Assignment 3

Assignment Question:

Create a blog on the topic of handphones and write about them as creatively as you can.

You must perform research and include the following information about handphones into your blog:

• Historical development of handphones
• Technological development of handphones
• How it works (handphone companies, service providers)
• Category of handphones and their functions
• Impact on the way business transactions are carried out
• Impact on the culture of the community
• Benefits and disadvantages
• Future directions

Remember to give credit to your sources (meaning you have to reference your work).

Incorporate as many multimedia elements as you can into your blog. But do remember this article by Jakob Nielsen.

You will be marked based on:

• Your creativity in addressing this topic on your blog
• The depth of your research on this topic
• The extensive and appropriate use of hyperlinks to explain the given topic
  
• Inclusion of references in your work
• Inclusion of appropriate multimedia elements

Assignment Specifications:

• Work individually (publish the address of your blog in the Comments section of this blog post)
• Weightage: 30%
• Duration: 2 weeks

Introduction to Blogging

You can obtain some basic information about what blogs are from these YouTube videos below:





You can also read more about blogs at this HowStuffWorks article - How Blog Works

Assignment 2

Assignment Question:

Read this article: Writing for the Web by Jakob Nielsen
Select a website operated and managed by a company and write a critique/review report (based on the above article) about your opinions on the site.

Your report should contain the following:

Site information

1. Your name
2. Title of site
3. URL of site
4. Last revision or copyright date
5. Type of site (news, entertainment, direct sales, etc...)

Content

1. Purpose of site
2. Primary audience

Structure

1. Navigation
   
   • Load times
   • Length of time you take to navigate comfortably
   • Did a click take you somewhere you didn't expect to go?
2. Organizing principle
   
   • How is the site organized overall? (like a book, chronologically, product by product, etc...)
   • Include a diagram of the site's structure

Mechanics

1. Frustration factor
   
   • How fast did the page download?
   • If you had to wait, what seemed to slow it down? (one big graphic, many small graphics, etc...)
   • Was your computer able to handle all the fancy stuff?
   • Did all the fancy stuff get into the way of the content?
2. Was contact information available?

General

1. What did you like the best?
2. What did you like the least?
3. In print, how would it be better done?
4. Overall rating of the site
5. Other comments about the site

Assignment Specifics:

• Work in groups of 2-3
• Submit a typed report (outlined above)
• Weightage: 15%
• Duration: 2 weeks

Managing Multimedia Projects

Download the lecture slides.

Assignment 1

Assignment Question:

Conduct research and prepare a PowerPoint presentation on ONE of the following topics:

• New Media
• Interactivity
• Web 2.0

Then, on the following week, present your findings using your presentation to the class.

Assignment Specifications:

• Work in groups of 2-3 (publish the names of your group members as well as your chosen topic in the Comments section of this blog post today)
• Presentation should explain the topic sufficiently, but should finish within 15-20 minutes
• Submit a printout (handout of 6 slides per page) of your presentation to me
• Weightage: 20%

What is Multimedia?

You'll find the slides to the lectures here.