incessant ramblings

There's not much to say. I pretty much agree with what Curtis wrote. A site shouldn't need all the bells and whistles that many have. To be creative and beautiful does not mean it has to be complex on the user's side (though sometimes it may be on the developer side).

The problem comes down to audience...kind of. We can make assumptions about the types of computers and connections certain demographics would have. But just as it is true that we have to keep up with technology as designers...we also need to realize that others are keeping up with technology too.

How do we determine the abilities of the user's station so we know what we can design for? Should we design for x-amount of years back in computers? Should we even bother with people still using 56k connections or lower? OR again should we be doing a "slow connection" version...which also means, more work.


Filtering for this type of stuff is great. It makes us not go overboard. But how far is too far?? Maybe the people living 10 years in the past need to catch up.

http://www.plusgood.co.uk/
Very unique site an online friend posted on Facebook a few days ago (though I just realized it's on FWA now >.<). I'd say it's pretty much perfect for this assignment. Not only do they have a Flash version...but they also have a functioning accessible version that does the same thing, which is great since not everyone has flash, but they may want to have fun with the site as well! It's a bit hard to navigate, but once you get used to it it's fun to play around with 9they also have the main links you may want in the bottom left corner). It almost reminds me of those old books where you get to choose how they story continues by flipping to different pages. The site even has a Pong game on it if you choose the right combination.


http://www.getoutthere.qld.gov.au/
A fun little site that is general information for young people starting to go out own their own. Impressive for a government site. I think this site has a few issues, but because it has a quick nav as well when you move your mouse it makes it easier to use for those that want "less" experience. It reminds me of Sim City :P The site runs a bit slow on my computers...so that is a down side.


http://www.neave.com
Lots of interesting activities to do here, even stuff that interacts with your microphone and webcam if you have one. The navigation of the website is pretty normal, but I thought the content was what put this in to the experience side of things.



http://www.bio-bak.nl
Well...the site is...interesting...but I can't figure it out! Plus you have to wait for the images to load as you scroll around and zoom in/out. I like it...but it was just difficult. This is the only reason I put it under bad.

I'm torn. As a designer, of course we would love to see more interaction and experience in websites, even if that is their only purpose. Unfortunately, how many people are on the web for just that? People are on the web usually for a specific reason. That reason doesn't have to be "to get information"...and sure your reason could just be "I'm bored and want to browse". But usually people don't want to stumble upon things that htey have no idea what to do. Take a flash website for instance (maybe, a portfolio?). Unless I have to be there to find something out...if there are no obvious buttons I'd probably just leave. I should be able to figure out what the buttons do without actually having to click them to see. But they don't have to be labeled.

So again, as a design I like to see all the bells and whistles. But as your average internet user...not so much.

What Buckley suggest seems like something more than a web site. There's nothing wrong with web-based online entertainment...but is there a demand for it? When I want interaction, I go play games.

Steve Krug brought up many interesting and great points about usability. I would agree that most web users scan instead of read through like a novel they want to read. Heck, I do that myself. But then he brings up things like "Employment Opportunities" vs. "Jobs". Isn't Employment opportunities self explanatory? Who, that is looking for a job, doesn't know what employment is? Or an opportunity?

I somewhat agree on the search function though. Guys, I just want to search. If I have to choose how I'm searching, beyond Google, it's just annoying. Sometimes I have to perform multiple searches if there's things like Title, Author, Keyword, because I don't choose the right option. It's not a multiple choice test guys...just let me search, please. On the other hand, if I'm on Amazon searching for a DVD, and I choose to search books, I'm an idiot. Fair enough. I do like those types of distinctions.

His example of buttons though...just because a button is flat doesn't mean it's not a button. Why should things have to "pop out" of the screen for you to know they're a button or a link? There are certain things that are common enough on the internet to make you know something is a link. If it's your first time on the internet, perhaps it's time you learn a thing or two. For instance, generally text-links are a different color or style on a site to make them stand out. If you see that color/style, you can usually say "oh it's a link". Now, if people are using that color or style on other things that aren't links as well, then there's a possible issue. Say you have a site that is 3 colors (black, blue, white). Black background, white text, and then blue or styled white text needs to be used for hierarchy. Will bold white links stand out enough? Or do they need to be blue? But then if you use blue, can you use blue in the larger headings and expect people to not try to click on them? It's enough to give a designer a headache. But we are here to solve those problems.

It is hard for me to believe so many people are internet (or even computer) illiterate. Of course, I do believe it...but at an age where I grew up with the internet and computers, it makes me impatient when I have to explain to people how to use something pretty basic. Maybe it's because I had a bit of access to a computer and the internet before most people my own age did, and it fascinated me. I think I was around age 10 when I got a computer in my own room. Good times.

