Assignments

Course assignments consist of:

• Assignment 0: Introduction Slide
• Assignment 1: Project Proposal
• Assignment 2: Getting the Right Design
• Assignment 3: Getting the Design Right
• Assignment 4: Communicating the Design

Clarity and Presentation

Ensure all submissions are appropriately clear and easy to read. This includes:

• Text should be clear and concise.
• Use section headings as appropriate.
• Include images in the body of the write-up, with figure numbers and captions as appropriate.
• Refer to the figures in the body of your text.
• Check for typos, spelling, and grammar errors.

Be sure your presentation looks good:

• Choose appropriate colors, fonts, and styles.
• Make appropriate and liberal use of whitespace.
• Ensure images are high-quality.

Images do not count against page limits, and are therefore effectively free. You should embed images throughout your PDF, keeping them near the text that references them. Page limits apply to the approximate amount of text you would have if all images were removed.

Contribution Statements

Group submissions require a contribution statement. This should be submitted together with your milestone submission, as a separate PDF using the Canvas "Add Another File" capability. When a contribution statement is required, we will not grade submissions until the contribution statement is provided.

This statement should indicate the name of each member of your team, the percentage of effort that each member contributed in that specific milestone, and a corresponding list of specific activities.

An example contribution statement might be:

• Name 1: 20%: Researched the background of the problem, outlined the content of the document, wrote the first version of one paragraph, selected the images to be included.
• Name 2: 35%: Conducted 3 interviews (with Name 4) and took notes.
• Name 3: 10%: Wrote the first version of the background section, made sure the final document was submitted.
• Name 4: 35%: Organized the group meeting, conducted 3 interviews (with Name 2), put together the first draft of the document's results section.

You should discuss and agree upon this statement of what you each contributed and how much this contributed to the overall assignment.

Contribution statements are intended to support your own reflection as a team as well as staff awareness of your efforts. The staff does not necessarily expect each person to contribute equally to each assignment, but does expect all members will appropriately contribute over the quarter and will work as a team to support each other. The staff also understands that percentages are incomplete and subjective, so we gather them only as a summary indication and will not use them directly in any grade calculation.

If you feel your team's contribution statement does not appropriately convey team contributions, you may email the course staff. If you feel a member of your team is not contributing appropriately, you may email the course staff.

We will also separately solicit confidential project team feedback twice in the project sequence.