Tony Poor

In the fall of 2009, I took on a different kind of design challenge: designing and teaching a course at Carnegie Mellon. Techniques for Web Interfaces (98-130) was the result. Topics revolved around design and front-end engineering (a full list, along with lecture slides, is available on the course calendar).

Some students had no idea what a grid was or what HTML was about; others had been practicing web design for years. Thus, I faced a challenge in creating a course that appealed to students of all experiences and disciplines. The key to accomplishing this was a large final project where each student designed and implemented a site of their choosing (with my help along the way); the results ranged from photography portfolios to music-aggregating sites. They reflected the individual student’s background and interests; some chose to explore interesting visual and interaction design, while others used the opportunity to learn more about engineering techniques (like CSS sprites and web typography solutions, such as Typekit).

I received very positive feedback. Web-savvy students indicated that even the basic CSS lectures filled in large holes in their knowledge, while others praised the freedom of the final project. I still receive emails asking for help on their latest endeavors – something that I optimistically attribute to their passion rather than my teaching deficiencies.