John Lemza's Clio II Blog

Designer's Glasses

This week as I worked my way through the final stages of my individual project I was struck by how my thoughts of 'audience' drove my creative spirit. It was difficult for me not to image the groups or groups of that I was building my site for. It was as if I kept looking through various glasses visualizing my site as others might. This most likely steered some of my decisions for design as well as content. My experiences teaching both survey level college classes and classes for senior citizens at times worked at odds, but through it I imagined the types of things they would want to see, and the questions they would ask. I hope that my work reaches both those groups and more, but I could understand that their influence governed my actions to a certain extent. On top of that I could not escape my own prejudices in the selection of materials and content. I suppose that crafting the site was a bit like visiting the eye doctor when she dropping and changing various lens before your eyes and keeps asking," Do you see better now? Or now? How about now?" I just hope my website comes out 20-20.

During the past few days I've exchanged some thoughts with:

Curtis: regarding his thoughts on design brevity and substance

Alex: commenting on his header redo; looking better!

Lynn: on design versus substance; and a cool photo!

Blog Postings for 19 April 2010

This week I commented on the following colleague's thoughts:

Toni Bowman: I agree with her thoughts on groups critiques on Tuesday night.

David (Dan) Colamaria: I offered comments on changes to his banner.

Dan Gifford: I appreciated Dan's concerns regarding the trials of group critiques.

Chris James: I commented on Chris' changes to his design page.

Design Assignment Tricked Out

My Design Assignment is now all 'tricked-out' as my son would say. I've applied all the suggestions made on Tuesday night. I think I looks great. Thanks again for all your helpful comments!

Zipfology

This week’s piece by Jakob Nielsen, Participation Inequality, raises a great many questions that may not have many answers, or any answers at all, particularly if we don’t care about the question. I am simply amazed that anyone took the time to survey the landscape and collect the necessary data to correlate the answers into a Zipf line or a double log if you prefer. It reminds me of an admonition from a senior officer in the Pentagon who was scrutinizing a chart I proudly created. He asked how long it took to build the chart and how long it took to update it periodically. He frowned at my answer which included the comment ‘many hours.’ Then he simply noted that the time invested was not worth the result. I was crestfallen and the chart was trashed, but I learned a good lesson, and I hope Jakob Nielson reads this post. It was a great deal of ‘sweat equity invested’ to figure out that only a few folks really post comments to the web. I think I had that one figured out even before I saw his Zipf line.  

 

The other articles involve a great deal of interaction, if you’re up to it. They were fun but they really give cause to pause and think about their applicability. Both present history in a popular fashion that entertains and teaches. But ‘therein lies the rub’ (as the Bard said). The scholarship was a bit shallow. When I was teaching I often sought out sites that could do both but I knew I was treading a thin line. Popular history necessarily relies on entertainment to teach and scholarly history uses entertainment as a tool of convenience. But even in that context any site that employs the required devices of entertainment must be sure that they enable accessibility and are functional. As Dan Gifford correctly pointed out in his blog, you’ve got to be sure your pop-up blocker is turned off and you have the best version of Flash before you set about using it. Too much work. Remember, we only have SIX SECONDS. Many visitors will take that much time to just read the message that the pop-ups were blocked. Then they will move on. Too many bells and whistles can be a turn off. It all suggests that the best approach is simplicity in design that attracts and informs, and doesn’t frustrate through ‘gee whiz’ complexity.

Blog Postings for 11 April 2010

This week I posted the following comments on colleague's thoughts:

Laszlo - Most importantly, bring on the goulash. I have a spork and I know how to use it!

Curtis - I agree with his thoughts about being a lurker. Most of us are!

Dan Gifford -  Another good post from Dan. I appreciate his comments on site construction and contrary technologies. Bells and whistles can come at the price of accessibility!

Blog Postings for 4 April 2010

Happy Easter!

This week I commented on the following colleague's postings:

Dan Gifford: Wow! Great OMEKA site. I also appreciated his anecdote about 'deer babies'.

Chris James: I appreciated his questions about design versus randomness.

Curtis Vaughn: I empathized with Curtis's feelings about the balance between complexity and simplicity of design.

Digital Prestidigitation

Larry Lessig and Hans Rosling could not have made stronger cases for their arguments than through their magical media demonstrations. Rosling’s colorful migrating statistical bubbles made for better understanding of the Third World, but that was really no more than a magician’s diversion. Out from that sleight of hand, like a rabbit drawn from a hat, came the real message about the full use of data sources through their ‘liberation.’ Lessig, in his own raconteur style, used his three stories to also address liberation but in a sense that prescribes the democratization of digital technology as a path to reach freedom of creativity through the removal of exclusive and constraining legal strictures. In his case Lessig pulls a second rabbit from his hat by recommending a ‘third path,’ that of balance: letting the artists decide for themselves. The cruel 'truth' is however the real rabbit and that truth warns us to forestall the coming of a digital Silent Spring (apologies to Rachel Carson) when the pesticides and poisons of control stifle the music of innovation and creativity. Will it be too late then as Carson predicted to recover those freedoms from the deadening blanket of overzealous protectionism and again find the magic of creativity? We should proceed cautiously.

 

The sort of digital prestidigitation employed by Lessig and Rosling also carries a momentum that traces an arc from skillful use to prove a point to an enraptured ticket-holding audience to engaging a digital media audience on the Web. The one difference is that Lessig and Rosling have a captured audience, fixed in place, and the creators of web pages have six seconds (according to Carole Guevin) to nab and stab the interest of a visitor. This places greater pressure on the web designer to develop a platform that engages, maintains interest, conveys a message, and guides a visitor. Learning to manipulate the tools, acquire the skills, and pull off the trick leaves most of us feeling like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, wand in hand trying to conduct a maelstrom of colors, fonts, design, structure, presentation, and information. But if we can pull it off with a bit of our own sleight of hand then we will finally see real magic.