Design Fundamentals for the Web – Session 1

January 21, 2014

Course Overview

Identify the types of users you need to communicate with
Identify what each user type needs to be able to do
Organize your content semantically
Compose appropriate layouts for your content
Create visual hierarchies for your content with type
Apply design principles to emphasize relationships between elements
Create mood and enhance your visual hierarchies and element relationships using color
Breath life into your design with behavioral feedback
Test, rinse & repeat!

Review this post about writing user personas.
Think about what kind of website you'd like to create over the semester, the different people you'd like to see it, and how you'd like them to use it.
Create a text document on Google Drive and write a paragraph or two about each of these people. Be as specific as possible; include a picture, a description, and why they're using your website.

Using your user personas as a guide, try to organize your users into types.
Make a list of these user types in a spreadsheet on Google Drive.
Review this post about writing user stories.
In your spreadsheet on Google Drive, make a second list, this time listing as many user stories as you can.
When writing your user stories, just focus on “the Card” part, don't worry about “the Conversation” or “Confirmation” parts just yet.

After you've created both the User Persona and the User Story documents, share them with me at thomesoni@gmail.com. Here's more info on sharing Google Drive documents.