Final Projects: Link Round-Up

As requested, here are the links for our class projects this semester. Good work, all!

Anam Cara Canines
Vietnam Webquest
The Moonlight Ashes
The Lazy Maybes
The Reavis Newsletter Online
Green Horizon, Inc.
LZ Productions
Guilde of St. Michael
Writing an Effective Research Paper
Boy Scout Troop 32
FSSF Re-Enactment Unit
Kid, You'll Move Mountains
eLuminations
G.A.S.P.

Subject field for e-mail links

I really liked how Ericka had the "Subject" field automatically populated when a user clicked on an e-mail link. I can't seem to figure out how to do that in Dreamweaver. Any help out there?

Thanks,

Jake

Signing Off

Just wanted to say I enjoyed blogging this semester even though I didn't always have the most insightful of posts. I'm looking forward to all the presentations tonight. Thanks again to all in class for the helpful comments and intriguing posts. Cheers!

Emoticon :)

Site stats

I have started to incorporate Statcounter into my site. You might want to add it to yours. You can see how it works on a typical blog by visiting James Kunstler's site and clicking on "View My stats" which is at the bottom of the main frame. That will take you to Statcounter, where you can see how many people visit the blog, where they came from, their server information, how many blogs link to it, etc... There is a wealth of information available that will give you amazing feedback on how people use your site.
In order to make it work for your site, you need to sign up with Stat counter and then paste a small piece of their code on each of the pages on your website.
Cheers,
DMCG

pesky alignment problems

Hey, Gordon & Deb!!!
I figured it out!!!
That valign="top" bit has to be in the row tag! So (in the code) find the cell that you would like the contents of to stick to the top, and go up until you find the "tr" tag (inside angle brackets of course) that the cell resides in, and inside those brackets type in the valign="top". Tah dah!!!! Whoohoo!!!
Does that make any sense? If you can't get it to work, email me (edawson@niu.edu).

Places to go for help and tips

I think I've mentioned these before, but this may be a good time to mention them again.

If you have technical coding questions (like why does this site work in IE but not in Firefox?), try the forum boards at sitepoint.com. The community is very friendly and helpful, and won't turn down a politely worded request for help. Just be sure to be as specific as possible about your problem and what software you are using. Give them the address to the site (if it's live on the web) so they can see for themselves.

A very nice place for help with graphics (especially Photoshop questions) is graphics.com. Imaginative name, I know. They also have a good forum board community, and their "tips" section has some great articles.

I also highly recommend good-tutorials.com if you're looking to create a specific effect, like torn edges or carved wood or whatever. Check their unobtrusive menus on the side for items like "web graphics" and "web layouts." Fun stuff.

Hope you find these resources useful!

Page Layout

Hello!

Quick question:

Does anyone know how to limit the width and space of the page? I.e., so that it doesn't keep expanding to the right, creating unnecessary horizontal scrolling. I thought maybe it had something to do with altering the margins, but cannot seem to get that to work.

Help? :)

Thanks!

Extraordinary map of Blogosphere...

Take a look at this article and the visualization of the blogosphere. Quite revealing.
DMCG

Outside links that produce windows

If anyone knows the answer to this one, I'll be really grateful. I have some links to other sites (with permission) but don't want the user to leave my site. I've been told to set up these links so the new site is a new window, preferably smaller. But, this adviser doesn't know how to do this. Does anyone? It's late, but I've been spending a lot of time looking for this without success.

Problems with images

Hello all,

My website seems to function properly except for my images. None of them show up. I'm assuming I've simply made a mistake in designating the source for these in the Dreamweaver program. Has anyone had similar problems and now knows the fix?

Thanks,

Jake

nice Photoshop button tutorial

This might be a little late, but I think it is very well done and wanted to share it. This simple tutorial covers--in very nice detail--making very pretty (reusable) buttons in Photoshop. I hope you like it! The blog this links to is that of a designer-- she always has some nice stuff and regularly offers tips and tricks to improve everyone's design. Enjoy!

One more thing

I have a quick question about web etiquette and plagiarism. If I link to a website in my page, am I taking up any of that linked websites bandwidth up? Should I ask them permission. I've incorporated a few websites into my websites via these links, and it feels like I am plagiarizing. I guess it's because I have not created the content, I don't know? Anyway, what is the netiquette for links? And what about pdf files? I've used others' pdf files in my own site? Do the same rules apply?

small scale turns into LARGE SCALE

Since we've all been frantically attempting to complete our sites by wednesday, I am not expecting a huge response to this post. However, thought I'd put it out there since our usability articles and discussions have primarily focused on large-scale sites. I didn't think that I was creating a large scale site initially, but it turns out that I was. Has anyone else's website exploded on them? I am creating a research paper website for my high school students, and although there are many steps to writing a good research paper, I didn't envision it being that complicated. Boy, was I wrong. Keeping in mind usuablity forced me to create many more pages; I felt the need to break information into smaller chunks, thereby forcing me to create more pages and links. More pages and links equals more work. For example, I wanted to let students know what their grades meant: A,B,C,D, and F. Instead of keeping the grade descriptions on the same page, I felt the need to seperate them because in terms of usability, it is much easier to read a single paragraph than five. Anyway, I'm not complaining (ok, I am), but my small scale website grew into a bit of an unruly beast.

Hope everyone is doing well. Good luck.

Usability Testing (for Wednesday's class)

Hi.

I know that we're left to formulate our own usability tests for class this week, but I was wondering if anyone had some further advice for me as I'm thinking about my own.

Our guest presenter suggested we do the following:

• Think up 5 tasks, three of which are relatively easy/common, the other two being more obscure
• Note the activity of the participant -- where do their eyes go? What do they do with their mouse? How long does it take them to find X thing?
• Repeat with 4 others (preferably drawn from representative user groups)

Am I missing something? We are basically just designing a series of treasure hunts, right?

I found this site to be helpful in designing my tests, but I didn't know if we had to write up something formally to turn in, or if it's going to be more like the card-sorting exercise . . .

Thanks,

JB

Balancing Theoretical and Practical Applications of Usability Testing

The readings this week were helpful in that Quesenbury’s article “What Does Usability Mean” identifies the fundamental goals for usability testing and reasons why it is warranted. Through a series of fictional business examples, this author helps testers understand the characteristics of usability by explaining concrete definitions, showing them how to apply the definition, and teaching them how to make systems work from a user’s perspective.

Barnum’s article “What’s in a Number” offers readers a glimpse of how the “magic number,” in this case – the number “five,” can have an effect on usability testing. Barnum’s studies are helpful in that they identify case studies conducted by some of the leading experts in the field. Barnum asserts that testers who familiarized themselves with “numbers” used in such studies are more likely to grasp the goals of usability and, thus, are those who are more likely to meet the needs of users.

David Dick’s article “Usability Interface: Getting Started with Usability” gives readers a glimpse into his personal experience employing usability as a technical writer. Dick learned that real users would have better represented real world users than the employees he chose to use in testing. I do not necessarily agree with Dick on this. I think it all depends on the product, system, or service being tested. Some employees happen to be their employers best customers.

I found the readings this week helpful, but I would not consider any of them to be an equal balance between theory and practice. I'm still a huge fan of the number one guru for web usability – Jacob Nielsen. For me, the Jacob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger book Prioritizing Usability offers usability testers a clear view of how they can balance theory and practice when it comes to web development.

Usability - getting there from here

I am discovering that when you build a large complicated site with numerous applications that you need to give users a number of ways to get to the same place. For example, a button to a high frequency page, a list of it on the index page, and the ability to find it using the site search engine. Suppose you discover, via site stats, that users usually visit the search or index page after visiting a certain page of your site. For example, suppose you are administrating the NIU site. You discover that people who visit the COMS department page often next visit a page where you can sign up for lab time. A link to the labtime page isn't on the coms main page - users are going back to the search engine or index and typing of hitting the "lab signup" link. Is there a way to create a window or frame on the COMS page that would take notice of this trend and automatically create a link to the lab signup page? It would be similar to the "most emailed stories" link we see on the new york times web site, but would be relative to the particular page you are on. It would take note of where users usually go from here...

usability.com

I was also part of the Usability Testing and Management class, a.k.a. Making Technical Writing Products that Work for People, at the Institute that Ruth mentioned in her blog. Though the course was jam-packed with information and a hefty assignment over two-day, in-class sessions, the information was invaluable.

