Detailed schedule

GDES-220 spring 2019 (David Ramos, American University Design)
ramos@american.edu · office hours · interaction design resources

15 January

Tuesday

Class 01

« summary view

Intro to interaction design, HTML/CSS, and this course

  • Introduction

Demo files: Intro demo (ZIP)

Projects

Start Recipe.

18 January

Friday

Class 02

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Capturing meaning with HTML/CSS typography

  • Brief history of the web
  • HTML basics
  • CSS basics

Demo files: Basic site (ZIP), Shape of Design excerpt (TXT), Text Fixer

Reading assignments and project deadlines appear under the class when they are due.

Reading

Do you know how to manage files and folders on a Mac? You will struggle in this class if you don’t have an excellent command of those skills. If you have the slightest doubt about your abilities, start working through sections two and three of the Lynda Computer Literacy for Mac course. (Sign in through the AU Library.)

Projects

22 January

Tuesday

Class 03

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The box model; Classes and IDs

  • The CSS box model
  • Classes
  • IDs (use sparingly)

Demo files: Layout/typography demo (ZIP)

You should be using Firefox as your primary browser for development, because it has the best CSS layout developer tools. Good practice involves checking sites in several browsers, but we will use mostly Firefox.

Projects

Complete HTML for Recipe

Reading

25 January

Friday

Class 04

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DIVs and sectioning content

  • DIVs
  • New HTML5 elements
  • Typographic elements and class naming exercise

A piece of advice about screen sizes: don’t present sites in full-screen mode, and don’t code with your browser in full-screen mode. Most desktop/laptop users aren’t browsing in full-screen mode, and sites need to be able to adapt to varying screen sizes. Working in full-screen mode guarantees nasty surprises later. Stop doing it, now.

Projects

Reading

In class

1 February

Friday

Class 06

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Links and images

  • The A (anchor/link) element, and links as the currency of the web
  • Locating resources: file paths and URLs
  • The IMG (image) tag
  • Finding, compressing, and using images

Reading

In class

Links demo: Links files (ZIP)

Good practices for where to put your CSS

It’s technically feasible for your CSS to live in a number of places:

  • In a separate .css file
  • Inside a <style> element, as part of the current HTML file
  • Inline, as part of a CSS attribute
    (<p style="margin-top: 1.5em;">)

Tutorials scattered around the web might suggest all of these approaches. For our class, you should almost always put your CSS in a separate .css file, linked to from every page in your site. This tactic encourages you to think about designing systems and reusing code, it is more maintainable and easier to troubleshoot, and it makes CSS specificity easier to understand.

19 February

Tuesday

Class 11

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Process + sketching/prototyping tools

Projects

  • Story: give a three-minute presentation about two possible Wikipedia articles.
  • Type/layout/color and site map work, in class

Reading

In class

  • Design process
  • Introducing Figma
  • Quick look at site maps and information architecture

Style tiles in Figma

22 February

Friday

Class 12

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Navigation systems; flexbox + navbars

Projects

  • For Story, show three design concepts as style tiles, produced in Figma. (Use fonts from the class font list.) Email a shareable link before class.
  • Complete background research into your topic and review comparable sites

Reading

In class

Quiz: setting type in HTML/CSS; know CSS type features from HTML & CSS ch. 12. (Not typeface terminology; not pp. 271, 272, 275, 278, 291, or 292.)

1 March

Friday

Class 14

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Studio

Projects

  • Story: Come to class with well-resolved sketches for design ideas. Be prepared to discuss those ideas. Work on building out your idea in code, in class.

Reading

8 March

Friday

Class 16

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Studio

Projects

  • Story: Have a semifinal design for discussion in small groups. Show a front page and an inside page in live HTML/CSS, but be prepared to modify the design in response to today’s discussion.

Reading

22 March

Friday

Class 18

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Privacy and ethics

Reading

  • Review Privacy Paradox and Ethan Zuckerman

Projects

26 March

Tuesday

Class 19

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Mobile and responsive

  • Design for mobile devices
  • Responsive web design and media queries

Remember: every website is mobile friendly, until your design starts to break it.

Reading

  • Mobile design reading t.b.a.

In class

2 April

Tuesday

Class 21

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Mobile/responsive exercise

Projects

  • In-progress design critique for Conference

In class

  • Mobile/responsive exercise w. demo files (ZIP). Tip: make an empty layout first, then flow in your content.

Reading

5 April

Friday

Class 22

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Critique

Projects

  • Show design options for Conference

Reading

12 April

Friday

Class 24

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Interactive prototypes + usability testing

  • Prototying and usability testing exercise

Reading

19 April

Friday

Class 26

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Hosting; Professional practice

  • Domain registration, the DNS system, and web hosts
  • A few words about dynamically generated or content-managed websites
  • Professional practice

26 April

Friday

Class 28

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Critique

Projects

  • Semifinal critique for Conference