design. (70%)
• A presentation to be shown on the day of the presentation (15%)
• A short write-up explaining what you did, how you did it, and why. (15%)

Presentation day

• 20 minutes presentation maximum, followed by questions
• discuss what you did, why and how, as well as some of the concepts you drew on from the class.
• demonstrate your website

Submission

Post a documentation on the discussions post, including a 750 word description of the project, and your Glitch URL (if you haven't done your website on Glitch, include a zip file with the source code)

Grading rubric

Overall, UI & UX design	Implementation	Media & Interactivity	Research process
The design and navigation are confusing, it's not clear what this is about	The implementation has major bugs	The application includes only few media assets and minimal interactivity	The research process covers basic questions about the chosen field
The design is clear and easy to navigate	The implementation has minor bugs	The application has varied media assets and advanced interactivity	The research process builds on basic questions to suggest connections to other, expected, fields
The design is clear and easy to navigate, and suggests some innovative means of interaction	The implementation is bug-free	The application has a variety of high-quality, original assets, and includes unique interactions	The research process highlights the connections to other fields and asks higher-level, philosophical questions.