Conference
GDES-220 spring 2017 · American University Design
Instructor: David Ramos ( ramos@american.edu · office hours )
Build a website for a hypothetical conference about technology, design, and society. Aim to create a site that would convince a potential audience member to attend. Consider navigation, user experience, typography, image choice, and the value of templates and shared stylesheets in web development. Think of this website as a single system, built from many smaller and reusable parts.
Website specifications
Content
- Provide information that potential and registered participants would need, including material about the conference’s concept, each speaker, and the venue. Write real text.
- The site does not need to provide a live registration system. Text noting that registration opens on 7 July will suffice. Similarly, a detailed schedule can come later, but you should provde dates and start/end times.
- Where possible, use images that you create yourself, or that are freely licensed. If necessary, you may use images of speakers, speakers’ work, and venues to which you do not have rights.
- Cite sources for all images in a readme file.
- A site of 3–12 pages would be a good ballpark.
Technical
- The website must work well in desktop browsers, and must be usable in small-screen mobile browsers.
- Write semantically meaningful, correct HTML.
- Start your site using the narrative site template (ZIP).
- Do not use a CSS framework for layout.
Deliverables
For due dates, see the course schedule. Sketches may be done on the computer, or may be carefully drawn by hand.
- Text (two paragraphs) describing the conference concept and its audience
- A site map
- Three style tiles for initial concepts
- A final style tile for the site
- Three rough sketches for a representative page of the site
- Refined, detailed sketches for every page type
- Diagrams of DIVs or sectioning elements for every page type
- Working HTML/CSS/JS for the site
- A readme file noting the source of all images, text, code, and other materials used in the site
The conference
Date, location, and audience
The conference lasts from Friday 7 July 2017 through Sunday 9 July 2017. Events should take place in Washington, D.C. at your choice of venue or venues. (Consider an educational institution or a major hotel.) You may choose audience and other details as you wish.
Possible topics
Choose one of these topics, combine topics, or propose a conference of your own.
- Technology and physical-world communities
- Usable design
- Privacy and surveillance
- The future of journalism
- Technology and democracy
- Community and online harassment
- Accessibility
- Narrative and emotion in interaction design
- Regulation and the sharing economy
- Internet infrastructure
Speakers
Your conference must include at least seven speakers from this list. You may also feature speakers who are not listed.
- Jason Santa Maria
- Ingrid Burrington
- Susan Kare
- Ethan Marcotte
- Ezra Klein
- Bruce Schneier
- Jill Abramson
- Laura Poitras
- Zoë Quinn
- Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger
- Andrew Blum
- Rebecca Solnit
- Tim Brown
- Janette Sadik-Khan
- Richard Florida
- Edward Snowden
- Brian Chesky
- Joe Gebbia
- Cindy Cohn
- Ethan Zuckerman
- Richard Saul Wurman
- Dan Tangherlini
- Jeffrey Goldberg
- Massimo Banzi
- Dana Chisnell and Whitney Quesenbery
- Tyler Radford
- Nadine Chahine
- Val Head
- Jeffrey Zeldman
- Trevor Paglen
- John Maeda
- Jen Simmons
Examples
Conference sites
- An Event Apart (multiple events)
- XOXO
- TypeCon
- Van Alen (multiple events)
- Open House New York
- DC Design Week
- SXSL
- Creative Mornings (multiple events)
Notable for design
Consider typography, layout, image use, structure, and pacing.
- Quarterly.co
- A List Apart
- Extra Virgin Suicide
- Liverpool Biennial
- Eephus League Magazine
- Edits Quarterly
- Jason Santa Maria candygram articles
- Lost Worlds Fairs
- The Pantry at Delancey
- Marie Lorenz (seeing places by artist-built boat)
- Los Angeles Urban Rangers (a kind of guerrilla interpretation project)
- Triple Canopy on the Meadowlands
- Jazz Age Lawn Party
- New York Times, “Snow Fall”
- InfoAmazonia
- Paperholm
- Losing Ground by ProPublica
- The End of Brooklyn
- Edible Geography
- Fallen Fruit
- The New English Landscape