Week Eight Readings
Nothing is ever as straightforward, easy or clearcut as one thinks. Everything I have read this quarter has reinforced that thought for me. The chapter from Web Redesign certainly continues the path. The complexity of webpage development or redevelopment is mind boggling. The need for strong leadership, thoughtful design, capable working partners, good business practices and skills, it's all there and more. From what was stressed in the chapter, web development like many businesses is plagued by recurring problems. The need for redoing code, scope creep, content nondelivery, lack of QA and usability testing and the time to do it, are things mentioned often in the chapter and in class. There appears to be a large gap between the business of web development and what best practices of web development should be.
Reading E-Commerce only confirmed what I have noticed about myself when I have shopped online. If you use a search engine, you are more likely to shop only for what you are specifically looking for but if you use a specific site such as E-Bay or Amazon, you can easily lose your "self-regulation" and end up buying those Paul Greene shoes that you didn't know you needed. The implication for marketers that the recreational shopper was not necessarily the desired shopper really caught my attention. I would have thought they were the perfect impulse shopper but the time browsing, using server space, leaving without buying and returning unwanted goods makes them sound almost normal!
As in the bricks and mortar world, where it took a long time for accessibility to buildings to be standardized, the author in Standards and accessibility Compliance explains the difficulty in developing a website that not only addressed what the standards for accessibility should be but also was in and of itself accessible. Makes one realize how much we all take for granted. I enjoyed reading this article and found it thought provoking and a breath of fresh air after those deficient self-regulating shoppers.
Legacy Businesses in Web 2.0
I year ago, I heard a presentation by Joe Esposito, a former editor, publisher and someone who knows a lot about the scholarly publishing business. His talk was about scholarly publishing and what things like Open Access and User based Web pages had to do with scholarly publishing as the audience knew it. What he said to us was even more applicable today, not just to scholarly publishers but to many other businesses.
He told us that we were what he considered legacy businesses. Even though we had moved to online publishing, we were no longer innovating. We dug in our heels when it came to anything that threatened copyright and we refused to negotiate with what we considered the oppostion, the Open Access movement. We were only innovative when we were forced to be and our business models had not changed in probably fifty years. Our businesses had matured and now we were/are static, we're dinasaurs. When I think back to the end of the presentation, there was polite applause and no questions. I don't think anyone believed him or they were like me, stunned.
I am remembering this following the readings, particularly Dave Rogers, Mistaking the Forest for the Trees and The Forester Report on Give Customers Short Paths to What they Want. Like many other businesses, the publishers who moved scholarly publishing to online were business men and women not prepared for what was to come. Unfortunately, many of these same people are still in charge today and they are not paying attention to Web 2.0 or their users.
Three of Roger's points Share What We Know; Break New Ground; and Move Beyond Site-Centeredness speak directly to publishers. The major stumbling block for all publishers now is mapping a business plan that can encompass these three points and still make money. To do that, they will need to rethink copyright, rethink who the user is and will be in five years, rethink peer-review and rethink what scholarly publishing is supposed to mean.
This could be one of the most exciting times for publishers or one of the worst. It only depends on a few getting on the Cluetrain.
Norman Doors and the function of design
You will never open a door again without thinking about Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things, at least not if you read his book. The same goes for light switches, teapots and just about any other everyday thing you come across in your daily life. Norman takes apart modern conveniences, showing how they are not always the convenience we think they are and he also is delightfully reassuring in explaining that it's not all your fault that you cannot seem to get all these items to work correctly.
But it isn't just that he explains why they don't work, he goes far beyond that, delving into how we interpret the world and how our thought patterns influence how we work out how to use things. He's fascinating and an absolute kick to read. All the irritations I have with design, he does too. So I admit, I have become a Normanite and I want to tell everyone about him. Everyone should read this book and then walk through their house or apartment and notice all the stuff that doesn't really work but we accept anyway.
There is a store downtown Seattle called Design Concern and it carries very cool gift items from across the world but more often from Japan and Europe. It just reinforces the idea about the different ways design developed here in the US as opposed to across the pond. Always makes me want to move to Europe.