My takeaway from "Getting Started" is the importance of winning advocates for your cause. If you are committed to doing excellent work for your group of end users--no matter how small the number--you work will be noticed. Eventually, you will have an opportunity to make a greater impact.

The readings and blog entries this week mentioned several of the references from the usability class (e.g., Nielsen's AlertBox and STC Usability SIG), so I thought I'd share a few others:

The Usability Group - the managing partner of this business, Jeff Rubin, is the author of the textbook, Handbook of Usability Testing, that used in the class. It was very easy reading.
www.usability.com

Usability Professionals Association
www.upassoc.org

Association for Computing Machinery - SIG on Computers and Human Interaction)
www.acm.org

(We were discussing job titles and roles in an earlier class discussion remember? Well, a human factors engineer is right up there with an information architect as far as fancy titles go. Don't you think?)

Usability evaluation

I found myself feeling sympathy for any and all of you who are creating or updating websites for "real, live" organizations or corporations. The evaluation of usability seems daunting enough under the most controlled circumstances. I'd love to hear from those who are doing larger websites for larger organizations. Were you able to witness real users in action as the articles suggest is necessary? How did you set this up? What were your numbers?

A second thought I had was related to Blockbuster Online. About 6 months ago, users began receiving e-mails offering a sneak-peek at the new format for Blockbuster's online services. It was only through this link that one could reach the newly formatted pages. At the time I thought it was odd, but in the context of usability, it makes perfect sense. Give your current users on opportunity to peruse the new format before you thrust it upon them. I'm not sure how much feedback they received from users, nor how much consideration their designers gave, but it does seem like the most logical way for companies with a significant Web presence to minimize the pain associated with change.

See you tomorrow,

Jake

The Net Generation

Wonderful posts on usability! Good questions and discussions, all. Tira's post adds the dimension of gender to the equation, and John's makes us all wonder "what's the use of usability?"

If gender and education level are important axes of audience consideration, is age another, or should we consider audiences/users in terms of network experience? The authors of the articles in Innovate seem to assume that members of the Net Generation are all the same, and that students will come to school with similar computer/network experiences. Is this an assumption we need to problematize, and if so, how?

Lots to talk about on Wednesday; I hope we can focus on the important issues. I'll have more focused questions up Wednesday afternoon.

Thanks,

M. Day

Net Generation issues, Innovate
Journal of Online Education, April/May 2007
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?

The April/May issue of Innovate focuses on the
Net Generation, a generation that grew up with
video games, computers, and the Internet. The
expectations, attitudes, and fluency with
technology of this new generation present both a
challenge and an opportunity for educators. In
this special issue of Innovate, guest edited by
Chris Davis, we examine how educators and
educational systems can respond to the challenge
and leverage the opportunity. A selected number
of articles will be accompanied by an
Innovate‑Live webcasts, offering an opportunity
to synchronously interact with the authors. More
information about registering for the webcasts
can be found here: http://www.uliveandlearn.com/PortalInnovate/

"The Ideology of Ease"

This ideology is fascinating. I can't help but relate everything I read to my first year teaching experiences, and the author of this article that Dr. Day posted is commenting on his experiences with students. I do note a slight difference in gender; Mr. Dilger says: "ease is heavily gendered. In the simplest sense, the connection is expressed as 'Women can't handle difficulty.' Women are expected to identify with ease; men are expected either not to need it or to use it in passing on their way to superior ability." I have noticed, at least, a difference in the attitude of students based on gender, (or somehow, I don't know how to explain, but a different look on their faces in the lab), when going through new "technology" lessons. Truly, the young ladies have more questions! (and I, a female, trying to lead the pack--yikes!) But, I wonder if this is just an outward appearance of the way we, as different genders, process information; I know that I don't shrug from learning something new, and the female students in my class don't either. Dilger goes on to say,"an uncritical turn toward making computer interfaces and software easy to use has replaced the various metaphorical schemes, disrupting the GUI's relationship to spatial representation." I guess I just wonder how every program/application can use the same metaphors, and what then would occur? As I think John blogged about, at some point the excitement of creating something new rests somehow on thinking that "I can do it better; I can make it more understandable/usable for everyone." I guess we can't really ever do this completely, based upon the extreme differences found in subcultural language, etc. Dilger blames the students' lack of file structure manageability on the phenomenon of not having standardized metaphors throughout technology and he says "the culturally constructed desirability of 'making it easy' [or] an...uncritical drive toward ease is arguably the most influential force in desktop computing today...as ease becomes the end, rather than the means to the end, many things are set aside..." It seems like there can just be no easy solution for usability.

Usability & Our Project Websites

In this article, David Dick tells us that "employees are not representative of actual users," encouraging us to let our audience dictate how we present information, rather than us--the soon-to-be-experts.

Carol M. Barnum's "What's in a Number?" examines the Magic Number 5 as applied to usability testing, and her observation that in both of the web studies she analyzed, "the user profile was not clearly defined, resulting in users with, perhaps, widely varying levels of experience."

So I'm left wondering how our class usability testing is going to work out, especially considering we all come from such different backgrounds and have different interests. Are the 5 E's of Usability standards that everyone will be able to pick up on, or do we need to tailor everything specifically to our audience?

This issue came up in both the proposal process and in the card-sorting exercise. I'm designing a band website and thought of using "Merch" as a label for a potential online store. In the rock and roll nomenclature, "Merch" is short for merchandise: stickers, buttons, t-shirts, etc. And when crafting this website, labeling it as a "Store" risks sounding corporate and out of the loop. I realize this is more of a labeling issue, but it applies to the overall usability of the site.

And so I'm left with "usability" acting as this catch-all phrase like "information architecture" -- essentially: "how easy is it to find stuff?" I realize this sets me at odds with Quesenbery and her 4-part meaning of usability . . .

I'm sorry to go on about this, but the more I read about usability/IA, the less likely I am to want to push the envelope and innovate. Anyone else feel this way?

Usability; crowd sourcing

Anyone who has ever tried to follow instructions for putting something together, installing something, or even using modern technology can attest to the fact that usability studies are extremely useful and not done often enough.

I think there are a couple of reasons for this. I took the Professional Development Seminar on usability studies this semester, and the way usability studies are conducted by "professionals" in that field are expensive and time-consuming. They involve video taping, think-aloud protocols, encoding, and statistical data analysis. They were really hot in the late 1990s, according to the U of Chicago prof who taught the seminar, but they've fallen out of favor.

I think some companies might have thrown out the baby with the bath. Sure, encoding video and audio tapes can provide a great deal of useful information, but there's no reason not conduct basic usability studies that can be completed inexpensively and relatively easily. How much would it have cost Apple to have a few young and a few older secretaries or others who were not familiar with the equipment try to turn figure out how to maneuver an iPod (especially how to shut the darn thing off)? How much would it have cost them to ask a few middle aged people to read the serial number off the back of the thing? (It's small and white against a chrome surface; it's basically illegible for anyone over 20)? Look at the usability study for the Purdue OWL. I dare say they got quite a bit of useful material without video cameras and think-aloud protocols. People need to approach these issues in a manner of "How can we do this most productively?" instead of "How can I turn this concept into a six-figure salaried position?" Consumers would be better off.

Another factor is the increasing lack of interest in providing any kind of support or customer service in American corporations. Try getting answers or help from ANYONE these days. The 800-number system is saving companies a bundle, I'm sure, but how much longer are we as consumers going to put up with not being able to get reliable information or talk to anyone who knows anything about what we're asking? I honestly don't know why we tolerate it, and it's only a matter of time before some enterprising company recognizes the discontent and sweeps in and offers service. What Japan did to the US auto industry in the 1989s will be NOTHING compared to that, and I can't wait for it to happen!

