WRT 332: Rhetoric of Web Design

Site Redesign Project

For this assignment, you will work with a real-life client to redesign a webpage. Erik Hayenga is looking to develop a web presence for his consulting firm, Topaz Agriculture.

Your job will be to:

work with the client to determine the project criteria;
develop a sound revision strategy for the site, paying particular attention to big-picture rhetorical considerations;
develop several lo-fidelity prototypes for the redesigned page, paying particular attention to overall design and usability; and
implement your revision strategy, producing a redesigned site.

Project requirements

Your site redesign should appear at the following URL (see the project directory) :

http://oakland.edu/~yourusername/site

You must include the following <meta> tag within the <head> of each page of the site:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, no follow">

Your designs and all of your code must be original, although you may use any HTML editor you choose for composing the HTML documents.

Client Documentation

You will also compose a 1,000–2,000 word written report to accompany the delivery of your final redesign to the client. This document should "make the case" to the client for why you did things the way you did—that is, it should articulate and defend the rhetorical strategies you employed in your redesign. You can do this by:

Providing a "guided tour" and explication of your redesign, outlining the major revisions you made, explaining their intent, and laying out the reasoning behind them;
Explaining the assumptions you made about the audience and their needs, and how you went about meeting those identified needs; and
Explaining how your redesign helps your client to accomplish their larger goals.

Ultimately, this report should build your ethos as a professional web designer and persuade your client why you deserve their business again in the future. The report is not confined to text alone. It may also contain images, screenshots, annotations, charts, secondary research, citations, etc.