The Critical Report
Guidelines
Writing the Critical Report
Important:
The report should be analytical and reflective rather than just descriptive.
We can see what you’ve done & how it looks on the website – the whys (the rationale) are very important. Concentrate on ideas, design choices and their implementation.
You should include a Bibliography, with the reading you have done about the Internet, design principles, web design and other relevant issues. Please remember also that at masters level you will be expected to include referenced quotations to support your arguments (see the link to the Harvard Referencing System below).
You should also include credits/references/acknowledgments for materials used in your production (e.g. images, scripts, assistance etc.). These should preferably be included in both the Website and the Critical Report – but must be included in at least one of these.
Guidelines for writing the Report:
(NB these are guidelines & this structure should not be heedlessly replicated)
Introduction:
What is your project about?
( Your idea, your angle, your approach – what’s creative/original about it).
Outline how it conforms to the brief.
What genre (or mix of genres) might define it (e.g. autobiography, CV, obituary, retrospective)?
What kind of target audience?
(geographical location, gender, age group, income, ethnicity, attitude, beliefs, cultural values, language diversity etc. as appropriate).
Main Analysis:
How does it look, sound & interact (descriptive)?
Why you designed it like this (analytical).
Overall design & integration of the work. Rationale for ‘look & feel’.
Design rationale for the various elements of your work.
– concept, content, navigation, interaction, usability, accessibility, sources, choices, site infrastructure, images, sound (if any), animation (if any), technical approach.
Technology – software & other resources used (& why)?
HTML, CSS and other standards?
How it’s interactive (and what scripting is involved)?
Illustrations/screen-shots (as and if appropriate).
In Conclusion:
Summarise.
Testing – report on any user testing of your website.
Conclusions.
What works well & what doesn’t.
What (with hindsight) you would have done differently.
What you’ve learned.
Bibliography
Credits
Appendices (if any):
An appendix by definition includes documentation that doesn’t fit into the main body of the work. You don’t neeed to include an appendix and there’s no point in doing so just for the sake of it. Do so only if there’s extra documentation, graphics, images or preparatory work that add genuine value to the rationale.
Referencing your work:
See ‘Referencing Your Work’ on the MA Digital Media WebCT site.
The University site has this section dealing with referencing and the Harvard system.