The crowdsourcing concept is, of course, running creatives out of jobs. It was inevitable. If it becomes possible to do something technologically, it's only a matter of time before employers demand it. Companies want the latest thing as quickly and inexpensively as they can get it. Why WOULD anyone go to the hassle of hiring a photographer, setting up a location, hiring a model or models, getting the processing done, etc. when they can dowload a stock photo from Microsoft for free? With the magic of Photoshop, you can download a photo and alter it to add your product in about an hour, compared to the week and half you need to have a professional photographer shoot a photo, and it costs NOTHING compared to the hundreds of dollars a professional shot would cost. When I think of all the time and money the last company I was marketing manager for wasted on photos for direct-mail ads and compare it to how fast and easy it would be to do that stuff on desktop with Photoshop now, it makes me laugh.

I recently learned about something else that someone with savvy can offer a small company in order to get a marketing position. There are FREE communication management systems that a marketing person can use to set up various kinds of forms. Engineers and product designers can type in the product specs, the marketing person can write up some copy and -- again with FREE software -- it can be incorporated into a C or reverse C Web layout in nothing flat.

With some practice with various computer programs, an enterprising person who really needs a job could walk into a small company and say, "Let me show you how I can replace your entire marketing department for a fraction of the cost." Of course, it would be great if that savings would be passed on to consumers or used to increase the wages and benefits of the line workers, but that's not going to happen in THIS culture.

The more technology can do, the less we need people to do. That's the culture we've created and are perpetrating.

Ah, that's what I like: the KISS method ("keep it simple, stupid"). All you need to remember in usability testing are 5 users/analysts and the 5 E's. If you want more on this or a different perspective, your taxes at work produce www.usability.gov.
By the way, the links you set up on this site will go on and on if you set them up right away. As you can see from the first one, I set it up immediately after typing the characters and every character after that became part of the link. So, you have to jump to another part of the text after setting up a link which means you have to type the whole blog then go back and set up the links. A usability issue.
Here goes with another link. The STC sig (special interest group) has a website devoted exclusively to usability: www.stcsig.org/usability/. Now, as I type, I'll finish then go back and establish that as a link. I just set it up and it worked.

Four topics from MDay

When I teach, even guest teach, English 532, I am always finding interesting tidbits I want to share. So as not to take up too much space on your class blog, I'll list them all below. The last one leads to our topic for next week (Wednesday, April 11), usability, so skip down if you are in a rush.

Crowdsourcing

First, I wanted to follow up on something I said about crowdsourcing in last week's class. I know that we didn't spend a lot of time on it, so I wanted to share some links that would clarify what it is, how it's like user-generated documentation for software and projects, and how it's like wikiality, if that's a word worthy of spreading beyond the realm of Stephen Colbert...

At any rate, if you are interested, take a look at Wired magazine's "The Rise of Crowdsourcing," where I first read about the phenomenon. How do you think the economy of expertise will change as more organizations come to rely on crowdsourcing through electronic solicitation? Will it affect the job market for creative and design positions if more and more organizations look to the living database of content producers willing to work for free or on the cheap?

Google Translator

Second, I was amused by the announcement of yet another machine language translation program this time Google's, with the claim that it will revolutionize our ability to communicate.

"Google seeks world of instant translations"

You've all probably seen or used Babel Fish, and know how crude or completely wrong some of the translations are. This is because machines and software don't have human experience and cannot read context and ambiguity (some linguists call this the problem of multiple competing frames) in the natural language spoken by humans. It's been a problem of the Artificial Intelligence community for decades, and hasn't been solved. Do you think Google can do it? If so, how would it change the way we communicate and work online. Could it increase global cooperation, or are there too many other cultural barriers at work?

Volunteer to work on CompPile

Finally, an opportunity to get involved in an online Rhetoric and Professional Writing project: CompPile. Read on, and go there and sign up if you want to help out.

To all colleagues in post-secondary writing studies:

As you probably know, CompPile is a free, online, searchable database of scholarship in post secondary composition, rhetoric, ESL, technical writing, and discourse studies http://comppile.tamucc.edu/.

Until late last year, CompPile's bibliography has covered the years 1939-1999. Now, under Glenn Blalock's direction, it is extending its coverage from 2000-current (and beyond). The intention is to allow a one-stop search of all post-secondary writing scholarship from 1939 on,
and to keep adding records as they are published. This is more work than a couple of people can do. So we are asking members of our discipline to join in the effort.

In particular, we are asking people to choose from among three options (or some combination): (1) to update the indexing of a journal from its current status in CompPile; (2) to be responsible for maintaining a journal, indexing new issues as they appear; (3) to volunteer to add search terms where needed. On the home page of CompPile, you'll see a new link that invites you to "Volunteer @ CompPile." I have opened a space on CompPile where you can scan the lists of journals, see our "needs," and volunteer, if you choose. When you volunteer, you will receive further instructions about the process we use for indexing and for assigning search terms. The
process should be clear from there. But if it isn't, please contact Glenn(gblalock@grandecom.net).

It's worth knowing and remembering that CompPile has always been a volunteer operation. It is open-access, free of charge to the public, non-affiliated, and non-revenue generating. As such, it may be unique among scholarly fields. (Librarians tell us that all other comprehensive, discipline-wide bibliographies they know of require annual subscription or organizational membership fees.) It's also worth noting that the tasks with which we need assistance are not significantly time-consuming. Any time you can commit will be an important contribution to the ongoing success and usefulness of CompPile.

Please add your hand and help keep CompPile open-access and free, with the largest and most comprehensive coverage of post-secondary writing studies (currently at about 87,000 records).
Glenn [Blalock] and Rich [Haswell]

Usability

Related to the topic of usability in your readings for next week, but in a bit of a different direction is Bradley Dilger's "The Ideology of Ease," published in the Journal of Electronic Publishing in 2001. Although dated, it makes some interesting claims about how the "ease" of help systems and Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) divests students/users of the power to understand and take control of their computer/online writing environments. It also strips away their ability to recognize and make use of the eloquence and elegance of computer code, the "techie" side of writing for electronic media. As composers of online writing, how do we find a balance between "ease of use" and control over the way an online composition (such as a website) looks and works for users?

If you read nothing else of Dilger's article, at least skim the bulleted list near the bottom, OK?

Thanks, and see you Wednesday evening.

It's Not Ink on Paper

This business of writing for electronic media becomes more interesting each day!

Badger mentioned some differences between diary writing and blogging, which reminded me that I never felt comfortable writing in a diary. The very chance that my words would be exposed and out of my control was petrifying. (I think I've mentioned before that I come from a very private family.) So, why is it not as frightening to consider blogging my personal thoughts and sharing my digital images over the World Wide Web? Is it because I can change my entries or create new sites in real time and somehow feel that what I wrote before has been erased (even though an original copy may be in cyberspace forever thanks to Wayback Machine)? Do I feel a false sense of control because of password protections and domain rights?

Electronic writing seems different because it is not forever inked on paper. What is written for the Web can be altered at any time. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but would it be helpful to understand why some people are more prone to write online than on paper?

Maybe it's just me...

or maybe I've been reading too many blogs that are photo dependent lately, but some of this discussion about the addition of images in blogs seems -- well, to be missing the point. A computer is not just a typewriter writ large. It is both a textual and a visual medium. Heck, text itself is a visual medim -- the typeface used, the size of the font, how much space in between the words -- all visual. You don't believe me? Well, that's ok -- these guys understood it.

Many bloggers use this feature to add to their text, or to even have a reason to share text. For those who are creating blogs about their visual/tactile/etc. pursuits a description is not enough. One of my favorite bloggers is also a fabric designer. I can't imagine reading her site with only a textual description of her work. The same goes for another favorite. So are we really focusing on the fact that this whole blogging thing does not necessarily fit with the print based world most of us have grown accustomed to -- that of the novel and written word -- and meanwhile forgetting that, in fact, that world is itself a false representation?

