Final Project

So, I posted my assignment in the class wiki, but just to be sure, I thought I'd put it here as well. So, if you feel like learning about Ease, click here.

Another Great Day (Read Sarcasticly)

Well, I can't say this has been the best semester for me. Besides feeling sick most of the time, and being behind in almost all my classes, bad things just seem to keep happening to me. My latest joy? A broken mount and strut on my neon. That means $525 taken from my checking account. So, I'm 24 years old with $17 to my name. Oh, and a car that will be ready next Thursday. At least there's not an important holiday coming up where I will be expected to buy gifts for all my loved ones. That would suck. Anyway, I haven't not had a car since I was 15 and bought a ford festiva for $250. I forgot how annoying it is to rely on others for rides. Almost as annoying as walking in cold weather and snow for 30 mintues just to get milk to make mac and cheese. Almost. So, I'm excited for this semester to be over. My plans: Sleep for a week, work for a week, visit Steph in California for a week, and of course, going to Green Bay for the Packers vs. Seahawks game on January 1st. Section 113, ROW 4!!! Added bonus-the tickets were free and staying with friends will provide free food and lodging. I'm loving my schedule and classes for next semseter, too (taking an editing class with Dilger) and I already have a job after I graduate, so I really just have to make it through this semester alive and I'll be okay. Okay, I'm done venting now. I'm going to go watch a movie with some friends, where I'll fall asleep after the first 10 minutes.

New Media

Well, it's been a while since I've posted. I missed class on Monday because of car problems, so I may be a little behind everyone, but I find the topic of "new media" to be interesting. As a soon-to-be journalist, I found the Weblog article to be especially interesting. I agree with the article's overall point that blogging is not journalism.

"It is unrealistic to apply the standards of journalism to bloggers who rarely have the time or resources to actually report the news."

It was good to hear that bloggers won't be taking all the journalism jobs, but it was also something new for me to think about how blogging is effecting journalism. I agree that most bloggers don't have the resources to report news adequately, but it was interesting to explore the impact they are having and think about how things may develop further in the future. It was weird to think about staying in the journalism field for fifty years and the changes I would have to go through to adapt to developing technology and media.

The other articles were interesting as well, just not as personal. It was interesting to see how many components of "new" media have been around for quite a while.

Assignment #1-Standards

Well, I finally finished assignment #1. CLICK HERE if you would like to see my thoughts on standards. I find it ironic that after spending so much time reading about standards and talking about how great they are, I'm not even sure if I followed them in making my site. I couldn't get the validator thing to work. But anyway, I think I'm done. As for assignment #2, I think I would like to explore the topic of "Ease" and how it relates to how web sites are created and used. People always want to find the easiest way to do something and if it's not easy, they just move on. I think ease goes with several of the topics we have already covered, but I would like to explore it a bit more. Anyway, I am SO ready for break.

Quesenbery vs. Nielsen

There are definately differences in the definitions Quesenbery and Nielsen use for usability. Nielsen uses a more philisophical definition, saying there are two main parts of usability-a quality assurance methodology and a belief system that aims to ensure human mastery of the constructed environment. Quensenbery, on the other hand, breaks usability into five parts-effective, efficient, engaging, error tolerant, and easy to learn-where all these together help guide creators to the goal of usable products. Though both of the definitions are useful in helping me understand usability and its importance, I appreciated the Quesenbery definition and article more. The Nielsen article got me thinking about why usability was so important and why it's needed to ensure user rights, but Quensenbery was more helpful because it gave a definition of usabilty that showed me how to check for usability. It seemed much more straight-forward to me and was more useful. As for what technologies we can think about in terms of usability, I think pretty much everything is up for grabs. It seems that everything can always be done better or easier.

Usability

This week's readings on usability were interesting and easy to read so I enjoyed them. The Quesenbery article helped me understand what elements are involved in usability (effective, efficient, engaging, error tolerant, and easy to learn) and ways to check and see if they are used well. I think it made a good point about how you should just see how things are being used to see if they are functioning well or if people are having problems or see an easier way of doing something. The Nielsen article was interesting as well and helped me tie usability into other topics we've covered like interfaces, simplicity, and design. While it talked about whether usability was empiricism or ideology, the main point I got out of it was that usability testing is incrediblly valuable. It helps to see if an idea works in the real world and will be a success, and it helps ensure human rights. I never thought about things like people being superior to technology, empowerment, simplicity, and respect of time to be human rights, but I definately see how they are part of usuability and will make things more effective. It's true that there's always another site to visit if the one you're on is annoying or dificult. The larger Quesenbery article went much more in debt on the topic. It explains how the meaning of usability is much more than "easy to use" and goes into detail on the 5 E's of usability mentioned above. It also goes on to explain how to find the balance between the 5 E's and incorporate them all into an effective website. This article made me realize how much work goes into making sure a web-site is "user-friendly" and deals with the 5 E's. It sounded pretty simple in the beginning but I had no idea how much planning, testing, and evaluating were used for it. I can see how it's a very important area though.

Design Thoughts

Well, the readings on design were refreshing because, unlike everything else we've read, I already knew alot of the information. Using Text Organizers was a good article that reminded me you don't always need to find photos or clip art to make things look nicer, you can just do cool things with text. The weird fake articles within the article were interesting as well. The Web Design from Scratch article was pretty basic as well. I thought it made a good point that when you're designing, you need a better goal than "I want my webpage to look neat" because you never really know when you're done with it then. The rest of the article seemed like things we have already talked about when covering other topics like accesibility and interface-they stress that you have to design a web page in a way that will be most beneficial to the way actual people use the web. Nielsen's article was also pretty basic stuff about the differences between print design and web design. It talks about dimensionality, nativagation, response time, resolution, and canvas size and how print designs have the upper hand in this area but I agree with the article that even though that's true, the web is still more popular because it's more interactive. I found this article a bit depressing though, especially while reading that all the benefits of getting an actual newspaper will be gone in about 10 years when pages download faster than you can turn a page to a newspaper (I think that's already happened), screen resolution sharpens, and we have huge screens the size of a newspaper spread (which seems a little too large to really be practical-especially with the growing popularity of laptops). As a journalism major, it's sad to see declines in the amount of actual papers printed-I know you have to change with the times and online newspapers are very popular and cheaper, but there's just something about an actual newspaper that I love. And as a future journalist, I would feel much "cooler" if I saw an article I wrote in actual print instead of online. Everyone can write online these days-it takes the specialness out of it. Anyway, I'm rambling-but I think the article did a good job of pointing out that designing a web page is completely different than designing a newspaper and if you don't use the right design, your publication isn't going to be very effective. The Web Style Guide had alot to say on design but it was all pretty much review. I also noticed how in it, design was tied to pretty much every other topic we have covered in our class. As far as the WIU Library search thingy, I'm not sure what the design problems are. I think it's weird that you can check a category and then it atomatically checks things in the individual resources section. It's also annoying that you can't just type in a keyword at the top and then it automatically searches everything, you have to pick out specific databases. I know I personally don't care what database I get it from, I just want the information. Anyway, maybe we'll talk about that more in class today so I may have more comments later.