Tentative Schedule (Winter 2012)

January 12

• Introduction
• Readings:
• Krug - chapter 1 - RR
• Morville & Rosenfeld - foreword, preface and chapters 1 & 2 - RR
• Course syllabus (i.e., Outline and Assignments) - RR
  
• Nielsen, J. Usability 101: Introduction to Usability
• Tutorials and labs
• Lab0: Internet basics - RR

January 19

• Process of Web development; Information behaviour & the web
• Readings:
• Krug - chapter 2 - RR
• Morville & Rosenfeld - chapters 3 & 10 - RR
• Choose one - RR
  • Baehr, Craig M. 2007. Web development: A visual-spatial approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. - chapters 1 & 2
  • Lynch & Horton, Web Style Guide - chapter 1: Process
• Nielsen & Loranger - chapter 2 - SR
• Nielsen, J. (2010). Children's Websites: Usability Issues in Designing for Kids. - SR
• Best Practices for Designing Usable Websites for Kids. - SR
• Nielsen, J. (2005). Usability of Websites for Teenagers. - SR
• Nielsen, J. (2010). College Students on the Web. - SR
• Hsieh-Yee, I. (2001). Research on web search behavior. Library & Information Science Research 23: 167-185.
• Wilson, T.D. (2000). Human information behavior. Information Science Research 3(2)
• Nielsen, J. (2006). 100 million websites - SR
• Tutorials and labs
  • HTML tutorial on W3schools.com
  • Lab1: XHTML 1 - Essential elements - RR
    

January 26

• Content design and organization systems; Copyright issues
• Readings:
  • Morville & Rosenfeld - chapter 5 - RR
  • Noel, Wanda. 1999. Copyright on the Internet & FAQ. In Copyright guide for Canadian libraries, 47-64. Ottawa: Canadian Library Association. KF 2995 N66 1999 (Rutherford North -Reserve) - SR
• Tutorials and labs
  • Learning XHTML - RR
  • W3C XHTML Validation service - SR
  • Lab2: XHTML 2 - Structure, syntax, and validation
    - RR
• Assignment due: Usability by example 1 - Organization systems

February 2

• Labeling systems; Writing for the Web
• Readings:
  • Morville & Rosenfeld - chapter 6 - RR
  • Krug - chapter 5 - RR
  • Nielsen & Loranger - chapter 8 - SR
  • Nielsen, J. Writing for the Web (Research on how users read on the Web and how authors should write their Web pages). - SR
  • Kupersmith, J. (2007). Library terms that users understand. - SR
• Tutorials and labs
  • CSS tutorial (CSS Basic, CSS Styling) - RR
  • W3C CSS Validation Service - SR
  • Lab3: CSS basics and validation
• Assignment due: Usability by example 2 - Labeling systems; writing for the Web

February 9

• Navigation design; Search systems
• Readings
• Krug - chapter 6 - RR
• Morville & Rosenfeld - chapters 7 & 8 - RR
• Nielsen, J. (2007). Breadcrumb Navigation Increasingly Useful. - RR
• 25 Modern Navigation Solutions: Unique Designs & Awesome Effects - SR
  
• Nielsen & Loranger - chapter 6 - SR
• Morville & Rosenfeld - chapter 12 - SR
• Nielsen, Jakob. Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design - SR (If you wish, also check out the links under "Other Top-10 Lists" on this page, especially the 2005 one.)
• Tutorials and labs
  • CSS tutorial (CSS Box Model, CSS Advanced ) - RR
  • Zen Garden - The Beauty of CSS Design - SR
  • Lab4: CSS box model; Images and links in CSS
• Assignment due: Usability by example 3 - Navigation systems

February 16

• Page design; Multimedia
• Readings:
• Krug - chapters 3 & 7 - RR
• 10 Web Design Rules That You Can Break (for class discussion) - RR
• Nielsen & Loranger - chapters 7 & 11 - SR
• What Does Your Website’s Color Scheme Reveal About You? - SR
  
• Nielsen, J. (2010). Scrolling and Attention
• Nielsen, J. (2007). Fancy Formatting, Fancy Words = Looks Like a Promotion = Ignored. Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox - SR
• Nielsen, Jakob. Let Users Control Font Size - SR
• Nielsen, Jakob. F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content - SR
• Nielsen, Jakob. Ten Good Deeds in Web Design - SR
• CSS3 tutorial (Introduction, Multiple columns)
  