And just for fun and because I do believe in using photos a reminder that spring was actually here before today's snows.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Pictures can be worth a thousand words, and they can also prime users for good content. Since blogging is rapidly becoming one of the hottest mediums for electronic communication, visual images can help authors capture a reader’s attention, especially when a reader does not have the time or desire to read each blog entry. I think visual images often convey the sensory information that visual learners tend get in face-to-face environments. For years, editors of newspaper and magazine articles have been including images in conjunction with headlines to attract and sustain readers’ attention. However, a writer’s main goal is to have readers digest the content of his/her article, and it is never his/her goal to have readers become mesmerized by an image. Efficient bloggers understand that appetizers (images) are a small part of the entire meal (blog entry), and it is the main course (content) that sustains people until the next meal (blog entry).

MLA Style; Visuals are not that great

Tira asked about MLA style and capitalization. MLA style has never reflected the capitalization used in the actual piece. Some print media have long used headlines that capitalize only the first word, but all of the words are capitalized in MLA bib entries, regardless of how they appear in the actual print piece. I can't imagine that different approach would be adopted to accommodate Web sites.

Visuals can definitely enhance communication providing they are tied to the communication in some significant way. Visuals that are added just to be flashy and/or pretty are irritating and distracting.

One of the problems with the emphasis that visuals have assumed is that it further discourages people from learning how to communicate verbally, particularly in writing. Studies have indicated that, because of early and constant exposure, young people can now aborb and interpret visual stimuli faster than people had been able to in the past. That's a very good thing. Unfortunately, it has been accompanied by a decrease in the ability to interpret verbal signals -- particularly written signals -- as quickly or, more importantly, as accurately.

There is also the problem that visuals are becoming less reliable at the same time that they are becoming more significant. Photo manipulation and digital imaging have made it so that seeing is NOT believing. Of course, that was always true for professional work. I edited horticultural catalogs, and we sold a "blue" lilac. There were no pictures of it because it doesn't actually exist; it's actually a white lilac with a SLIGHTLY bluish tint. But for the catalog, the production department did something called "color correction," and we had a beautiful picture of a lilac that looked more or less bright tourquoise. It was false advertising, of course, but such things are not policed, and no one was going to file a lawsuit over a $3.95 lilac bush. This type of visual manipulation can be done to a greater extent, more quickly, and by virtually anyone now. Just think; a student who resents a poor grade could, if he or she were digitally savvy, download a porn photo, put your head on it, and post it to Google with your name. You think such things don't happen? I once had a Yahoo briefcase site that students could post to and had the password for. In the days before things like Blackboard and WebBoard, it was the best way to allow students to collaborate online. Someone got distressed with me and replaced the home page with a page of pics and links to kiddie porn sites. I could have been arrested for that. It only takes one incident of something like that happening to you to make you VERY leery of the Web. As for tracing the ISP, a student who is that computer savvy knows (and in my case DID know) enough to use a public computer like a library computer to post such materials.

We live in a society where people can publish anything about anyone and depict anyone doing anything they please. We need to be aware of that, although I'm not sure there's anything we can do about it. It's just one more way that self-efficacy is depleted by the spread of technology.

Visual Context

I think the most interesting aspect of Badger's piece is the reference of images to words. Who hasn't heard "A picture is worth a thousand words" before? The difference here is that we do not even need the words. What if we created a blog made up entirely of images? Examples given in the article such as Heather Champ's have visual dialogs, but they are always accompanied by the blogger's own text. What I think would be great would be to have nothing but images and to allow visitors to add their own text along side, but with no written input from the author of the blog. Though I can see where Badger makes a point with the negative sides of this issue, I can only see visual literacy as becoming more and more important, even for teachers. Not all students are great writers, but this does not mean they do not have ideas...

The Hocks Piece

I found the Hocks piece to be pretty disappointing. The title sounded exciting, but as it turned out to focus on the analysis of existing sites and pedagogical applications, the information seemed very basic and (does it sound condescending if I say) elementary. The sites were interesting (especially the Xena site), but the author failed, in my opinion, to extract any overarching concepts that would have made me actually highlight something within her text. Perhaps I am being unnecessarily hard on the piece. What did you guys think?

Graphics, exhibitionism, style, and technical problems

It looks like I’ll be the first to post a blog here with a graphic. So, here it (the graphic) is – a picture of my dog, "Greta". This blog site won't let you adjust image sizes. She’s a miniature Schnauzer. That’s about as much exhibitionism as I can muster today. Hope this doesn’t come back to haunt me next time I’m applying for a job or going to a new school.

On the subject of dogs, here’s one of the dogs in my website project. The whole project is about dogs. Bridie is a Briard. There isn’t much choice of typefaces or other style elements here, but in my website, my client wants the thing done in a new typeface, Sherwood. In this blog site, looks like the logical choice is either Verdana or Georgia, according to the WSG. Or is it? Later, he says it's Times New Roman. How about these paragraph separations? But, the style reading doesn’t cover what to do when you have to please the customer. My website client wants it in Sherwood to match his other sites. He even supplied the font. So, I’m looking for comments here, both about the pictures and the style. Oops! Can't get the image (Bridie, the other dog). It won't even paste. When all this stuff works, it's great. But, when something goes wrong or it's beyond your expertise, your time gets spent fast. We have to be pseudo-techies as well as practice our real craft of writing or teaching.

As for the picture of Bridie - you'll see it in the presentation of my web project. Hope you don't think I was flaming or anything because I didn't mean to.

p.s. That failure to include the second picture wasn't planned.

Monitoring Order

I went to the Kairos website to get a closer look at the article written by Anne Frances Wysocki mentioned by Mary E. Hocks. As a side note, their embedded Google search engine doesn't seem to be working--"Wysocki" nor "Monitoring Order" proved to be useful search terms. But thanks to regular Google, I was able to track down her article.

You'll find I've linked you to the abstract page--you'll actually have to scroll down to access the hypertext version--which is not found. Huh.

Fortunately, I was able to locate it by browsing through her personal website, but I just think this is an interesting illustration of how problematic writing for the web can be. Here we have a site judged worthy of scholarly attention, but somewhat difficult to access because links become broken, servers change, etc. Here's the real abstract, which will actually let you read her work. It's worth a look, by the way.

Seeing is believing (or at least it's doubting less)

The Badger article makes perfect sense to me. Early in the semester, I admitted that one of my complaints with the increase in Internet-based communication and the seemingly inevitable decrease in more personal communication was the lack of non-verbal cues in the former. I can't even stand to talk on the phone for more than a few minutes for this same reason, but at least on the phone I can hear tone of voice. The use of visuals in blogging seems to add some of that missing ingredient back into the pot. The challenge for visitors of these blogs, then, is to determine the function of the images being used. Are they accurate representations of the author and his or her life? Are they more cryptic, intended as some puzzle for the visitors to solve? Are they random, as many seem to be, or is there a larger pattern to be discovered? I would guess that regular visitors to visual blogs have the opportunity to learn the authors' tendencies in image usage, and this would subsequently make the overall messages more "truthful" (or at least meaningful) for these viewers.

See you Wednesday,

Jake

Just a question...

I haven't gotten to the really exciting reading yet (I presume), but I do have a question from WSG -- if anyone can help. The authors recommend "downstyle typing," which is a term that is new to me. This is where in Web sites, the headlines, subheads, etc. have only the first word capitalized, unless there is a common noun. It seems to me that many times, these headlines are used as the site title or page title. And many times, I have seen "article" titles with only the first word capitalized now. Look at headline on USA Today's site. So, on a Works Cited or bib page, how does one present these? Do we write up the title as it appears on the web page, with only the first word capitalized? Or do we fix it as a reference should appear? Just wondering if anyone has a clue.

Comments from Michael Day

I'm re-posting this for Dr. Day. Sorry to hear that I had to miss what sounds like a great class this week! - Dr. Reyman

------------------------------------------
At any rate, it was great to be able to discuss social networking with you last night, and I applaud you for your great ideas. So that we don't forget, here are some of the questions we addressed:

*What IS social networking, and is it limited to services such as MySpace and Facebook?

*What should be taught about social networking in K-12 and college classes? Who should teach it?

*How do we make education relevant to students who come to us with a variety of social networking and online literacies?

