COIT20268 Assessment 1 – Project A

Due date:        Week 6 Friday 11:59 pm AEST

Weighting:      30%

Length:           1900-2200 Words, excluding Table of Contents and References

Objective

The goal of the project is to design a website or a web app for a topic of your choice. You will work on the same topic throughout the term for assessments 1 and 3.

Choosing Your Topic

Choose a topic to work on, either by selecting one from the list provided below or by coming up with your own website idea. When deciding on a new idea, approach it from an entrepreneurial perspective and consider questions that include, but are not limited to "Has this website been done before?", “If done before, what are the key limitations or missing factors or components adversely affecting the website, and how can I add novelty (new creative and innovative human-centric design thinking driven features) and value from new perspectives to the existing websites in use?".

Ensure you identify the problem that your idea aims to solve. For example, you might choose to create a website that helps users find affordable housing by researching existing websites that offer similar services. Once you have identified such websites, you can then analyse their features, user experience, and shortcomings. This will help you understand what works well and what doesn't in such websites. Based on this analysis, you can then propose solutions to improve the user experience and address the shortcomings of existing websites.

For instance, you may find that existing housing websites lack user-friendly search filters, which can make it difficult for users to find the right housing options. In this case, you can propose adding more search filters, such as location, price range, and number of bedrooms, to help users quickly narrow down their options.

Alternatively, you may find that existing housing websites lack transparency in their pricing, which can be frustrating for users. In this case, you can propose to include pricing information upfront and make it clear to users how pricing is determined.

Sample Topics for Inspiration

These are the sample topics. You may take one of the following topics or any other well-justified topic of your interest in consultation with your tutor.

1.    An interactive educational platform to

a.    Teach English to young children whose first language is not English.

b.    Teach English to young students in non-English speaking countries.

c.    Teach STEM (Science, Technology, English, and Math) subjects to year 7-12 students.

d.    Empower School and College teachers about STEM subjects.

e.    Empower young parents with tips and techniques to spend quality time for their children to live and learn and grow out of educational fun, creativity, and self-content, …

f.     Empower young parents with nutritional tips for their kids’ cost-effective breakfast and lunch recipes.

g.    Empower people with tips for financial discipline for time and wealth management.

h.    Empower people with tips for property buying, selling, and renovation.

i.      Empower people with tips and connectivity for individual and community gardening from the point of sustainable practice.

j.      Empower an organisation with Talent Management skills.

k.    Empower parents with tips and support to nurture children with disability and autism and ADHD…

l.      Counsel people with mental stress and anxiety.

m.   Support parents for the home schools.

2.    A 3D visualization tool to

a.    Stimulate buying Electronics, Furniture, and …. at any online shop of your choice.

b.    Enhance the learning facility for the children.

3.    A website for

a.    Price comparisons of prominent goods and services.

b.    Monthly expense management.

c.    Weekly need-based shopping arrangements and deliveries.

d.    Community shopping.

e.    Buy/sell used items.

f.     Community events management

g.    Community gardening

h.    Community resources sharing

4.    A single student website that integrates

a.    all CQU student apps/systems in one

b.    all practical learning resources for effective learning and career outcomes.

5.    A website that tracks energy usage at home and provides alerts and suggestions.

6.    A website that tracks the medicine intake of patients at home

7.    A community auction website

8.    A booking site for accommodations to be used during disasters such as floods, bushfires, and domestic violence.

9.    Land sales for Metaverse - real estate agent in the Metaverse

10.  Pet adoption website - pet sitting for when owners go on holiday and need to find a temporary home for their pets.

11.  A job-finding website

12.  A website for

a.    Sports club/community club/students club.

b.    Programming/math/art contest fair.

c.    Career fair.

13.  A donation website for

a.    not only monetary donations but also clothes, medicine, or food, allowing people to post what they want and others to match the donation.

b.    Providing time and effort to improve awareness about education and violence and environment friendliness.

14.  A cryptocurrency consultancy app/website (Crypto 101).

15.  A counselling and support website for

a.    Mental Health and Wellbeing

b.    Children of Disadvantaged and/or broken families.

c.    Career development path for disadvantaged migrants.

d.    Environment friendly housing and accommodation.

e.    Elderly people.

