Yesterday’s team-forming exercise came together even better than I hoped. I’m excited to have five teams of three students, and I think we’ve identified five excellent projects that will allow you to put your skills to use! From now until the end of the semester, we’ll be working our way through the Unit #3 project with lots of checkpoints along the way, and we’ll be using our second textbook to help us take a “user-centered design” approach to developing these sites. In addition, each of you will be working on an individual article that will help you deepen your knowledge on a particular aspect of web development. Here’s how we’ll proceed with both projects next week:

• On Monday, your Unit #2 project is due before you come to class. Please review the assignment guidelines and make sure your site functions properly after you have uploaded it to your Reclaim Hosting account. Also, don’t forget to upload your memo of transmittal to your shared Google Drive folder, along with any additional materials you’d like me to review when I evaluate your site. In class, we will dive in our next book: The Elements of User Experience, by Jesse James Garrett. Please read Chapters 1 and 2 (pp. 1–33) this weekend and be ready to discuss them in class.
• On Wednesday, we will continue our discussion of The Elements of User Experience, so please read Chapters 3 and 4 (pp. 35–77) before you come to class. By Wednesday, your Unit #3 team should have met with your client (face-to-face if possible; virtually if necessary), and you should have a draft of your memorandum of understanding ready for me to review and sign. (If you anticipate problems with this deadline, please let me know in advance.) I will meet briefly with each team to review your MOU, and we will wrap up by discussing the details for Unit #4, the “Best Practices Article.”

If you have any questions about these plans, or if your team wants to meet with me to discuss your client project, just let me know.