It's all about Structure
The Readings for this week Blueprints for the Web: organization for the Masses and Hierarchy and Contrast: The Basis of Good Design zero in on the need for well developed structure in building good design. Creating the road signs for the user to easily pick out, sending them on the path to where they want to go, no easy task. What is so elementary becomes near impossible or so it seems but both authors have solid ideas for ways to begin. Halverson and Wodtke come at the equation from different angles but essentially they are both arguing for developing an clear outline that not you the developer but all the users can easily understand.
They both argue for letting the user see the most important information first and then creating a hierarchy that makes sense to the users. If it only makes sense to the developer, it's probably a bad design. Continue by ensuring that the organization remains simple and the more complicated the site, the more important this becomes. I think of this as keeping the site clean.
Use color and contrast but sparingly. Color and contrast divert the brain to look here or there but if used to much they cause overload. Think Audrey Hephurn not Paris Hilton. What they are describing is the basis of all good design. But good design does not happen easily, it never has and we can just go back to Winston for a reminder that the best design does not always survive.
What is intriguing is that the most clever, ingenious, gorgeous, workable, usable, smartest designs always appear the most deceiving simple. I find this universal in good design which lends credence to the idea that there must be best practices for designers. At the top of this list would be creating a clear road map or what Halverson calls hierarchy and what Wodtke uses a card sort to achieve that same idea. Side by side with the hierarchy is that it is designed by the user, in the sense that the designer works at creation from the user's standpoint not from a designer standpoint.
Two things here, Drew's remark about a sense of naivete, finding that again, I believe this is a trait all designers must have and naivete is probably one of the first things lost in one's career (unfortunately true for most of us. Second, Norman's thoughts on how hard it is to change design after they have become part of the culture - a most important thought when trying to create software of web pages that are better designs than what has come before. We get used to the crummy design and find it hard to break out of the old habit.
Cluetrain Manifesto
As a student of communications and someone exceeding interested in marketing, do I think the Cluetrain Manifesto is still relevant today? Yes, the idea that markets are conversations is still fundamental, it was before Cluetrain and it will be long after Cluetrain.
Do I think companies have changed and are paying attention to the conversation online? Companies that always listened to their customers are probably still listening and companies that try to manipulate the market are still manipulating.
Has the philosophy of Cluetrain changed how we communicate with others in business? Speaking as a vendor, it has eliminated down time. Response to problems needs to be immediate, we are available to our customers 24/7. Speaking as a customer I don't see large corporations be any more responsive than they have been in the past. That said, I love buying airline tickets online just like that.
Has the philosophy changed the message? I don't know that it is the philosophy as much as it is the medium. I cannot easily speak to my clients in Amsterdam, Singapore, New Delhi or Rio because of language and time differences. I can email them in English and develop good working trusting relationships in a few short days. So yes the medium changed the message but I don't think that is was a direct response to Cluetrain. I see it as the natural progression of change brought about by technology.
Maybe if I had read this when it came out I would have been more impressed but I found it underwhelming in its philosophy and overwhelming in its verbosity. I felt bludgeoned by it and by the end I was so sick of it, I had a difficult time trying to write about it objectively.
Affordances and Gestalt
We humans are too clever for our own good. As I understand the Gestalt Theory of Design, humans preceive the visual world by manipulating what we see so that it fits our sense of how we think it should be. I don't mean we are actively manipulating what we see but that on an unconscious level, our mind is working to bring order to what we are looking at. Apparently we like order and we like things to be whole, so we want design to be orderly and fit patterns that go, God only knows how far back. It must go back to our primitive brainstem and have something to do with survival and sensing danger by noting that something was out of place in nature. Moving on, as we became more sophisticated and large brained beings that sense of orderliness found its way into the objects and tools we created. It is inherent in human nature and it's manifestations are to be found in all cultures.
