Description

Requirements

Students are required to submit a report proposing the IA and navigation for the Wusteman Gadgets site plus details of testing. 

Report writing

You are required to take into account the advice given on appropriate report presentation in the lecture on this topic.

 A report is not an essay. As indicated above, you are an information architect and the audience of this report is your colleagues on the web development team (not the customer); the report should be designed accordingly. For example, 

·         Your report should not include references to IS30050, the fact that it is an assessment, your student number etc. It should be entirely realistic.

·         Your report should not attempt to explain the basics of IA, the functioning of common usability test tools etc. (We can assume that a professional team creating a website understand the basics of IA and don’t need it explained to them.)

·         As a corollary, your report should not include quotes from textbooks (not even a course text). You may reference relevant industry reports etc if they are not too obvious for professional web designers - for example, if you want to refer to the latest trends or patterns. 

·         Your report should not be so general as to be of relevance to any possible website, but should be of specific relevance to the website you are creating. Thus, it is unlikely that a general diagram taken from lecture slides or the web will be relevant. All diagrams should specifically describe some aspect of your proposed website, not just IA principles in general.

·         Assume that your colleagues in the web development team are very busy and would prefer, wherever possible, to glance at a well-structured table rather than a few paragraphs of text. You should attempt to present all the necessary information in this report in as concise a manner as feasible. Brevity is an advantage in such a report, but only when it doesn’t impinge on clarity. Make sure your meaning is always clear. For example, bullet points can often be used to advantage - but a list of random, unrelated and unexplained bullet points are not helpful.

·         If you attempt to make a scanty report look longer by using a large font (anything over 12 pt), you will lose marks. Every year, a couple of students try this…..

·         Double line spacing should not be used: use single spacing or 1.15 spacing. 

·         As well as attending the physical lectures and studying the electures, ensure you read the relevant chapters in Spencer. The entire book is of relevance here, but Part 4, Designing and Information Architecture, and Part 5, Designing Navigation, are particularly helpful. Further useful references will be referred to in lectures.

·         Your report should be presented in a professional manner. For example, the layout should be clear (no orphans or widows), there should be no grammatical or spelling errors, tables should be clearly presented and accurately labelled.

·         The required layout for the report is listed below, along with an indication of what should be included in each section. Unless otherwise indicated, when asked for a table or a diagram (eg a site map), you are not required or expected to include further notes explaining the table or diagram; they should explain themselves. You won’t receive extra marks for notes that add nothing to the information already obvious from the table/diagram. In fact, if you add unnecessary notes that duplicate information already presented, you may lose marks. However, if there is information of relevance to the section that can’t be gleaned from the table/diagram, you may present it concisely via the most appropriate method (eg a key, brief notes, an additional table etc).

·         You won’t receive marks for making additional proposals in areas other than the IA or navigation.

Required report layout 

You must stick to the following layout but you can include further subdivisions within sections where appropriate.