2. TODAY
1) Professional Writing Website: our
goals
2) Some information from the last 411
class
3) A word about how this will progress
4) Work time/homework time

3. After our print work…
…we’re now going to talk about designing for the web.
We will be working on revising/updating the Miami
Professional Writing website for the new Miami
content management system.
On Wednesday, Heidi McKee will come to talk to us
about the program’s specific needs for the site.

4. So to start…
… I asked you to look over “About Face”
again. This time I want to talk specifically
about the website based info (which is really
all of it, but we pulled some out before).

5. One major concern
…we cannot address.
The site is going to look like it’s going to look, more-orless. We cannot alter the template, so it’s going to
need to look like other Miami websites under the new
mStoner design.

9. So we have limited design options
But that’s a GOOD thing. Not all design projects
you face in life will be open. In fact, many of your
design assignments will call for you to work with
something like a template.
We can control, of course, the images we use and
the choices of where to place certain elements.

10. The reading also mentions…
1) The lack of student presence – we can and will
address that. How?
2) The rigid traditions of departments/programs and
how that gets codified into the web presence (we
will counter that as much as we can with content–
how?)
3) The issues that arise from how the program’s
members are broken up (faculty, students, etc.)

11. A big focus is placed…
.. on aesthetics (which we will do as much as we can about)
and representation.
So let’s take a few minutes and posit what the authors of this
article, who we can obviously never ever know and imagine,
would think would be best practices for crafting the
Professional Writing website here at Miami?

12. And now… comments from the last group
to try this.
Last fall, just before Miami decided to standardize all the
university websites, the 411/511 class under the instruction of
my colleague, friend and a generally awesome person Dr.
Michele Simmons, tried to rework the PW website.
They didn’t finish a re-design, but they did some good user
testing. I’m going to, in the next slides, summarize their key
points.

13. Key Point 1:
Students want a particular sort of structure to make
the site as useful as possible. One of the big keys is
being able to find what they need. Here’s a suggested
map.

15. Stuff students WANT on the website:
1)Degree options (with course tracks)
2)Courses being offered
3)Info about the faculty
4)Info about current students
5)Lots of resources
Here come more specifics!

16. Degree options:
1)Courses being offered and courses required
2)What those courses involve (good descriptions,
perhaps beyond the catalog ones)
3)What have other students done/made in those
classes
4)What’s up with electives, and how might some
electives fit better with certain tracks?

17. Info about faculty/staff and other students
1)Basically, who are these people?
2)Will *I* fit in this major? Will *I* enjoy this major?
Are there people like *me* around here?
3)What do people in this field do?

18. Resources:
1)What is AIMS, and why do we share so much stuff
with them?
2)What are related majors? What would be smart comajors or minors?
3)What is going on? (calendar)
4)Big, Big, Big, Big thing: WHAT JOBS DO THESE
MAJORS GET? *huge need for this from students*

19. Key Point 2: What they like
1) Student profiles
2) Pictures
3) A live Twitter and or Facebook feed
4) Not a lot of clutter

20. So…
We’ve had a pass with the PW program materials in our
brochure. We can see the websites that are updated to the
new template. That means we can start to imagine what this
PW website might look like.
One of the things we need to do this time is take more
initiative in relation to gathering resources. I know part of
that was that our clients offered us material last time, but
this time we need to be prosumers and GO GET THE
MATERIAL.

21. So lets…
…start imagining what we want for this website, what content
will be required, how to organize it.
On Wednesday, Heidi McKee will come to talk to us. And by
Monday of next week I will be able to show you the CMS for
the new website. Only I will have access to the CMS, so we’ll
need to divide up our work so that people give me CMS
friendly content.