Team 3 Meeting Notes

Team 3 wiki

Next meeting - Friday March 2: Chloe, Luke, Tony, Stephanie meet 4pm, Luke will meet up at 6pm, Kristina at work.

Tuesday Feruary 26 continued discussion of wireframe and deliverables - see wiki.

Tuesday February 20 made draft wireframe, continue working on deliverables - see wiki.

Sunday February 18 5pm via IM Discussed design ideas and deliverables - see wiki.

Tuesday February 13 Discussed and distributed assignments - see wiki for details.

Tuesday February 6
Audience and contributors - college students and exceptional high school students. Goals, what do we really want to provide? Content sections: opinion, school papers (e.g. take a media law class and post course work on site for others to learn from your research). Determining success: if we're profitable as a nonprofit! (raise money for scholarships, potential publishing contact, solicited advertising), number of readership/visitors, usability, original content (not available), Interaction/incentives: -best paper gets published or wins a scholarship prize - similar to http://www.threadless.com/ -multimedia (e.g. podcast, video) not limited to written Real-life events Tone of site feel/branding: formal and edgy, youthful (college), academic yet human and interesting (not boring!), credible! Next meeting…figure out exactly what our next moves are and goal.

Sunday February 4 via IM
Kristina set up our group wiki – http://theyown.pbwiki.com/• Project Idea – a resource page for students who are interested in media careers with content accepted from students. • Class presentation – discussed readings and assigned who will present what on Tuesday February 6 (meet before class).

Tuesday January 30
Established point of contact (Stephanie) and shared contact info. • Discussed Team Roles – consensus was to have people assigned to three plus roles based on interest with one main person/ manager for each role. • Handouts – reviewed individually and together. • Viewed websites where people submit stories; they are a webmaster: http://english.ohmynews.com/index.asp http://www.fark.com/

Week 8 -- Applicable Technologies

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Everyone:Web Redesign, Chapter 6, Phase 4 : Production and QA (eReserve)
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Finally, the production phase! Production is easy one only needs to “create a website that looks and works the same for every user.” No worries, no need for the big team, everything is simplified…wrong! Just when you thought it was almost complete, you have to deal with code, web standards, templates, and again the favorite term “usability.” The goal is ironically to be simple and straightforward so get in gear with the production team needed for all the testing ahead.

Phase 4 stresses the importance of setting HTML guidelines and Quality Assurance (QA).

HTML guidelines: Avoid “duplication of effort; code each HTML page only once.” Remember, “the first HTML template sets the standard for globals such as navigation; table structure; HTML font usage; ALT, COMMENT, and TITLE tag treatments; and so on.” HTML is the base; each site feature requires some technical specification. Part of planning for successful, timely, project completion includes addressing this in the design.

QA: Preventative trial and error behind the scenes before the big launch. Provided the budget allows, extensive test planning is recommended. One has to make sure the website works for all platforms such MAC, WIN, UNIX etc. or browsers including AOL, Firefox, IE, Netscape, Opera etc. (universal web standards and less choice are sounding pretty good right now…someone needs to dictate computer code to the world…maybe not). Using bug tracking tools to help identify and fix bugs are advised.

Following the planning advice in Phase 4 promotes ultimate website happiness – a bug free, aesthetic, user friendly site!

Week 7 -- Color and Typography

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Everyone: Web ReDesign 2.0: Chapter 5, Design Visual Interface ;
Aesthetic Experience and the Importance of Visual Composition in Information Design ;
Web 2.0: Mistaking the Forest for the Trees? ;
Give Customers Short Paths To What They Want, a Gartner Report (eReserve)
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Web 2.0 is about all about the USER! Putting them in control so that they are satisfied and the purpose and popularity of a site is also satisfied.

In Mistaking the Forest for the Trees, Tim O’Reilly’s definition is quoted:
Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an "architecture of participation," and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.

Greenzweig’s article on Aesthetic Experience emphasizes the connections between aesthetics & information content, and text & image. Both are relevant for a gratifying user experience.

