CS-081 Assignment 1

Building a web site requires a combination of graphic design and technology. This course is offered by the Computer Science Department, so you should not be surprised to find that its emphasis is on the technology side of the process. In a big project, graphic design and web programming are normally performed by different people who are trained in one side of the operation or the other. But the two sides need to be able to communicate with each other. And in this course, we have no choice but for each student to play both the design and implementation roles.

Your first assignment is to start thinking about design, implementation, and how they relate to each other. You are to read an article on one aspect of the topic, and answer some questions raised by the article.

The article you are to read is Web Design By Designers. Read the article, look at the two web sites discussed in the article, and write out answers to the following questions.

1. Compare the two sites for ease of use. Assume you were interested in hiring one of these companies to to do a design project, and tell how the two sites influenced your interest in .
2. Tell which site you think does a better job of making it easy to contact them, and why.
3. The article mentions the use of a grid in the design of the first site. Was this clear when you first visited the site? Do you think the second site uses a grid?
4. The article says, “… it is guaranteed that the principals in the firm will actively art direct the project, and insist on good typography and design.” What do you think it means to “art direct” a project? And what aspects of the web pages do “typography” and “design” refer to?
5. One of the web sites uses Flash, and both use JavaScript. What happens to the sites if you disable these features in your browser? (We will go over how to do this in class.)
6. Which site looks more like the Google home page? Why do you think they did that?
7. Tell how you think design and typography relate to the technical material we will be covering in this course.

Write your answers to the questions in the body of an email message. You can use plain text or formatted email, but do not use a word processor and/or send your answers as an attachment. Send your email to me by midnight on the due date (September 2). My email address is:

The Subject Line of your email must say CS-081 Assignment 1, exactly like that, in order to avoid my spam filters.

Be sure to sign your email so I know who sent it!