Module 1: Basic Site Evaluation and Rubric Creation

Overview

These two lessons give students a basic understanding of the principles behind effective website design and implementation. Although students will be eager to get started developing their first websites, this is an excellent opportunity to encourage them to stop and think about the big picture before plunging in. This module is highly interactive, as students visit a variety of websites and discuss what they perceive to be good and bad qualities of each.

Ultimately students in this module will develop a rubric by which website quality can be measured. This rubric will be revisited throughout the course, and will be used in evaluating the quality of students' own work. Students should feel free to develop their own rubric, but should be given enough information and subtle guidance that their rubric is reflective of commonly accepting beliefs in the web design community.

Color theory, conformance to web standards, and accessible design for persons with disabilities are covered later in this unit, but students should at least be introduced to these ideas during class discussion of web quality issues, and should be encouraged to include them in their rubric.

The rubric should be viewed as a working document, and students should feel free to update their rubrics at any time throughout the course as they learn more about web design.

Lesson 1: Surveying the Possibilities

• Estimated time required: 60 minutes
• Link to student Lesson 1 page

Tips for Delivering This Lesson

• One way to launch this unit and get students into the right frame of mind is to do a jigsaw activity with the Overview questions. Assign one or two of the Overview questions to small groups and have each group prepare a brief report for the entire class.
• Students should come up with the criteria for evaluating websites themselves for this initial lesson. Later they can compare their criteria with other students as well as with industry standards.
• The Resources section of the Students' lesson page includes links to The Webby Awards and The Best Designs, both of which list sites that have been judged by someone as being particularly good sites. Students should be encouraged to think on their own about these designs. Do they agree with the Webby Awards judges, or the editors of The Best Designs site? What do they like about these critically acclaimed websites? What do they not like?
• Instructors may also wish to include poorly designed sites as a way of balancing positive models with negative models (we can learn from both!) A site that was specifically built to demonstrate bad web design is the World's Worst Website. How many problems can students identify with this website?
• Another site to consider as a resource for finding poorly designed sites is Web Pages That Suck. This site has been criticizing sites for their poor design since 1996, often with credible explanations of why a particular design or feature is bad. Note that this site is not included among the Resources in the Student pages since some may find the name of the site and portions of the site's content to be offensive.
• Whether reviewing well-designed or poorly-designed websites, students should be encouraged to form their own opinions about all of the designs.

Lesson 2: Developing a Website Evaluation Tool

• Estimated lesson length: 60 - 90 minutes
• Link to student Lesson 2 page

Tips for Delivering This Lesson

• Explaining what a rubric is can be a daunting task should your class be comprised of young teenagers. As a primer to this lesson an analogy of some sort might be a helpful aid for comprehension. As an example: say you were invited to judge a dog show. You'll want to be a fair, impartial judge, so you'll have to come up with some standards. What would your standards or “criteria” be for judging the dogs? Students are likely to say such things as behavior, grooming, physical build, etc. Make a simple rubric (for judging dogs) on a whiteboard to give them a visual.
• The lesson directs students to create a rubric for their group using markers and butcher paper. This is a low-tech task, but it allows the instructor to tape to the wall the multiple evaluation tools the groups devise. This method makes comparison and eventually synthesis easier. The instructor can use a projector, white board, or other technology to develop the final evaluation tool.
• For students who may benefit from some additional scaffolding for this activity, this lesson could be adapted around the Rubistar web site. Rubistar is a free tool that helps teachers create quality rubrics, and includes rubrics related to web desighn. Students could use the website to gain ideas for building their own rubrics. For example, they could examine existing rubrics and select their top five criteria from the rubrics provided, and use those critiera to build their own rubric.
• This lesson calls for the instructor to assign students a website to evaluate. Previous versions of this curriculum have referenced specific sites, including cheese.com and who.org. Rather than prescribe a specific website, the current version of the curriculum leaves this up to the instructor. From previous experience, we've learned that an ideal website is one that has content that is interesting, maybe even a little qwirky, and has design characteristics that could be subject to criticism. Sites that are too polished and professional are difficult for students to critique. It is also a good idea to select a site that includes some bells, whistles, and frills, in order to stimulate discussion about which is more important—content or aesthetics.
• Be prepared to work creatively to stimulate discussion within the groups. Some students may be slow to plunge in to analyzing web sites and synthesizing ideas and insights, and may require a boost.