16.  A website for tracking email subscriptions and controlling them (updating/cancelling)

17.  A website for

a.    Fitness (calorie tracking app) with a suggested meal plan.

b.    Repair and renovations

18.  A social learning

a.    student forum categorized by courses (staff and students can participate)

b.    forum to discuss and debate over new ideas and issues.

c.    Website or forum to discuss lessons learnt from prominent books, practice, and observation.

19.  A website for

a.    supporting students' mental health (resources about mental health, activities, sports clubs, reading clubs, and getting in touch with a counsellor)

b.    preparing overseas college students for higher education and career growth.

20.  A website for

a.    shared accommodations

b.    exchanging students' items, such as books and clothes (categorized by item type)

c.    short-term accommodation and resource sharing

Report

Your report should be well-organised with clear and concise headings and subheadings to guide the reader through each section. Please use the IEEE or Harvard referencing style to cite sources when necessary. Required sections of your well-structured report are as follows:

1.  Introduction and Motivation

Introduce your topic and provide relevant background information. Highlight the advantages of your proposed solution. If you have analysed previous solutions or existing websites/apps, briefly discuss your findings, and explain how they influenced the design of your proposed solution (Word count guide ~ 250-500 words).

2.  User Research and Personas

Conduct research to identify potential users of your website. Consider demographic information, such as age, gender, education level, and location, as well as psychographic information, such as personality traits, values, and interests. Include personas that represent different types of users. Each persona should have a name and a brief description of their background, goals, and

challenges related to the topic. (Word count guide: User research no more than 250-350 words, plus the two personas.)

3.  Scenario Design

In this section, you will need to identify and describe three interaction scenarios within your chosen topic. Each scenario should be based on a specific feature of your website. You should showcase each scenario using the combination of the following techniques with justification: UML use cases, storyboards, and hierarchical task analysis (HTA).

Be sure to provide a clear description of each scenario, including the following details:

•          The user's goal or objective

•          The specific feature of your website that is being used.

•          The steps involved in completing the task.

•          Any potential challenges or obstacles that the user might encounter.

You can use different methods to showcase your scenarios, depending on what works best for your topic. For example, you might choose to create a use case diagram to outline the steps involved in a particular scenario. Alternatively, you could create a storyboard that illustrates the user's journey through your system, highlighting the key features and interactions along the way. Or simply use HTA to represent the three scenarios. Whatever approach you choose, be sure to provide clear and concise descriptions of each scenario to help your reader understand how your

website will work in practice. (Word count guide about 200-500 words for each scenario including diagrams or figures)

4.  Estimating and Naming the Required Pages

Considering your design scenarios in the previous section, estimate the number of pages required to implement each of the scenarios. Use a uniform naming convention to

name each page. (Word count as required in a minimalistic way)

5.  Paper Wireframe

For the three scenarios described in section 3, design a low-fidelity prototype using paper wireframes. This prototype serves as a medium to support your initial concepts and ideas. Your prototype need not be fully functional but should show the initial concept of your interface designs. For example, you may want to demonstrate the possible layout of your web pages or app screens using hand-drawn sketches. Includes photos/scans of your paper wireframes in the report. Note digital wireframes are not accepted here and the wireframes should be hand drawn.

(Word count guide ~ 100-300 words including figures).

6.  Digital Wireframe

Develop a digital wireframe using a prototyping tool of your choice such as JustInMind or Visio for the home page of your website/app (ONLY the home page and not the whole website) OR for ONE of the scenarios described in section 3. The wireframe should demonstrate your initial design concept and showcase important features and functionality of your interface. Keep in mind that assessment 3 requires you to develop a website using HTML5 and CSS3. In this assessment, no coding is required. However, you are free to develop the initial digital wireframe using HTML5. Includes screenshots of your digital wireframes in the report.

(Word count guide ~ 100-300 words including figures).

Submission

1.    A PDF report containing the above sections with your name and student ID clearly indicated.

2.    Optionally, you may also submit any prototyping you did in a zipped folder (both paper and digital).

Marking Criteria