Design exists for three reasons: to evoke memories and images associated with your brand; to make you look professional; and to assist with the persuasive momentum of your web site.Welcome to Art 307:
Interactive Media Design
Course description
In this course, you will design compelling web pages and interactive media content. You will work with a variety of digital elements, including photographs, illustrations, text, narration, music, sound effects, animation, and video. You will research, plan and produce two complete media projects: a web site and a multimedia work.
You will use current editing tools (primarily Adobe Dreamweaver and Apple Final Cut Express) to work creatively and explore technical possibilities. The course format includes short lectures, demonstrations, discussions, critiques, and project-based activities during class.
The central objective of this course is to think about interactive media and its technical, creative, aesthetic, and social possibilities—in addition to becoming proficient in basic web design and multimedia authoring.
Course information
Class meets Mondays and Wednesdays, Spring 2011, 6:00-8:00 p.m., in Recitation Hall, room 203 (Macintosh computing site). On occasion, we'll meet in the Student Multimedia Design Center.
For the blog posts for this course, visit paulhyde.wordpress.com.
Course objectives
This course is about creating usable and functional web sites and multimedia projects. To succeed in this course, you will need to combine conceptual understanding, technical skills, and design principles to create web sites and multimedia projects that achieve targeted goals.
How to succeed in this course has suggestions for doing well throughout the course and for getting the most out of this course web site. This course will explore a number of questions related to web site design and multimedia design. Students are expected to spend an appropriate number of hours outside of class required to complete the assignments and readings. This will vary widely based on each student’s design experience and technical background.
The objectives of this course include the following:
- Apply previous software knowledge about creating and manipulating text and images.
- Apply previous knowledge of file and directory organization to manage project materials.
- Recognize and develop the relationship between content, structure, and presentation of web sites, as it relates to HTML, CSS, and web standards.
- Explain key concepts and technical terms for successful web sites and multimedia projects.
- Apply a structured approach for web site development to the creative development of a complete web site (define audience, identify goals, organize content, create structure, design presentation).
- Apply a structured approach for multimedia development to the creative development of a complete multimedia project (storyboard, script, narrate, edit, assemble, and produce).
Exercises, Quizzes, Projects
Grading summary:
10 exercises at 2% each = 20% of final grade
3 quizzes at 10% each = 30% of final grade
2 projects at 25% each = 50% of final grade
| Dates | Exercises, Quizzes, Projects (due on the date shown) |
| Feb. 7 | |
| Feb. 9 | Fill out the course survey. Set up shop for this course. Bring a removable storage device to every class (USB memory stick, external hard drive, or a laptop with Dreamweaver CS4 and Photoshop CS4.) |
| Feb. 14 | Exercise 1: |
| Feb. 16 | |
| Feb. 21 | Exercise 2: Design type for the web |
| Feb. 23 | |
| Feb. 28 | Quiz 1: Web design 1 |
| Mar. 2 | |
| Mar. 7 | Exercise 3: |
| Mar. 9 | |
| Mar. 14 | Optional: Exercise 4: |
| Mar. 16 | Quiz 2: Web design 2 |
| Mar. 21 | Exercise 5: Critique a web site |
| Mar. 23 | Project 1: Web site design Unveiling of final web sites! |
| Mar. 28 + 30 | Spring break! |
| Apr. 4 | |
Apr. 6 |
|
| Apr. 11 | Exercise 6: Search stories |
| Apr. 13 | |
| Apr. 18 | Exercise 7: Storyboard |
| Apr. 20 | |
| Apr. 25 | Exercise 8: Tell a story using only video (in-class exercise) |
| Apr. 27 | Quiz 3: Multimedia design |
| May 2 | Change the perception of video by using different audio (in-class demo) |
| May 4 | Optional: Everyone will have the opportunity to present a preview of their multimedia design project, while there is still time to incorporate suggestions from the class and to get further inspiration from other projects. |
| May 9 | |
| May 11 | |
| May 16 | Project 2: Multimedia design World premiere of student videos! |
| Finals, May 19-25 | There is no final exam for this course. |
Grading Scale
This course will follow the standard University grading scheme.