*Could/should social networking spaces such as Myspace and Facebook be used in secondary and higher ed? Or should they be protected spaces, for social interaction only?

*How can strategies and motivating factors used in social networking be harnessed to the task students face in creating an electronic portfolio of their work, for academic and professional purposes, a record of online learning and professional practices?

*How can aspects of social networking inform the work of professional communicators?

Here are a few of the terms that seemed important in our discussion:

*Writing for different audiences, repurposing online identities for different audiences, code switching.

*Fine tuning access to online identities through different versions of the online "package" for different audiences. How public do you want to be? How can you choose how you want to be seen by various groups: family, friends, professional contacts, academic contacts?

*Google thyself. Know thine online presence and keep it (as) pure (as possible.

*Focusing on the creation and maintenance of online identity in classes that have to do with writing and communication.

*Crowd sourcing, grassroots groupminds, living database as responsive sources of information for personal and professional issues, teaching tips, and technical help (the blog or listserv group as a living "manual" for software).

*Problems of credibility and reliability in online collaborative environments. Who's an expert, and how do you know? The wikipedia effect: does group editing lead to authority?

That's enough, I think, but I'm hoping that some of you will want to explore a few of these issues further in a blog post.

Thanks, and see you again on April 11,

Michael Day
mday@niu.edu
http://mday.org

FTP to NIU H account

Using IE (very important here -- IE has a built in FTP client):

Type in the address window:

ftp://ftp.niu.edu

You will get a pop-up window asking for your user name and password.

Your user name needs to be typed in as follows:

.z123456.6.students.niu

Your password is your regular zid password.

This will allow you to access your NIU account files from any computer with IE. What will show are your folders and your files. You can copy them to whatever computer you are using, modify them, re-upload them to the NIU account, etc. This also includes access to your WWW folder.

free web space

Hi, this is Elizabeth's Polish grandma chiming back in! We were discussing Geocities as an alternate option to using NIU's limited webspace today. Just so everyone knows, I googled "free webspace" and got a ton of options. There's a lot out there that might be worth looking into--especially for those of us who won't be at NIU forever and may want to keep their sites online post-graduation.

Cheers!

E-commerce Predators

A common warning to all who participate in the social networking sites was not to put to much personal information on the sites (e.g., profile pages), so visitors with unethical or immoral motives can't make contact or create false identities. Makes sense to me. But soon after, I had a funny feeling in my stomach. I do not have actively participate in any social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook, yet my information lives on megasites such as Amazon.com and Walmart.com to name a few. We are all aware of the security features that supposedly safeguard our info with encryption, and so many of us continue to buy safely online. Aside from privacy settings, do these social networks offer the same type of protection for its users?

If e-commerce is becoming more acceptable and trustworthy despite possible identity theft (predators), why should people worry so much about Facebook and MySpace security? I don't know the answer, and though I write this, I don't see myself joining any of these popular networking sites any time soon.

MY CHILD’S KEEPER

This week, I do not mind being candid with my views, considering that our topic is social networking. I am not at all impressed by this new medium of communication, and while I do not particularly find any value in it for myself, I will acknowledge that others seem enamored by what they can do. The problem that I have with social networking websites relates strictly to children under the age of eighteen. As a conscientious parent of a teenage son and a pre-adolescent daughter, I am considerably suspicious about the safety of children who visit or have accounts on websites like Facebook or MySpace. In fact,
I am more worried about the predators who navigate these websites, looking to inflict harm on innocent children. Just last week, I had an intense conversation with a complete stranger while waiting in line at Nordstrom. She was a mother of a teenage daughter, who had been recently been targeted by a pedophile on her My Space account. The pervert had gone as far as to arrange a date with this child, and it was only the actions of jealous teenage suitor who informed this mother that her child was in danger. Moreover, this pervert had covered his tracks so well that the police could not assure this mother that he would never contact her child again. As responsible parents, we condemn other parents for using television to entertain their children, so why are we not more vocal about letting predators entertain children on these websites.

I am just as equally concerned about protecting my children from predators on the web as I am with protecting them from predators that they may encounter on our suburban streets. Problems with social networking sites extend beyond my concerns here, but for the time being, I will continue to knock any website or medium that does not effectively provide security for children.

Free stuff part dos

My Polish grandma told me to share this with class. I have used a site: www.flickr.com for some projects when I need fancy images. (sorry about not linking flickr...my browser won't let me, honest) Anway, flickr is a snapfish sort of thing where members can post their favorite photographs, or rather, artsy cool photographs one could use in a website. Some pics you need to ask permission to use, but most are free for everyone to use. So if you need an image of almost anything, flickr may just be for you.

Loving IA

Am I the only one who thinks Information Architecture is a great textbook? It is incredibly practical and clearly written, and prudent in its use of jargon. I'm finally putting names on concepts that have beenthere all the time - (global, local and contextual embedded navigation systems, example). And the idea of utilizing user search queries to help revise your label system is so obvious that Homer Simpson's exclamatory comes to mind.
I made web site a long time ago for the Rockford YMCA and now I am going back to revise the site incorporating the info from IA Chapter 6. I wish I'd read the book years ago.
DMCG

More free stuff

Hey, guys! I'm beginning to feel like my Polish grandma--obsessed with free stuff. I'm not, really, but if you can get it for free... Anyway, for those of us who are not graphic designers or illustrators (and even those who are) and who could use a hand in furnishing the graphics for their web sites, here are a couple good, free image sources. (I know from experience that just googling "free stock images" gets a lot of conspicuously UNfree stuff!) My personal favorite is the stock.xchange, which will give you a selection of free images along with some for a price. Please note the usage guidelines; some of the images request that you contact the artists to request permission--and although that kind of thing is usually not a big deal for school projects, I know most of us have real websites that will eventually be published to the web. I hope you find these useful. Cheers!

stock.xchange
image*after
morgueFile

Missing your IA book?

"I wouldn't exactly say I've been missing it, Bob."

I mistakenly grabbed someone else's IA book along with my own at the end of class last week. I'll reunite it with it's proper owner tomorrow night.

Online consciousness and conscience

When reviewing the "thoughts" and suggestions on Facebook and other social networking sites as provided by Cornell University and USC, I imagined that most (if not all) of us felt they were a matter of common sense, especially given the myriad discussions we've had this semester. However, when I consider the audience for which these were intended, they don't seem nearly as pedantic. When I ask my 8th grade students about MySpace and other similar sites, I am amazed by the depth of the naivete they possess. They seem to think that the Internet and the social worlds within it don't lie within the "real world." The freedom (whether real or imagined) within these sites warps students' senses of right or wrong, at least from a social standpoint. Don't get me wrong, I still think more kids than not use these sites in perfectly harmless ways, but the number of people misusing them, intentionally or unintentionally, is increasing.

On a tangential note, we had an interesting discussion during our institute day this past Friday. Our faculty meeting began with a discussion regarding grading policies and the apparent decline in work ethic among our student body as a whole. Theories and anecdotes were bandied about for 20 minutes or so before one of the quiet leaders among our staff was compelled to speak. In his roughly ten-minute monologue, he made a very powerful statement regarding MySpace, YouTube, and the like. He said that the ability to post information, host their own sites, and even manipulate information that is not "their own" is creating a "false empowerment and sense of entitlement" within children not yet mature nor responsible enough to recognize and appreciate the consequences of all of their actions.

Now that I've read how they work....

I am still in awe of how quickly these social network sites have grown-- how someone simply had an idea and the whole thing took off! I would still like to "lurk" a bit first, especially now that I know nice people (like John B.) do that! I am really curious to check out the sites, but somehow I'm too shy, or nervous, to do so--the way I used to be too shy to talk to people in person! I don't understand why this is, but I am really nervous about weird people doing weird stuff with my name and/or photo, etc., if I were to put these in the wrong place on the web. When I googled my own name, however, the only two accurate matches to myself that came up were my NIU teaching intern information, and a link to an honor I received from NIU's Communication dept. (under my full name), and I guess I'd like to keep it that way. I like Cornell's guidelines for their students, especially their basic conclusion to follow a " 'Golden Rule.' Don't say anything about someone else that you would not want said about yourself." Another interesting notion, that danah boyd pointed out in his/her comparison of MySpace and Friendster, was how MySpace adapted to its users: "Basically, MySpace evolved with its users, building a trusting relationship, figuring out how to meet their needs and cultural desires, providing them with features and really trying to give them what they were looking for. Friendster did not - it fought its users hand and foot, telling them how to behave." Since I've never been on either site, the information d.b. provided throughout his/her? essay/blog has made me feel more comfortable about going to MySpace. I'm more likely to experiment with using these sites now. I guess it's just that being scared of that which you don't understand phenomenon. If only I had the time...

