Building on the concepts learned in ARTG 405 students use various methods to identify and gather qualitative and quantitative information about stakeholders and user segments, their needs, and how they interact with websites and technology. This helps them discover problems, find opportunities, and gives them a deeper understanding of their users.

• Discovery
  • Stakeholder Selection and Requirements Gathering
  • Project Brief (Stakeholder deliverable PDF)
• User Research
  • Focus Group and Baseline Usability Testing Interview
  • Empathy Maps and Personas (Stakeholder deliverable PDF)
  • User stories 
  • Card Sorting (start prototype design sprints)
• Design
  • Task Modeling (Stakeholder deliverable PDF)
  • Mood Boards
  • Final Prototype Testing (Adobe XD prototype)
• Build
  • MVP (Minimum Viable Product)(Rough draft they do more the student does additional user testing on)
  • Final Site

Each week's task is recorded in a weekly diary where the student analyzes the information so they can synthesize it in to their designs through task models, mood boards, and wireframes/prototypes. Once they have tested and critiqued their prototypes, they build and test two iterations of the site (a minimum viable product and a fully styled and functioning iteration) and are expected to be able to talk and answer questions about their project from stakeholder selection through site completion. The students use Bootstrap (a web design framework) to create a UX case study to illustrate their process and present a functional website as their final.

Previously, I had taught the "coding" part of ARTG 405 as a HTML/CSS design class and then introduced Bootstrap as a framework for HTML/CSS design in ARTG 406. However, the students needed both a review of WYSIWYG designing and to learn to use their new web design coding skills in a content management system (like WordPress). For Spring 2022 I combined the HTML/CSS part of ARTG 405 and the Bootstrap part of ARTG 406. Where the 405 class was some small lead in assignments and 2 HTML/CSS website projects, it is now small lead in assignments, 1 HTML/CSS project and a Bootstrap framework project. This allows for a natural progression back in to more professional customization of WordPress in ARTG 406.

The Fall 2022 ARTG 406 students will use WordPress to create the two iterations of their website. This will allow them to build websites with a fully functional backend, and equip them with highly sought after professional skills in web design. 

They will be able to create and deploy WordPress/CMS websites and manipulate the plugins and themes with additional CSS to customize the look and experience of their sites. They will also be able to create and deploy static websites using both plain HTML/CSS and Bootstrap (and Sass).