Week 8: Applicable technologies

Reading: Web Redesign, Chapter 6, Phase 4 : Production and Quality Assessment
The article provided a detailed overview of the production workflow with some practical business and time management tips.
Introduced me to new concepts like client spec sheet, slicing, splicing, backend & front-end integration, guerilla testing … I liked that, especially the house-building/web design analogy (Pg 14). I thought it worked!
However, at times I felt I am reading something abstract without getting my hands dirty; like too much theory without practice. Now, I am raring to actually build a website and implement some of what I am learning.
As for the website design itself, I am not sure if the interspersed profiles (Kassirer, Zeldman) helped or distracted me. Though, I liked the content of these interviews, I think they interrupted my flow of thought. I guess, in a real (as opposed to virtual) magazine format, this would not have been an issue as the scrolling function would not have been vital to reading. But wait, maybe I am wrong. Maybe this is a chapter from a book that’s been scanned in? Is it?

Week 7: Color and Typography

Readings:
a) Information Design in Technical Communication: (http://orange.eserver.org/issues/1-1/)
b) Web 2.0: http://www.gotomedia.com/gotoreport/january2006/news_0106_forest.html
c) Give Customers Short Paths To What They Want: Brief Series September 29, 2003. “Best Practices For Designing Site Navigation Series” By Moira Dorsey With Harley Manning Michelle Amato, Forrester Research, Inc. (www.forrester.com)

Synthesis from my readings makes me think website design and navigation depend on two primary factors: Who is your audience and what is your site’s purpose?
Clearly, users value content and functionality above all else. Also, the website’s goal or purpose is essential to the design.
To illustrate my point, I’ll offer my experience trying to locate our class reading this week.
“Give Customers Short Paths To What They Want” proved to be an ironical header for an article that was difficult to locate on the EReserves site. Since that was the only article that could not have a live link, (I’m guessing because it is paid for content, copyright issues) it would have been helpful to not have it hidden inside a generic folder called “Groups.” Since I had some time on hand and also because I like to think of myself as a diligent student, I persisted and opened all the other article links till I hit upon the folder and found the assigned reading. From a user perspective, that was definitely a six-level hierarchy. J
Anyway, my point is, I plowed through the navigational issues only because I really wanted to read the article. So the audience needs and wants matters as does the value of the content. But this doesn’t mean websites should take users for granted and not pay attention to functionality and design. This becomes even more critical when you are trying to sell products/services. If users cannot locate what they want to buy in two/three clicks they are bound to look elsewhere. But if the website caters to student researchers/ academic journals, the design aspects take a bit of a backseat over content. At least that’s been my experience. It may change in the future.
Web 2.0 sounds like it may be that harbinger of that change. It says it will have a profound impact on how websites are designed. I'm fascinated by the concept, though, I don’t think I really understand how it all works.

Week 6: The book I plan to review

I’ve chosen Alan Cooper’s “The Inmates Are Running The Asylum” partly because it was the most attention-grabbing title of all the suggested books and partly because I had heard about Cooper and his concept of GOAL-DIRECTED (BTW, the concept is a registered trademark — putting COM 558 learning to use J) methodology through the Cooper U educational program (http://www.cooper.com/). His idea is “when you start your design and development work with the goals of users in mind, you achieve clarity, and your engagements go smoothly.”
This resonated with me and my COM 585 readings, so I decided to pick up this book. So far I am enjoying the humor, the examples and conversational style of writing. Waiting to see how Cooper ties all the parts and chapters together.

Book title: The Inmates Are Running The Asylum — Why high-tech products drive us crazy and how to restore the sanity
ISBN: 0-672-31649-8