Get out of my blog, Mom!

Consider the following excerpt from danah boyd's manifesto:

A huge part of the success of MySpace is an age and culture thing. Part of being an American teen is figuring out who you are, how you fit into society and culture, how social relations work, etc. Part of this process involves sharing cultural objects, hanging out and trying out different self-performances to find the one that feels "right" (think Goffman "faces"). There are plenty of adults who are doing this as well, but it is central to youth culture. Youth will always do this, using whatever medium is available to them.

I find the above passage to be particularly striking. The positioning of MySpace and other social networking sites within youth culture isn't surprising, but this is absolutely terrifying. Well, at least that was the knee-jerk reaction. I say this not because I believe the 30+ crowd shouldn't be on these sites, but because I almost never see them there. Am I just oblivious? Are thirtysomethings (and beyond) actually using these things?

We talked about this a lot during our blogging week, but the prospect of potential employers, teachers/professors, parents, etc. finding embarassing information about us on the Internet is scary. And while reports of this information being held against people increase, we've seen MySpace and Facebook respond by allowing users to adjust their own privacy settings. So this sort of armchair detective work is becoming harder to do. So will the people of elder generations have to friend me first? Or can they rely on the six degrees of separation and use my oblivious cousin to make an end-run around my privacy settings?

I have a different take, because I tend to be a lurker. I think most of the non-participants are without malevolent intentions (yes, they might be older than you) who like to see the ways in which others deal with the Internet and themselves. It's much easier to watch others jump in first, after all . . .

But perhaps my Mom did see my MySpace profile before I deleted it. And maybe she wanted one of her own, but this social networking thing might have screamed "kids only" to her. Could that help explain why 40% of MySpace visitors are 35-54, but are largely unnoticed by people my age?

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." – Wendell Phillips, (1811-1884)

So far, you can tell your personal story on MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking sites. The only controls are those of the marketplace. There’s talk of protecting people from predators and terrorists, but, for now, it’s the Wild West.

But, “copyrighted” content is another matter. Several companies have set up software to screen movies, tv shows, etc. from MySpace and other social networking sites. http://www.dailyherald.com/business/story.asp?id=294752. But, at least The Wall Street Journal’s Walter Mossberg http://www.dailyherald.com/business/story.asp?id=294757 is doing his journalistic best to tell the story and advocate steps to take to achieve a workable solution.

Outsmarted by Google

Oh, no! It rendered my code! Well, if you really want to look at it, email me and I'll send it to you.

edawson@niu.edu

Google search boxes and other bits

This is going to be long and disorganized—I apologize in advance. Only read on if you were interested in the Google search box for your website.

Go to http://www.google.com/coop/cse/ to sign up for a customized search box. It is going to ask for your domain name—put in what you have so far (e.g., students.niu.edu/~z12345/engl) because you can always change it later. You’ll be able to go in and choose how you want it to look and get the code for that particular look. Don’t be intimidated! It’s not that bad!

For example, this is the source code for the Google search box at www.english.org:

Google Search

Web Site

I left in all the location information, i.e., tables and such. (Note that I did not create this code—there are some sloppy bits that I don’t approve of now that I see them, but it works anyway! I probably won’t go in to clean it up because I don’t want to fix something that isn’t broken, but I’m sure that after Eric’s lecture the other week we can all see some things that could be improved here.)

If you have any questions about how to make this work for you, I will do my best to help. The Google page should be pretty helpful, too, if you look around on it.

Here is a page that has some interesting & useful tips on this subject: http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_can_i_add_a_google_search_box_to_my_web_site.html. I don’t recommend just copying their code and using it, because you’ll be missing out on bunches of perks, but I agree with them that their code is very clean and neat. You can always modify yours with this in mind.

Below the Google search box at www.english.org, you’ll notice the Adobe download information. If you will be using any .pdf files, it is a good idea to go to http://www.adobe.com/svg/license.html and apply for a license to use the Adobe logo so that your users can download the latest version of Acrobat and so that you can get little .pdf graphics to mark which links will open as .pdf files instead of other web pages. It is rather inconsiderate to create a link that opens to a file like this without somehow indicating it to the user—they don’t like those types of surprises.

Good luck and have fun! And please let me know if I've glossed over something so it doesn't make sense. It's already been a very long weekend for me!

The IA Job Title

I had to read this article for another class (I love cross-course learning!), and I thought it was relative to the conversations we had in class right before Spring Break about the job title "Information Architect." The article is "What do We Manage? A Survey of the Management Portfolios of Large Technical Communication Groups." (Technical Communication, Vol. 51, No. 1, February 2004)

The authors report that 27% of the organizations in their survey use IA or information designer as a job title, but it is important to note that the survey included only tech comm groups with 20 or more staff. New research may show different results!

Oops, sorry for the error.

I meant to write that I feel left out.

The Missing Audience

To my dismay, the authors seem to focus more heavily on individuals who build websites in collaboration with a group of specialists. Per our last class discussion, many people acknowledged that they had been the sole creators of websites while working for companies. The fact that Morville and Rosenfeld fail to address all the potential members of their audience, including the sole creator of a website is a little disconcerting. With the exception of a few people, most of the members of this class acknowledge that they are novice when it comes to building websites. It would be nice to read about ways in which the sole web developer could combine all the skills in chapters six through ten to create viable websites without the assistance of others.

By,
I feel lefted out!

Not on IA topic, but interesting.

Hi, everyone. Long time no blog. Thought I'd share.
My book review was on cyberactivism and how the internet can be used as a tool for political action. It seems that politicians are paying attention to that message. I ran across this
article and thought people would be interested to know that Myspace has gone political. It seems the candidates are using this networking resource to get the word out, organize, and plead for support. And we all thought Myspace was just for fun.

Sorry...I'm using Safari web browser and it won't let me hyperlink the URL...even with keyboard shortcuts. So here's the full address: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,129987-c,currentevents/article.html

reading for this week's presentation

Sorry about the tardiness, but I just discovered this today. It's a reading - a tutorial - on information architecture. Just follow the recipe and you're there. Enjoy.

http://www.webmonkey.com/webmonkey/design/site_building/tutorials/tutorial1.html

Personalization and ADD

I've come to realize something about myself and, quite frankly, everyone else over the past several years. We ALL fall somewhere along the wide spectrum of Attention Deficit Disorder. While I've been able to fight through most of my ADD tendencies to lead a relatively productive life on a day-to-day basis, I find it affects me most when using the Internet. As I read about personalization in Chapter 6 of IA, it occurred to me that this particular web design strategy has exacerbated the problem.

It starts out simply enough. I make an online purchase, and as I am checking out, the site kindly informs me of other products which might be of interest to me ("Others who have purchased Item X have also purchased Item Y"). While I rarely go the way of the lemming, I do occasionally find myself clicking on the picture "to learn more," even if I don't make any additional purchases.

The next time I visit the site, it's ready for me. It reminds of what I've previously purchased and has new recommendations at the ready. What these sites fail to recognize is that I'm a buyer, not a shopper. I purchase with purpose. I already know what I want.

I understand these companies are trying to maximize profits under the guise of making my online shopping experience more pleasant and convenient; I'm even willing to tolerate the effort. All I ask is that they design the personalization so that if I have not used any of the "suggestions" in say, five visits, the site is intuitive enough to leave me alone. Now, if my ADD kicks in and/or I'm dumb enough to click on the bait, then shame on me. They get five more cracks at it.

Thanks, I feel better.