All in all, I do believe the internet should be user friendly. Perhaps this is why I'm not a fan of full-flash websites (the back button is one of my best friends...and Flash hates it :< style="font-weight: bold;">much thought" rather than "no thought at all".

After all...the use of the brain keeps it young. If we didn't have to think, even just a bit, we'd become more drone-like than our society already is.

Honestly, I am horrible at doing a process for a lot of things. When doing just a logo, I find it easy. Make a word list...sketch out the ideas (no matter how horrible I am at sketching)...and take it to the computer. With animation (the little bit that I've done), I will sit there and sketch out some key frames, characters, etc. But with websites...that's a whole other story.

Sketches? Wireframes? Oh no! I'm one of those people that likes to get an idea in their head, sit down, and fiddle with the idea straight on the computer. Often times, things get scrapped. But then I have a backbone for a possible future project, or at least something to show people. I never delete my scrapped work for that reason.

I'm not saying process is bad. Oh, quite the contrary. I am sure if I could get used to it I'd have a grand old time sketching out my ideas. But as someone who has done almost ALL her artwork digitally, it's almost intimidating. I know the sketches are just for ideation...but there's something about me that when i sit down with a pencil and paper, I better have an eraser handy. There's also just something about working in full color instead of just sketches...




As for audience, it's difficult to think of your audience when you are creating the whole concept and everything. I know who my main audience is on my personal sites...If I were to have a client they'd generally have an audience in mind as well. But when you have to decide for yourself, that's where it gets tricky.

With the film festival website it's especially difficult. If your film festival is general, then your site should be for the general public too. Then you get the dilemma I'm having. Having a general audience opens up a full can of design possibilities. But then there's also the fact that you can't please everyone. I can't see a design being liked by everyone of all ages...so instead I had to think further in to it.

If this is a family friendly festival, who is most likely going to be looking at the site? Parents perhaps, who want to SEE that it's a kid-friendly event. So it should be friendly as well. Maybe there is a teen who wants their parents to take them to the festival because they are in to that type of thing...so the site should be enticing for that age group. Trendy perhaps. Maybe college students who take interest in film or even just the arts in general.

I think when it comes to older people (50-60+), they might not be going for the festival itself, but to see a specific movie. So maybe the website won't matter so much to them (not to mention many people this age still aren't using computers as their source of information...they may appreciate a pamphlet instead).

It's sometimes difficult to design for all ages and still make it fun to look at for everyone. You don't want to make something completely boring (as I've seen many actual festival sites are...low budget doesn't mean it has to be bland!).

Seriously? I didn't find any information leading to this name being taken. Excuse me for my lame and cliche name, but I have some reason for it. Washington has the largest ferry system in the nation. WSF is the main sponsor of this event.

Concept: A general international film festival containing several genre's and awards. The catch comes at the venues. It promotes use of the main transportation system around the Sound and gives some tourism to a somewhat smaller area.

Venues: Several places in Seattle and Bremerton. With a paid ticket to the festival, you gain free access to a special ferry boat that travels between the two towns. Short films will be shown on the rides over and back.

Audience: While the genres are fairly broad, because of the location many Northwest film makers submit films to the festival. Because of this there would likely be many nature-friendly films which may attract a younger "green" audience (younger, as in young adult-middle aged). However, this will be a family friendly environment so all ages are welcome.

For the website, because it is an event based for family fun, should be fun itself, but still somewhat professional. Many Film Festival websites seem very bland. Let us raise the bar, at least a little bit.

The website will of course give information about the festival itself and the films, but it will also contain a section talking about the culture of the area, and highlight other things worth seeing around the area.

Ah the joys of ambiguity. When coming to Western as a transfer student, I was quite unsure of what the heck I was going to be doing. I didn't come from a large design-class background. I took a couple classes in high school, and the more basic art classes in community college. But never had I heard the term "new media". I was scared and confused! "What concentration should I take? What would I be studying if I joined New Media?"

I have aspired to be a web designer for a long time, but have also been confused on whether I wanted to be coding websites or designing them. All I could come up with was the answer of "a little of both". Then came the question that seems to be on everyone's mind when it comes to this program..."Am I going to learn to code or not?" Luckily in this program, the answer was actually both. Learning the basics of XHTML is great, even if you don't want to code websites int he future it's a good tool to have on your utility belt. As a DESIGNER you really don't need to know anything advanced, but it helps to have those basics so you can help out if needed.