• Lab5: Positioning and layout using CSS
• Assignment due: Usability by example 4 - Page design; Homepage design

February 23

• No Class – Reading Week

March 1

• Web usability evaluation & testing
• Readings:
• Krug - chapter 8 - RR
• Nielsen, J. Summary of Usability Inspection Methods - RR
• Nielsen, J. How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation - RR
• Campbell, Nicole [ed]. 2001. Usability assessment of library-related web sites: Methods and case studies. Chicago: American Library Association. Chapters 1, 2 & 3: 1-29. Z 674.75 W67 U83 2001 (Rutherford N) - SR
• Lab6: XHTML forms and CSS

March 8

• Web usability evaluation & testing - ctd.
• Readings:
• Krug - chapters 9 & 10 - RR
• Test and Refine section at Usability.gov - RR
• Nielsen, J. (2009). Discount Usability: 20 Years - SR
• Nielsen, J. (2009). Anybody Can Do Usability - SR
• Norlin, Elaina, and CM! Winters. 2002. Usability testing for library web sites. Chicago: American Library Association. Chapters 1, 4 & 5: 1-9; 24-30; 31-48. Z 674.75 W67 2002 (Rutherford N) - SR
• Lab7: XHTML tables and CSS
• Assignment Due: Website design and construction Part 1

March 15

• Accessibility for users with disabilities
• Readings:
• Krug - chapter 11 - RR
• Nielsen - chapter 6 (ebook access through U of A libraries) - RR
• W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (dig through this site) - RR
• Nielsen, J. (2005). Accessibility Is Not Enough , Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox - SR
• Accessibility testing tools (Cynthia Says, Total Validator)
• Guests: Jean Jackson & Tom Sheridan, Specialized Support and Disability Services, U of A
• Assignment due: Usability by example 5 - Accessibility

March 22

• Global audiences; Web standards & policies
• Readings:
• Nielsen - chapter 7 (ebook access through U of A libraries) - RR
• Nielsen, J. (2005). International Sites: Minimum Requirements. - RR
• Design for a global audience, Discussion articles (select the ones interesting to you) - RR
• World Wide Web Consortium. Leading the web to its full potential. (Dig through this site) - SR
• Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPP) - SR
• University of Alberta Privacy Policy - SR
• Zeldman, Jeffrey. 2007. Designing with Web standards. Berkeley, CA: New Riders. (ebook access through U of A libraries) - SR
• Web Standards Project. 2001. Fighting for standards in our browsers.(Dig through this site) - SR
• Help session on the Website design and construction project
• Assignment due: Usability by example 6 - Global audiences

March 29

• Weblogs, Intranets, Websites for mobil devices; Web design software; Web Content Management Systems
• Readings:
• Nielsen, J. (2005). Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes, Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox - RR
• Nielsen, J. (2002). Intranet Usability: The Trillion-Dollar Question, Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox - RR
• Nielsen, J. (2009). Mobile Usability, Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox - RR
• Wikipedia article on Web content management systems - RR
  
• Nielsen, J. (2010). Ten Best Intranets of 2010 , Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox - SR
• Nielsen, J. (2007). Intranet Usability Shows Huge Advances, Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox - SR
• Drupal - an open source content management system - SR

April 5

• Metadata; Search engines – will they find you?
• Readings:
• Dillon, Martin. 2001. Metadata for web resources: How metadata works on the Web - RR
• DCdot. 2000. Dublin Core metadata editor - RR (Dig through this site and play with the editor - enter a URL and the site will generate metadata categories based on Dublin Core)
• Sullivan, D. (2002). How To Use HTML Meta Tags - RR
• Create Great Websites, Without Any SEO.
• Espadas, J., etc. (2008). Web site visibility evaluation. JASIST, 59(11), 1727-1742. (E-journal access through U of A libraries).
• KYV (Know Your Visibility) - a tool for evaluating the visibility of your websites
• Lab 9: Metadata

April 12

• Presentations by students
• Assignment Due: Website design and construction Part 2
• Readings:
• Showcase: Funky And Experimental Websites
• Web Design Trends for 2010