Web redesign 2.0 accentuates that good visual interface incorporates coordination and testing of:
-flow and functionality
-graphic template
-style guide

With the user in mind, reading after reading stresses planning; coordination and testing for successful web design. Common sense is more important than showcasing the latest technology or displaying lavishly useless creativity. The number one rule – unless there is a purpose, leave it out! Simplicity is better. These issues need to be addressed when connecting design aesthetic and information, all the while keeping in mind the user and their level of expertise. One does not want to alienate beginning or advanced users because the user is the sole purpose of designing a webpage; in order to do this one must remember the target audience.

Best advice - plan to make sure you have time to test your designs (color, typography etc.) for usability :-)

Entertainment Sites

Small Group 2-Entertainment

Definition:
Entertainment Website – sites people go to in leisure time for amusement/fun

Content: music, movies, plays, books, games, sports, celebrity

Design / what makes the genre "self-apparent":
Flashy
Color
Interactive (e.g. videos, podcast)

http://webstyleguide.com/site/entertainment.html
http://www.bandhosts.co.uk/

Sites which epitomize the genre:
http://www.eonline.com/
http://www.wwe.com/
http://www.blizzard.com/
http://www.foxhome.com/foxhome_main.html
http://www.image-entertainment.com/ (not an entertainment site but promotes entertainment)

A site that visually breaks the genre norm:
http://imdb.com/

Week 6 -- Web Site Genres

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Everyone:
No reading - book reviews due this week!
Post to your blog a short blurb about what you are reading - title, author, why you picked the book and some key points/arguments
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Title – Dan Gilmor

Author – We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People

Why – I chose this book for its renowned critique of critical issues surrounding the inevitable combination of technology and media which impacts webdesign message and content.

Key points/arguments:

Covering several topics, the book addresses how technologies such as weblogs, rss, mobile camera phones, etc. will and are currently transforming the roles of journalists, big business, politicians, government and more. The book also discusses the legal issues and implications of new technology in the United States including free speech, privacy, trolls, trust and creative commons. Gilmor advocates the idea of creative commons limiting his copyright with “some rights reserved” to 14 years and publishing the book online for individual use. He ultimately encourages experimentation, conversation and dialogue sparked from the ideas in his book.

Week 5 -- Information Architecture

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Everyone:
Web ReDesign 2.0: Chapter 4, Develop Site Structure
Blueprints for the Web: Organization for the Masses
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Group 3 also reads:
Cognitive Psychology & IA: From Theory to Practice,
Usability experts are from Mars, graphic designers are from Venus,
Visible Narratives: Understanding Visual Organization

What are the threads that unite these readings? Are there best practices that can be devised from these?
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Cognitive Psychology – helps to better understand and deliver good user experience.
• Categorization – be broad to include the most common approaches while realizing accommodating everyone is impossible.
• Visual Perception – proximity and similarity (i.e. gestalt design theory), how the human eye groups and understands images.
• Transference – learned expectations of behavior (e.g. one expects the scroll bar to be the same), can either be positive if expectations are confirmed or negative if resulting in an error.

Usability vs. Graphic Design – the battle between…
• Simple vs. Flashy
• Left vs. Right brained
• Masculine vs. Feminine
• Mars vs. Venus
-Can these opposites resolve issues and settle for “Peace Love and Understanding?”
-A happy medium between practicality and innovation in design is necessary to result in the desired positive user experience; balance and compromise!

Visual Organization – understanding both sides…
-“Interactive design [is] a seamless blend of graphic arts, technology, and psychology.”—Brad Wieners Wired, 2002
-“We find that people quickly evaluate a site by visual design alone.” —Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility, 2002
-“Visual designers working on the web need an understanding of the medium in which they work, so many have taken to code. Many have entered the usability lab. ”
• Visual Communication – personality/look/feel/vibe of an organization
• Principles of Perception – proximity, similarity, continuance, and closure (see gestalt)
• Visual Hierarchy and Weight – text and image layout through color, shape, size, etc.

Common themes/uniting threads from the articles:
1. Goal of a website is to create a positive user experience that also visually reflects the client’s desired image and please the user.
2. Considering, understanding and balancing all sides of usability and design are key to success.