| A: 100-93 | A-: 92-90 | ||
| B+: 89-87 | B: 86-83 | B-: 82-80 | |
| C+: 79-77 | C: 76-73 | C-: 72-70 | |
| D+: 69-67 | D: 66-63 | D-: 62-60 | |
| F: < 60 |
Course policies
Attendance is expected at all class sessions and is key to success in this course. Class sessions will involve wide-ranging class discussion of design concepts and daily hands-on, technical exercises. The course web site serves as a road map for where we might go each session, but there is no single text book for reference of missed class material and the class sessions are not recorded for review. Poor attendance will result in a lower grade due to missed exercises and lower quality projects due to missed class content.
All absences will considered to be unexcused unless you contact the instructor by writing in advance. This means that you send me an email message regarding your absence before the beginning of the class session in which you will be absent. Excused absences will be accepted at the discretion of the instructor, but circumstances are typically limited to illness and emergency. Except in extreme circumstances, an absence does not change the due date for a course project.
There's a key difference between an excused and unexcused absence. In the case of an excused absence, I'm commited to working with you to ensure continuity with the subsequent class sessions and your course work. With an unexcused absence, you should not expect to be so accommodated.
Missed deadlines and quizzes. If you miss a project deadline or in-class quiz without a prior arrangement or a documented emergency, your grade for the project will be no higher than a B. If you miss a quiz for an excused reason, you must make it up before the next class period with an alternate writing assignment that will be provided by the instructor. It is your responsibility to make arrangements for missed project deadlines and quizzes.
Class exercises. In lieu of a participation grade, there will be ten graded exercises based on class work.
Class project files. You are responsible for maintaining working copies of your class project files. Follow a backup strategy that maintains copies of your working files on two separate devices (laptop, removable storage, online backup, etc.) A missing or corrupted storage device is not an acceptable reason for not completing course work on time.
E-mail to the instructor is fine, but is not always the best choice. We'll be sharing a lot of web site models and exemplary multimedia projects in this course and e-mail isn't a reasonable way to handle all of those. We'll use diigo.com by creating an online group for this course or you can save links to my diigo inbox. For posting your own journal of design ideas and technical explorations, use your personal WordPress blog space. For general questions where other students would benefit from the answer and possible discussion, please post it to the online forum area in Sakai@UD.
Classroom and computer etiquette. Class sessions will be held in the Recitation Hall Macintosh Site. Having a computer always available during class time presents a great opportunity, but also presents a tremendous distraction to go on Facebook, check e-mail and play online games. Because of the asymmetrical nature of the class (there's twenty of you, but just one of me) and the need for me to check with everyone individually, there will be times you'll be waiting for your turn to get help or for the next topic to be presented to the class. You'll do better in this course by staying focused during class time, continuing to work on course material, getting online answers for how-to questions, and discussing your work with your classmates. Always be prepared to share what you are doing on your computer with the rest of the class when called upon.
Instructor information
Paul Hyde, M. Ed., has developed educational applications of technology for over twenty years, including numerous web sites, presentations, and multimedia projects. He works with Information Technologies Academic Technology Services at the University of Delaware. He has been a member of UD's Web Media Team, has taught Web Page Design, Layout, and Authoring for the Webmaster Certificate Program, and helped implement plans for the Student Multimedia Design Center. As a consultant, he has designed and deployed web sites, presentations, and multimedia pieces for school districts, commercial businesses, legal proceedings, and community groups.
e-mail: paulhyde@udel.edu
office phone: 302.831.1988
office location: 204 East Hall
office hours: upon request before class and also by appointment. Please e-mail or call to make arrangements—I am on campus almost every week day. You can also preview my availability at Tungle—and you can even use the button to "organize a meeting with Paul" to schedule a meeting on my calendar. Office hours can also be arranged online using video conferencing with screen sharing.
Have a question or suggestion for this course? Send it to the instructor.
The web address for this course web site is: http://paulhyde.net/imd
Interactive Media Design by Paul Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
