The Formation Tells All
By: Mark Cockrum
1. Site Purpose:
To educate people on how and why defenses line up in the NFL. I have
found that even some of the most diehard fans of the NFL have no idea why their
defense lines up the way they do.
2. Needs Analysis:
I am going to describe and identify the major formations within the NFL.
Give a little information on when certain formations are used and why.
3. Goals:
I want the audience to have a better understanding of what is going on when
their favorite team is playing defense.
4. Audience Characteristics:
There are two types of audiences:
Experienced: Those that watch their favorite NFL team play and know some
of the basic concepts of their team’s defense.
Inexperienced: Those that do not watch NFL games or have no idea what is
going on when there team doesn’t have the ball.
5. Primary Audience:
NFL Fans
6. Secondary Audience:
Those who are not familiar with the NFL but want to learn about it.
7. Competition:
There are a number of sites that show and explain formations, but not why
NFL teams use them or when NFL teams use them.
The First that I looked at was About.com
http://football.about.com/cs/a/defformations.htm
I noticed that the pictures that were used were very small and there was
not an explanation as to when and why the formation are used.
The Second site I looked at was Total Sports.com
http://www.totalprosports.com/2011/07/26/9-football-formations-every-man-should-know/
I loved the information and pictures that they used. I don’t like the one long
page idea as it can create confusion and cumbersome to load. I also don’t like the
large margins as it makes the information looked crammed and too busy.
The Third and Final site I looked at was For Dummies.com
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-identify-football-formations.html
I liked the information a lot and I like how they not only explain how they
line up but why and with what kind of players. This much more important to know
is the why the defense is lined up that way on a certain not how they are lined up.
Also the pictures are very easy to understand and very will sized on the page. I
think that spate pages for each formation would enhance the navigation and load
speeds of the site.
8. Wire Frame:
9. Best Viewed Assumptions (the conditions under which you believe your
website to be ideally viewed, including browser type and version, connection
speed, screen size, etc. You can list footprint of your development platform, ie,
the machine you did your development on to cover most items):
Best viewed in the most up to date versions of
10. Site Map:
Home Page
4-3
Stack
Nickle
Goal LIne
Under/Over
3-4
Stack
Dime
Under/Over
11. Test Plan:
1. Perform accessibility compliance.
a. Results shown here.
2. Validate HTML
a. All HTML on site validated without errors.
3. Validate the CSS
a. All CSS validates.
4. Check for broken links.
a. I checked thoroughly for broken links, found none.
b. Had others check for broken links, they found none.
5. Check final website in IE, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.
a. Checks out well.
6. Test on different connections.
a. Tested on IU Secure, AT&T WiFi, and home network. Works
well on all.
7. Tested on
8. User interface testing
a. I tested with:
i. Mother
ii. Father
b. All said links worked and they didn’t have any issues with the
design.
12. Project Checklist: This is a critical part of your documentation!
Feature
URL
External Stylesheet
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Proposal_CSS.css
Embedded Stylesheet
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Home%20Page.html
Header comment
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Home%20Page.html
CSS Style Comment
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Proposal_CSS.css
Example of a table
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Home%20Page.html
Example of a <blockquote>
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Home%20Page.html
Example of an <ol> list
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Home%20Page.html
Example of an <ul> list
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Home%20Page.html
Example of a <dl> list
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Home%20Page.html
Example of an image map
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%203-4.html
Example of a PNG or GIF image
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Home%20Page.html
Example of a JPG image
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Home%20Page.html
Example of a form
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Home%20Page.html
Example of a css-delivered roll over
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Home%20Page.html
Example of a style that overrides
another
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Home%20Page.html,
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Proposal_CSS.css
Canned Javascript function
http://cs.iupui.edu/~mcockrum/n241/Final%20Proj
ect/Final%20Project%20Home%20Page.html
13. Post-Project Analysis: Once you complete your project, answer the following
questions:
o
How did you revise your project?
I added the bar at the top that allows you to got to all the NFL team’s
sites.
o
What learning did you take from the process of creating your project?
There is an endless amount of things you can put on a web page, finding
the ones you want to use that’s the hard part.
o
Are there any sections that didn't work as you like? ie, you might be happy
with presentation in Mozilla, but not in IE; etc.
I don’t like the purple color for the links when viewing in Google Chrome.
Bibliography
1. Alder, J.. N.p.. Web. 5 Dec 2013. <http://football.about.com/cs/a/defformations.htm>.
2. Cosmell, H.. N.p.. Web. 5 Dec 2013. <http://www.totalprosports.com/2011/07/26/9-footballformations-every-man-should-know/>.
3. "Companion Content from the E-Book Football Rules & Positions In A Day For Dummies." How to
Identify Football Formations. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2013.