Jake

A little of this, a little of that

I find myself somewhat frustrated by the book assuming that we’re going to be working on these mammoth web sites. I understand that they have to assume the most difficult possible scenarios, but it would be nice if there were tips for figuring out which bits should apply to smaller sites. I liked all the attention paid to redesign in chapter 10, but again, I wish I had read all this before I had to submit my proposal. I now see a lot of other things I could have addressed, but couldn’t figure out how to frame or articulate.

In any case, I wanted to share some resources I found that I hope you might find useful in designing your sites. The book mentioned content management systems pretty briefly, without really explaining them—I’m not saying that I’m the right person to do that, but I think they are worth looking into. The person who presently runs the site I’m redesigning uses one, while the webmaster (please hear that word dripping with sarcasm) who designed the much larger site I presently maintain did not use a CMS. When I saw how much the CSM helped to organize and simplify the maintenance of a site, I couldn’t believe that I was doing it the hard way. It is… well, it’s really hard to describe. I found an open source (read: free) CMS that anyone can download and use. If you are curious, check out Joomla and read more about what it can do. This is something that may not be worthwhile for little sites (under 20 pages), but if you anticipate a lot of growth, it might be worth it to use this as a foundation to make it easier on your successors.

I also found some good sources for pixel fonts. Fonts like Verdana and Georgia were actually created to be viewed on-screen (as opposed to printed), but even they tend to look pretty crummy at less than 10px. Sometimes you really need to have tiny print. At least when you use a font specifically designed to be used at these sizes, you're doing your best to ensure legibility. Check these out:

Silkscreen

Sevenet

Subatomic Screen

Also check out Fonts by Cal Henderson and Grixel for lots more options.

Big sites vs. small sites

We’ve been reading about “designing large-scale web sites”. Some of us might like to think of our class sites as “large-scale”, but we probably won’t have wizards, configurators, personalization, customization, search boxes, much – if any – metadata, prepare blueprints or wireframes, search-log analysis, clicklogs, etc. We will have labels, content, context, navigation systems (global and local), some metadata, some user analysis, some user testing – small doses of everything. We’ll all be “committees of one”. We’ll have to become part of a large organization or become consultants to use the other stuff. Personally, I’ll probably never use the “large-site” stuff, but plan to follow – as best I can – the schedule along with the book chapters for my class website plan. Yet, I think it might be fun to be involved in a group project like the ones in our book. And I now have some suggestions for some of the sites I use all the time, such as my mortgage company, Freedom Mortgage. To access an account, you log in to www.myloancare.com. You get a “runtime error” screen which morphs into (for us account holders) a userid and password screen. If you log in to their home site http://mortgages.fhmc.com, you can’t get to your account. My bank http://www.tcfbank.com has “personal banking” and “online banking” links– which one? Answer: "online banking". If I contact them, will I be “tilting at windmills”? Do I have time? Ah, I feel better now.

Architecture and Usability

I found IA to be very interesting. Just to know that I could officially print "Information Architect" on a business card after learning and doing more of this Web work is pretty appealing!

I was suprised to see the similarities between the information structure on the Web and the numerous organizational systems we are all already using to cope in society, e.g., books cataloged in libraries and food items arranged in grocery stores. Once again, my initial reaction to Web creation is altered. Just as we discussed that "Writing for the Web and Writing for print" are not so different after all, this week I declare that well-founded principles of good organization with tangible objects can carry over to organizing text, graphics, and images in cyberspace.

On a different but related note, I had a usability testing project this semester and my partner and I chose to test NIU's Web site. In every case, users searched for the same two tasks in different ways. Seems like some social influences can even affect Web searches!

architecture outside the box

The IA book got me to thinking about Mark Lombarbi, an artist I met years ago who came to an unhappy end. He was obsessed with conspiracies and trying to find links and order to the scandals of the 1990's. His obsessively detailed drawing are cosmologies of information that is organized in a way that visually refined and compelling. Perhaps a look through his work might inspire different ways of mapping your sites.

DMCG

While reading the first five chapters of IA, I found myself flipping back and forth between through two emotions: annoyance and enjoyment. The information presented (no pun intended) was great. I do understand a little better what the nature of information architecture purports itself to be. However, the authors failed to hook me on what they themselves commented on in the second chapter. The big, bold letters say it all: "Do We Need Information Architects?" (p. 17)Well, in my humble opinion, (and bear it in mind that I am not even close to the genius of these librarian-information-engineer-usability-design-architects), no, we don't. As they very clearly point out, the idea of information architecture is indeed crucial. However, why do we need someone as an overall warlord of metadata? As long as your team of (see above)professionals works together well, it would seem to me that a solid and reliable architecture for a company's website would still emerge successful. I know there's more to it, but if I had my own company and was hiring out for a website to be designed, I'd rather have a"jack-of-all-trades" designer working on it, rather than paying inane amounts of money for someone to theorize about my design. I don't want a website philosophizer (yes, that was intentional).Speaking of being silly and recognizing my own humor, did anyone else like the pat on their own back on page 25? "Incidentally, we think it's important for information architects to have a good sense of humor."

Honestly, I just think they try too hard in the first couple of chapters to defend the field and the need for the jobs to exist. I had no pre-conceptions going into the reading, yet immediately felt within a few pages that, as if I had attacked first, I had to deal with their whining about how needed and important their existence really is. To paraphrase an extremely overused, yet still effective Shakespearean quote: The Information Architect doth protest too much, methinks.

Comfort zone

I've gotten used to the old familiar Yahoo and Google searches. I tried the del.icio.us site and found it harder to find something. I found my "boom box with 3-cd changer and dual cassette" at Google, then my "music machine that plays 3 cd's, dual cassette, and record turntable". We can now play the records in our possession. Perhaps the most important value I see in del.icio.us is that you can now take your bookmarks with you when you travel, but I don't travel much, so what's the point?. I did find the readings entertaining as well as informative, so I didn't need much coffee. (Actually, I don't drink coffee.) It would be nice to know how to put a "search" box in a web site. Maybe when we read on . . .

Inconsistent audience for IA

While I was relieved to find the text for which I was responsible to be easily understood, I did find myself amused (if not annoyed) by the sudden and frequent shifts in audience. If a website was similarly structured so that the apparent audience shifted without warning or reason, it would score low on anyone's website rating scale. I'll keep this blog entry short, but I wondered if anyone else noticed this as well? Did you find it distracting? Perhaps I was just looking for something to use in my moderation! See you Wednesday.

Jake

scrambling

I was a little disappointed that our IA chapters didn’t seem to make more than a half-hearted stab at the difficulties of multiple audiences. It acknowledged the issue and suggested that we do as most universities do and organize around that, giving each audience a link through which they can move on to the rest of the site… but I was hoping for something to help those of us who are working on sites that aren’t large enough for that tactic. I suppose it may be more directly addressed in chapter 7 (labeling). I imagine the best thing to concentrate on is labels that all your audiences will understand…

I just wish that this bit (and ch. 7) had been assigned for last week so I’d really have had a chance to digest this material and incorporate it into my web proposal, instead of scrambling to find ways to apply this information effectively.

A Response to Information Architecture

I found "Information Architecture" very user friendly, and it's language and rhetoric is encouraging and inclusive, welcoming its audience into its field.

My only problem with it, I believe (besides its flagrant misuse of the term "deconstruction") is the vagueness of its diagrams.

It seems to me that most of these diagrams and figures are rhetorical devices used to present the illusion of clarity, as well as to achieve the traditional appeal of a "textbook," but, when actually looked at, don't make much sense.
Let's take figure 2-2 on p. 25 for example (it's the venn diagram that includes Content, Users, and Context.) What is this supposed to be? What do the overlapping sections of this diagram represent? Outside of a list of three concepts that are important to information archetecture, there isn't any information being delivered here.
The same applies to figure 2-1 on page 21. What is this? Outside of a listing of fields that either deal with web design or don't, I don't see any other purpose for this cluster of terms, nor do I see one for the specific cluster that this diagram takes.