While some of us want to know the more advanced coding languages, such as PHP, AJAX, etc., it is really not a necessity for our likely future jobs. If you do learn it on your own, hey that's awesome! You have more open doors. The unfortunate part is you may end up not getting to do much of the design part that you love so much. I personally would love to learn this stuff. I am slowly learning it on my own, but really for personal reasons. Even though I enjoy the occasional coding, I think doing it for my own sites is quite enough!



But more to the point..."new media." What a horrible term. Much of what we are doing IS new, because the technology changes so much. But it's basics do not change. It also depends on your views of what "new" is. The first crappy website I made was AT LEAST 8 years ago. Is web design really new anymore? What about video? Sound? None of this is new...it is just evolving. I agree that the term "Interactive" or "Communication" or heck, even just plain "Digital" would be a better term than new. We're not designing holograms or anything (not yet!). The mediums we are presenting on are not so new (with the exception of mobile technology)...just getting better quality.

Oi, I need to learn not to write mini-essays.

The Web Design Survey 2007 brought many surprises indeed. It's very interesting to see the field in numbers. While it obviously doesn't show the whole world of web design, it at least gives a general idea. It's likely a pretty accurate representation, at least if the survey was random.

I was quite surprised at the amount of people who were white. Perhaps it's because we're from a Pacific Northwest background where a lot of Asian people reside. I would have thought there would be more Asian background web designers.

While it was interesting to see the large differences in job titles, I am more interested to know how many people strictly do coding OR designing, and how many actually do both. This interests me because I enjoy doing both in my free time (though admittedly I am very lazy when it comes to code so often times my designs just sit in the form of PSDs and never get to live their lives out on the web. I think it's time I get a slave sidekick coder...).

Speaking of titles. There were sooo many listed! When the whole survey is for web design, what becomes the difference in a "web designer" and just a "designer"?

The ages of those who were surveyed also stuck out at me. Ignoring the fact that the bar graph looks like a hand with a highly disproportionate "favorite finger", I was quite surprised at how large that middle group was. While I would expect to see more young people, seeing as the web is a fairly "new" thing when it comes to the design aspect, it just seems like there would be a bit less of a drop in numbers.

The gender thing? Actually doesn't surprise me. While yes there are more females in our senior class than males, I don't actually meet many females who are so gung-ho on web design. Not to mention it's apparently still taboo for women to be on the internet. According to everyone you meet on IRC: 'men are men, women are men, and little girls are FBI agents'. Go play an online game. Good luck trying to convince someone you're a girl, unless they also happen to be female. This is why the gender split does not surprise me one bit.

And because I don['t want this to get too long, the last observation I would like to make is the amount of people who have been at their current job less than one year, compared to how long they've been working in the field. Apparently web designers hop around jobs quite a bit!


This survey is quite interesting. It's pretty long though, and somewhat difficult to look at on a PC. I am definitely going to have to print this out and check it out more!

Better late than never.

While the Bush's writings were hard to follow, there is still the fact that the memex shows a striking resemblance to today's internet, with a lot of added bells and whistles.

As stated, human memory relies on the association of information. The internet has come to mimic this quite well, especially more recently with the introduction of things such as Wikipedia, social bookmarking sites, and the tags on blogs. Like the memory of a human, it has nearly limitless space, it changes by the minute, and it is not absolute. Everyone's associations are different, just like the information on the web has different associations depending on who has created or viewed it.

While the memex allows association as well, it becomes more complicated than I think would be convenient. It would have relied on codes to call up information...codes which would have been stored in a book (one of the very things the machine was supposed to store I might add!). With the internet, we have things like Google where we can search for a subject and find thousands of relevant websites with information on the topic. No need to look up a string of numbers...just know what you want to know! Or you may just have a site bookmarked. Click it and you're there!

One thing the idea did well was the ability to bring up multiple documents at once. It allows for so many more uses of the machine. It would be awfully hard to compare documents when you keep having to switch back and forth.

As for the storage of books, there is a nice feeling about having a library/collection of physical books. Or maybe it's just me. I love to sit around and read a book, rather than staring in to a back-lit screen which can eventually give me large headaches. Luckily for us, I don't think the death of the book is coming too soon, if ever. If it does, I may just die a little inside.

While the memex had many functions that one would find quite useful when searching or scrolling through information, it's levers and keys do not compare to the simple point/click/type functions of the computer. The memex seems to be for people who know what they want. The internet is for those who maybe don't know right away, but will soon find out.

Though from the sound of it, the memex could be a nightmare for the obsessive compulsive user! Too many ways to organize, and oh so little time. Then again, computers and the internet are like this anyway. Being a little OCD myself, the internet makes my head hurt.


Wow this looks way longer when it's been published.