Home

Announcements

Calendar

Assignments

Resources

Final Project

Final Project

COM 404
Winter, 2002
Guidelines for Final Project

The final project gives you a chance to demonstrate your ability to synthesize what you've learned throughout the course. For this project, you will employ concepts of new media criticism, especially those drawn from Internet Detective and Manovich's Language of New Media, in an in-depth critique of a multimedia web site (or other new media object). The object of your critique must incorporate at least three media forms (e.g. html, video, audio, graphics, animation, VR, etc.).

You may present your critique in the form of a 12-15 page research paper, or via a Web presentation. Either way, you will give an oral presentation on a draft of your critique in class on 3/6 or 3/11. You may work singly or in pairs on the final project. If working in a pair, you may do either a comparative analysis of two current web sites (provide a rationale for why you have selected these two sites for comparison), or two versions of the same site across time, using an archived version of the web sites from 1998 or earlier in comparison with a current version of the same site. If you are interested in this option, check the "Wayback Machine" at http://archive.org to see if the site you are considering existed in 1998 or earlier.

Here is a demo of a critique of the Photo.net site by Andrew Elofson (displayed with his permission), that employs concepts from Internet Detective. Some of the links are to images that are no longer "there" so that,
while they all worked last spring when he created the site, some of them do not work now. Also a few of the links to pages outside the site are "dead."

http://faculty.washington.edu/barbwarn/422course/Elofson/photonet.html

Timeline:

Weds. 2/13 Proposal due: 1 paragraph description of web site/new media object, rationale for choosing it to critique, and preliminary ideas for critique.

Weds. 3/6 & Mon. 3/11 Oral presentations of draft critique in class. 10 minutes per presentation.

Weds. 3/13 Review of presentations & feedback in class.

Mon. 3/18 Final projects due by noon. Email paper and/or link for web presentation to proffoot@u.washington.edu.

Conceptual Tools for Critique

When you are considering what topics to discuss and evaluate in your critique, include from the following list those concepts that seem relevant in light of the object you have selected to critique, and your purpose as a new media critic. You may be able to use any of these concepts in your critique, but if you used all of them, your project would probably be too long and involved. Aim to employ 2 conceptual tools from each of Internet Detective and Language of New Media and conduct an indepth analysis, rather than attempting to use too many concepts and producing a shallow analysis.

Internet Detective concepts:

· Content criteria:
o Validity
o Accuracy
o Authority
o Uniqueness
o Completeness
o Coverage
· Form criteria:
o Navigation
o User Support
o Appropriate Technologies
· Process criteria:
o Information Integrity
o Site Integrity
o System Integrity

Language of New Media concepts:

Principles of new media:
o Numerical Representation
o Modularity
o Automation
o Variability
o Transcoding
· Forms of interactivity
· User control
· Cultural interface
· Compositing
· Spatial and/or temporal montage
· Teleaction
· Simulation/Illusionism/Realism
· Database logic
· Poetics of navigation

Checklist of Requirements for Web Presentation of Critique
If you choose to present your critique on the Web, these questions will help you design your Web-presentation.

Written Form
· Is your site well written for Web publication?
· Has your content been spellchecked?
· Has your content been proofread? Don't forget to do this!
· Can the project content be read in 20 minutes?
Process
· Do all of the links work at the time of submission?
· Have all art and graphics been obtained with permission and/or appropriate citation?
· Does the site represent the student's own original work?
· Has the site been viewed and evaluated on both Internet Explorer and Netscape?
Interface Design
· Does every page list author identification, creation/revision date, and a link to a home page?
· Does every page have a suitable title?
· Is there good navigation within the site?
· Can pages be loaded by users in a reasonable amount of time?
· Is the site design consistent across pages?
Site Design
· Given your purpose, does your site organization make sense?
· Is information appropriately "chunked" so that it can be located and scanned quickly?
· Are there internal links within pages or to other pages in the site where necessary?
· Are the links logically organized in relation to each other?
· Is the most important information "above the fold" on the pages?
· Are graphics and photos sized appropriately for efficient loading?
Page Design
· Does each page provide visual variety with a good balance of page elements?
· Are pages set up so as to display well in various sized browsers?
· Are page layout grids balanced and aesthetically pleasing?
· Are line lengths and tables designed so as to be easily read?
· Is the use of color appropriate and pleasing?
· Are there too many links or too few?
· Do fonts display well?