How the Gestalt Theory of Design fits in with Don Norman and Affordances is that when we go to use a tool or a software program or anything humanly designed, there are perceived or real "actionable properties" between us and the object. These are affordances. If we accept the Gestalt theory of design than affordances are those properties of a things that help us to see the whole and order of the design, whether this in fact is the case or not. I read on another website a good example of this, the real properties of a rubber ball are its shape, its rubberness, its color etc. It's perceived properties are what that ball should be used for and the actionable properties or affordance are the relationship between the properties and the person acting on the ball. So an affordance helps us figure out the "thing" we are trying to use, it helps us see the whole beyond the parts and make sense of the "thing" in our world. The faster and faster our world changes, the more technology takes over, the more difficult it becomes for us to make sens of the whole to create the order that primitive part of us still craves. Affordances give us the clues to the order.
It seems to me a very complicated way of saying that good design takes into account humankind's needs for order and wholeness and fulfills those needs in the simplest, most straightforward and pleasing manner. Taking into account the unconscious, good design solves complex questions and invites discovery at the same time it does not thwart human curiosity. It encourages rather than discourages.
I needed to let all of this percolate for a while, the first time I read Norman I didn't get what was so special. It was only after putting Gestalt and Affordance together that I realized what a pretty piece of insight his idea is. My apprecation of good design has jumped tenfold.
Websites
http://www.worldcitizenguide.com is what gave me the idea of combining Drew, Brian's and Jyotsna's ideas together and do a seattlecitizenguide for students. The opening page reminds me of a James Bond movie preview but I liked the simplicity of the site. The setup could be easily expanded to add more pages. I particularly like the design of and colors, it gives one the sense of one person all alone among many and at the same time its giving you a place to find out how not to be alone. I'm thinking the seattlestudentguide could be quite useful and it certainly could be continually expanded overtime.
http://www.mercycorps.org is a good site for a nonprofit idea. I like this site because even though they present a ton of information, navigation s straightforward and well presented. The photos of the children draw you in and you want to know more. Like the use of stories and its not just asking for money but giving information on progress made. Colors are warm and inviting.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/communities/onionstreet is another good example of a student oriented site even if its for young students. It is pleasant mix of actual typeface and more graphical typeface. It has the kind of creativity I remember enjoying as a kid and its obvious that it knows lots of kids are by themselves afterschool and need some company while doing schoolwork. Very interactive, the artwork page is really fun and would definitely be a draw to kids.
Class Project
I'm torn between Brian's and Drew's Crew. Drew's crew is more community oriented but Brian's idea is appealing and makes me smile. I had one other idea, kind of a combo, use the idea of story telling and immigration but restrict it to students and start with our class. The site could be used to help orient students new to Seattle. It would detail not only the unofficial aspects of student life but it could also detail Seattle's many highlights and lowlights.
We have lots of resources in our classmates for giving advice about Seattle quirks, for telling stories about what was difficult in moving to Seattle, and even how Seattle and the Univ is different from even five years ago. It could incorporate podcasts of interviews and stories of students life back home. It could be expanded to neighborhoods, restaurants. It goes on and on.
Just tell me what to do
In my work, I do some design, some marketing, some copy editing and some managing editor type tasks. I know lots of software programs a little and only a few really well. By default, (probably because I'm the oldest one in the office), I am the liaison with our vendors, our printer and our online publisher etc. Because of that I often have to do what I call the icky work, telling a vendor they have lost the job, dealing with employee breakdowns, the usual stuff.
Because of that, I do not want to have any kind of managing role in our project. I also do not want to moderate anything or anyone. I don't usually collaborate with anyone in my work and that is what I really want to learn more about, the process of creating something together. I'm particularly interested in getting enough diverse ideas going that something really new and creative evolves. It is all about the process!
In our office, Suzanne, our IT enfant terrible does all the really hard computer stuff and once in a while I understand what she's telling me. I would like to understand what she is telling me more often and maybe even have a real conversation with her. So number two on my list of goals is learning the technical side of digital design. I want to learn the back end of the web page and I would like to be able to discuss the technical stuff intelligently with others. I want to see if I even have any geek matter in my left brain and if I don't then how can I get around that working with technical people.
My third goal is learning podcasting and the basics of Dreamweaver. I'd say I want to learn Flash but I don't even know enough about it to think that I should. So I'll do anything that has to do with the technical side of the site and I'd like to stay away from the writing, editing and design. And as I said earlier no managing or moderating.
