Assignment 4.

1 Proposals
Dr. Will Kurlinkus
Teams

Team 1: Ballard, Barefoot, Francis, Cole

Team 2: Browning, Jung, Gordon, Schoeppel

Team 3: Emswiler, McCann, Sotomayor, Domann

Team 4: Cook, Belbekri, Heeren

Team 5: Zehad, Weigel, Mann, Hoyt

Assignment 4.1
Assignment Sheet
Open Up Student Example 1:
National Weather Service
Well Grade it Section By Section
What is a design brief?

A document describing the design problem and establishing

a foundation of objectives, principles, and requirements.

It is given to a client/potential client at the beginning of a

project so that they know what you are going to do and
why you are going to do it.

Its goal is to show there is a problem, develop the context

the problem exists within, and shows in some way how you
as the designer are going to solve that problem.

Another large goal is simply to develop trust and

confidence. Showing off your knowledge set.
 Tips on Writing Professional Proposals
and Design Briefs
[the site]: As a team you will choose a small-scale website
(preferably from a local business/academic department) that
you think has several design flaws which you can improve
upon.

The goal of this proposal is pitching a usability test to a company, so

you need to mention a little about why you are writing to them in
your intro. Give me a one one or two sentence executive summary:
In this design brief we aim to show
In your design brief/proposal you want to start by describing the
company as an entity. Give me a paragraph on what the
company wants to portray about itself on its website?
Remember that you are writing to this company as if you were
working for them. They are your client. We understand that you
want to
 Tips on Writing Professional Proposals
and Design Briefs
[users and purposes]: Identify what the primary goals (what
do users hope to accomplish on the site?) of the site are
and who you think the target audience for the site is.
Specifically, you must identify three main purposes of the
website (2 of which you will test) and you must write a user
persona for a typical user or the site.
Remember that user personas are written very specifically for a
reason. So, in your user persona, show the goals and activities
that users might want to achieve (and that you will test). And
you might even hint at what users find frustrating about the
current site.
Give a typical scenario of use in the user persona as well.
 Tips on Writing Professional Proposals
and Design Briefs
[flaws]: Identify the design flaws of the website. You must
analyze 3 specific pagesa homepage and two secondary
pages. You need to do this visually, using screen captures and
labels. Furthermore, you need to describe these flaws in terms
of your target users and their goals on the website (see #2this
section should reference the web design PowerPoint, the top 5
design flaws reading, and one other reading you find at
smashingmagzine.com).
Remember you are focusing on problems of use not simply ugliness.
To cite your sources, most technical documents use a footnote or
endnote style. No need to say, as this web design blog says. Rather
just paraphrase them and footnote the source.
Remember that images need to labeled in three ways: Referred to
in the text, have a caption, and have a label.
Be kind. Be generous. Someone at the company (or their nephew)
probably made this site.
 Tips on Writing Professional Proposals
and Design Briefs
[competitor analysis]: Identify 1 or several other websites
that are of the same kind, purpose, and or business as the
website youre redesigning. Describe how these sites work
better/solve the problems your chosen website is having.
Dont just describe but show in images.
Refer back to your flaws analysis.
Each image/solution should have a claim/con
 Tips on Writing Professional Proposals
and Design Briefs
[proposal]: Conclude by proposing a usability test to your client
(the website owner). Which 2 tasks/flaws will you specifically run
the usability test for and why? For each user objective write a
bulleted protocol of questions and tasks you might have the
user do in the usability test. In this section you also need to do a
little bit of convincing on WHY a usability test will be beneficial
to your client. And you need to describe a little bit more
general information on the type of usability test you will
perform (this section should reference Krug).

You can imagine that your client knows there website is generally
bad.
Dont imagine that your audience knows what a usability test is or
why its important.
Your goal is to describe a little bit about what you will do/test and
how.
Grade Example 2

Lings Cars