DEMOGRAPHIC: A demographic can include a broad group of people born during a given time period (a generation), who's lives have been shaped by the economy, world events, political climate, and culture that surrounds them. Demographic profiles can also be fashioned based on: zip code (or other geographic definition), income, living conditions, religion, education, employment, nationality, or ethnicity. Demographic profiles can be found through census research, or other city/county/governmental documentation that "takes a snapshot" of a community, county, neighborhood, or borough. Marketing experts also take advantage of demographics in order to shape the message they want to send to their audience, whether for persuasion, communication, education, or a combination thereof.
Examples of demographic generations include:
- baby boomers
- Generation X
- Generation Y (a.k.a. Millennials)
- role-playing gamers who live in their parents' basement, graduated high school, are attending a community college, and like to collect comic books
- Caucasian street basketballers of Irish ethnicity in Red Hook New York, who play solely outside on black-top courts in parks, and want to play for the AND1 streetball tour one day
- First Graders who go to a magnet school and live in an apartment with no television, but do own a Nintendo DS and two pairs of Nike LeBron X high top sneakers
- Born-Again Christians who live in Iowa and have a high school degree
- Pennsylvania Quakers
- New York Quakers
YOUR DEMOGRAPHIC TOPIC: Students are encouraged to either choose a generational demographic from above (such as Gen. X), discover another generational demographic, or to locate, identify, create a demographic group on their own. Choose a demographic that is not directly connected to you. If you are an athlete who runs track, you cannot research Track Athletes as your topic. Research is your first order of duty once the topic has been defined. You will need to identify the demographic, learn about it, gather text and imagery to shape that demographic into a website, and shape the website into a navigable experience. Don't assume that you understand your chosen demographic because you know someone who is a part of it.
YOUR DEMOGRAPHIC PAPER: Write a 2-page paper that covers your topic and submit it in electronic form to the Turnstile2 server VCOM-262-002 Tselentis as a DOC or RTF file. The paper needs to be informative, and cover who, what, where, how, why, and when all from the demographic point of view. Submit: (at least) 1 fully typed single-spaced page as your paper with an additional 1 page of your sources. Sources shall not be "crowd-sourced" or non-journalistic-media (forbidden: wikipedia, ask-yahoo, about.com, ask jeeves); minimum 1 book (from Winthrop's library, this must be a printed and paper book), minimum 1 magazine or newspaper from an approved news source (this can be printed news or news website). Interviews you conduct, whether through email, face-to-face meetings, phone, or Skype are also valid sources of research. A good process for writing your paper would be:
- learning about the topic from your sources, whether read or listened to
- organizing your thoughts with a rough outline or note cards
- crafting one complete draft of your paper
- running spelling and grammar check
- setting the paper aside, perhaps for a couple of hours or a day
- returning to it and re-reading it, making corrections as needed
- having another reader look at it, perhaps from the Writing Center
- making further edits to it in preparation for submission
- note the multiple writing, reading, and editing stages above
- that many re-reads and re-writes is completely normal
Keep in mind that you want to write a paper that will be used as text content for your website, and you will then create a site to describe a member (or members) of that demographic. Include those things that qualify them as a member. I will also request a flow chart categorizing the demographic and how those categories connect to make up the typical person within the demographic. Other research components are included below.
Website Requirements:
- 5 pages total
- functional links that get users to each of those 5 pages
- quality images, sourced from acceptable places, or created by the student using photography, illustration, collage, or a combination thereof
- unified link styling
- typographic readability (how easy it is to read large bodies of text)
- typographic legibility (whether we can tell what letters are, and what words are formed)
- typographic unity and variety
- proper spelling, grammar, diction
- 960-pixel wide layout scheme
- fixed website, with pages in "top left origin" of browser
- other layout schemes must get instructor approval
- clean file-folder structure where you house images, html, and css
Optional Elements Which Students May Explore:
- timelines, in-page "anchor links" to navigate content
- students will need to explore methods for making above items function on their site
- if said items are done incorrectly, they will downgrade the project
- organizational outline due Jan. 10th
- written description of your demographic (2 fully typed pages,) due Jan. 15th in electronic form; paper needs to be informative, and cover who, what, where, how, why, and when all from the demographic point of view; submit to the Turnstile2 server VCOM-262-002 Tselentis as DOC or RTF file; (at least) 1 fully typed single-spaced page as your paper with an additional 1 page of your sources; sources = no "crowd-sourced" or non-journalistic-media (forbidden: wikipedia, ask-yahoo, about.com, ask jeeves), minimum 1 book (from Winthrop's library, this must be a printed and paper book), minimum 1 magazine or newspaper from an approved news source (this can be printed news or news website);
- basic site map (organizational chart) due Jan. 15th end of class
- basic website look and feel, composed in either Adobe Photoshop, Fireworks, or Illustrator; which will be the basis for your HTML and CSS site design
- sourced or created imagery, textures, illustrations, or other visuals to be included in the website
- five page web site with required images due Feb. 5th, HTML and CSS uploaded to Turnstile2 server's VCOM-262 folder, see class calendar for complete deadline listing including use testing milestones
Worth 150 points, assessment breakdown:
- 20% definition of demographic and organizational chart (this is the preliminary research of pitching your topic, a 5-point topic proposal, and your paper)
- 30% correct HTML/CSS (technological, "backend" components)
- 14% navigation (the menu, the menu's function, and the menu's look and feel)
- 36% design appropriateness (includes preliminary image sourcing, mood board, Layout "Look and Feel" prototypes as well as final design/layout execution as HTML)