I guess what I'm complaining about is a symptom of a larger ambiguity characteristic to the book as a whole (well, up through chapter 5, at least), where I find myself encountering a series of pleasantly presented and easily readable bits of concepts and facts, but I'm having to invent my own associations between them in order to give them a theoretical or practical unity. Maybe that's because I'm used to that kind of unity in the Web Style Guide and in the articles we've read in class. I'm not sure. Does anybody else share these concerns?

Information Architecture Readings

I have been having so much fun with these readings! First of all, they are chunked and easy to read (as Jake mentioned to me the other night in class). But how I have been having fun is by going to the web pages the authors cite right while I am reading (instead of telling myself I've got to check this out later). When I got to chapter 4 about the Gustavus home page, and the authors say, "You can't help but notice the site's colors (you'll have to take our word for it)"; that's when I decided not to take their "word" but to go to the site right away. It is quite attractive, and interesting to navigate see for yourself! I was also amazed at del.icio.us; this must be that the site that Elizabeth mentioned earlier in the semester? At any rate, I am in awe of it! I think it would be a great tool to show my students for them to collect sites, especially for their webography project we have coming up. But does anyone know how big the risk, if any, for losing your collected sites and information on del.icio.us? Does this kind of thing happen often? Lastly, here is a blog that seemed interesting for us based off or our readings; it is part of the Instone's site mentioned on page 48 for his Navigation Stress Test. I'm sure many of you either already looked at these links, or would be looking at them. I hope I didn't butt in on the moderators this week, but I was just so excited and I'm sure they will have much more to say and show than what I am doing! I just thought I'd throw up a few links to make it quicker and easier for you some of you to see these. But I really want to know about the reliability of del.icio.us, so if anyone knows anything, please respond!

Things I should have thought of earlier...

I was just thinking about Gregory's article and Neilsen's ugly webpages, and wondering why what has been appropriate for print is not appropriate for the web, and I think it's about audience. I don't think anyone has ever enjoyed reading long, wordy paragraphs with no section breaks or headers, but I think that print traditionally has had a smaller audience that has endured these painful things because they thought they had no choice. Enter the web, and a much wider audience, many of whom may read very little in the way of books or articles that are not for entertainment purposes (however difficult that may be to imagine, there are more people out there like this than there are of us). These people do not have the tolerance for wordiness and find the ordinarily accepted style of nonfiction writing soporific--it results in the MEGO effect (My Eyes Glaze Over). In writing you must accomodate the lowest common denominator (and I don't mean that in a derogatory way), so we must now take into account not just the understanding of our college-educated audience who reads crap because that's what they're used to, but to the masses who want their information written well, with concision and clarity.
It's interesting that it is for writing to a broader audience that we must hone our writing skills more than to our usual select audience. As most of us have learned, it is usually easier to write a longer paper than to say the same thing in just 1 or 2 pages.

Just a late thought I thought I'd put out there.

NIU & Music Piracy

Hello, all!

Related to our discussion last week, I heard on NPR today that 400 some students at 18 or so colleges around the country are going to be sued for pirating music. That is, if they don't take the plea deal being offered to them. Guess one of the colleges...yup, some NIU student is in trouble for illegally downloading music. I attempted to find a link to an article, but wasn't able to yet. Kind of freaky considering our presentation. What do you think?

Writing for the Web vs Print: Think of the User

Reading these articles made me have flashbacks to working for the American Dental Assn and going through the major redesign process back in 2002ish (nightmare -- so many departments to accommodate) and then flashback even farther to 1999 and working as an assitant editor for the American Med Assn Web site (we were still trying to figure out what this Internet business was all about -- but they had a site).

I think Gregory's statement about the writer should "be guided by their audience's needs and their communicative purpose" is a good rule to follow. I used to hear constantly at one place -- design the page so the main content is "above the fold" of the screen then people will be more inclined to read, ie, write fewer words, be more concise. Also, put the info in manageable chunks -- white space is good, no lengthy paragraphs like in print medium.

But, ultimately, it all depends on the users and in corporate context depending on company and purpose. For consumers, yes, writing shorter passages might be best -- keeps the reader focused and doesn't overwhelm them with too much info on a page. Yet, if you go to a medical journal Web site to access a peer-reviewed journal, the expectation of the reader (primarily healthcare providers) is to read a lengthy text with possibly long paragraphs online and scroll down (still you do try to break the paragraphs up some even the hated 1 sentence paragraph was promoted). Sure, sites have designed in various ways to make navigation more accommodating, but it depends on the needs of the user. The writing for Web then depends on the purpose and users -- same as in print.

When I sat behind a 2-way mirror at a focus group to watch users try to navigate through a site, following various tasks, it once again became clear that writing for the Web and writing in print has a similar goal -- consider the audience and the purpose.

The medium does need to be considered but in respect to writing, many of the same rules do apply.

Miscellaneous thoughts

Nothing from this week's readings jumped out as controversial, nor did I feel my normal "technology is the enemy" attitude welling up inside. Yet somehow, I have managed a few thoughts on both readings.

I was a bit disappointed with the Gregory article. I was hoping that more attention would be given to e-literature (short stories, novellas, etc.). Instead I felt the "guidelines" applied only to those "traditional" texts that naturally lent themselves to publishing on the web (i.e. pamphlets, brochures, marketing materials, etc.). I'm confident that if I read these guidelines to my 8th graders, at least half of them would give me a resounding "Duh" or "No kidding."

The Nielsen article made me wonder about the chicken or the egg. Do "Web pages have to employ scannable text" because people scan web sites, or do people scan web texts because they (for the most part) have always been scannable? The Internet thrives in no small part because it provides quick access to a world of information, and I would imagine that the first creators of websites considered this strongly as they developed site structure. Getting to a site in one second and then needing one hour to get your information doesn't make much sense. Did we need a study to prove this?

See you tomorrow,

Jake

Can you scan this?

In fact, you won't need to! (It'll be short). The Morkes and Nielsen article fits well with my web-reading practices, at least tonight. I jumped right to their short summary, but then I went back to the full article out of guilt. While reading the full article, however, I read mostly topic sentences, and scanned the rest! (How easily I'm persuaded by test results!) I did, however, bookmark the page for when I have "more time."


My biggest dissapointment, unlike some of our other posters, is that while I've been to Nebraska dozens of times, I've not been to one of its top six destinations! My mom, born and raised in NE, hasn't either! The good news is that I called her about this, and we now have a plan!

Creative user interfaces

I’m not sure how pertinent to our discussion this is—but it is undeniably the coolest navigational scheme I’ve ever seen or dreamed of. Etsy is kind of an online craft store where people can buy and sell things to each other; on the surface it sounds a lot like eBay, I suppose. But this site is all crafted around the user experience and is very community oriented—I actually kind felt like I was spying as I skimmed their forum boards.

The home page may look much like any other e-commerce site at first glance, but take a look at the options at the top of the left-hand menu column, and try the one called “Colors.” There is a help button if you can’t figure it out, but I found it to be quite user friendly, and brilliantly executed (it worked flawlessly on my dial-up connection at home)—not to mention that it’s fun to play with. I’m not sure of its ultimate practicality without a few more filter options (such as, only bring up jewelry, or accent furniture, etc.), but I think that with the creative community they’ve so carefully fostered, they’ve found a way to cater to their specific audience in an elegant and user friendly way. (There are 2 other alternate navigational paths, Time Machine & Time Machine 2, but I couldn't use them from my slow connection. I have little doubt that they are equally cool.)

In such a user-focused environment, I did find it rather jarring to see this in their FAQ section:

"Can I use HTML formatting in my Bio?
We do not allow any user-created HTML formatting anywhere on the site. We have designed Etsy to provide a consistent visual experience and this would interrupt that."

Interesting… and I bet people who are becoming more used to the Web 2.0 experience of customizing their spaces (like MySpace.com) were a bit frustrated with that bit. Other than this bit, which reflects, I’m sure, the frustration of designers trying to cope with Web 2.0, I think this site’s innovative approach should be an inspiration to us as web experience designers to think outside the box and try to give our users another way of accessing our information. (Sorry about the cliché!)