Assignments

First WordPress Layout Challenge

Lynda Courses for Dev Teams

PHP Essential Training
Wordpress: Building Child Themes

These are the documents that should be in Asana by the end of the project.

• design proposal
• personas
• wireframe (as link)
• design comps
• site evaluation

Reflection #2

In your personal wordpress blog, reflect on the following questions after having participated in an event with your client.

What did you learn about your client that you didn't already know? Was anything particularly surprising or striking about the experience? Before the experience, what were some assumptions you had about your client and how did they change?

What are Personas?

Personas are archetypical users whose goals and characteristics represent the needs of a larger group of users. Usually, a persona is presented in a one or two-page document. Such 1–2-page descriptions include behavior patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and background information, as well as the environment in which a persona operates. Designers usually add a few fictional personal details in a description to make the persona a realistic character (e.g. quotes of real users), as well as context-specific details (for example, for a banking app it makes sense to include a persona’s financial sophistication and major expenses).

Read this article by Nick Babich before writing your personas.

Here's a good article about user interviews.

Reading: Design is a Job

Read chapter six of Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro.

What Goes Into a Design Proposal

A design proposal is traditionally the document where you sell your services to a client. You may have had a lot or a little of contact with them about the project. In this case, you have had a lot of contact with them after your lengthy first meeting. The document you need to produce is in many ways a result of what you learned at that meeting, plus further strategizing by your team.

Your proposal should incude...

1. Project Overview - This is sometimes called the problem statement. This is where you identify the needs of the client. How is their current website not working for them? Is it an organizational problem? Is there a lack of content? What is the target audience? In what ways does the site not serve its purpose?
2. Project Outline — Now you get to tell them what you are going to do fix these problems. Clearly describe your intended solutions for the different parts of the project. Organize it into different small sections, such as information architecture, content creation (if you'll be taking photos), training (when you show someone on their team how to update the site), testing, branding, and any other parts specific to your clients needs. You may not know the exact solution to one of the identified problems, but you can talk about the process you will go through to find the best solution. For the purposes of this class, don't promise the moon. If they are in need of a technical solution that is outside of our skillset, be clear about that. Perhaps offer "consultation."
3. Timeline — List the deliverables that they will receive from you, with dates. These can follow the same format as the project outline. Refer to the class syllabus for help.

Project Manager

• Maintain Asana space
  • Update calendar
  • Assign tasks
  • Archive files
• Documentation
  • Publish meeting notes
  • Final editing of deliverables

UX Lead

• Organize and oversee testing
• Information architecture
• Wireframes
• Work with project manager to write deliverables
• Manage website content

Front-end Developer

• Organize website file structure
• Research possible WP plugins
• Responsible for coding (either directly or delegated)

Create Blog

Set up a blog for yourself at wordpress.com. Organize the navigation so that you have links to a bio page and page with postings of your reflections. Add your first reflection (see below).

Reflection #1

For your first blog post, write a reflection piece addressing the following questions:

What experience have you had with designing something for a client (even if it was a friend)? How did it turn out? Was there something that happened that you didn't expect? What would you do differently next time?

Choose Your Project

Use this link to tell me what project you are interested in working on.

Reading: Design is a Job

Read chapter one of Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro. Be prepared to discuss in class on Tuesday.

Tune In

I expect everyone to start regularly absorbing news and articles about web design and UX. Start a RSS feed, subscribe and get emails from various Medium sources, listen to podcasts. When you find a source you like, share it with the class. You will occasionally be asked to write reflection pieces about what you've read, listened to, or watched.