Week of November 13th Readings!!

The three articles for this week have a few different themes ranging from the construction of actual WebPages ( "Calling All Designers : Learn to Write!" ), to the ideas you should think about concerning a homepage ( "Home Page Goals" ), and finally a broader spectrum of online communities ( "Anominity and Online Community: Identity Matters" ). These articles were written with a casual tone that made them pretty fun to read and easy to learn something by reading them. These three articles really tied into a lot of things we have previously discussed.


"Calling All Designers: Learn to Write!"

This was an interesting article dealing with the process of designing a webpage. The article made clear definitions between the graphics and art of designing a page and it's text. The author feels that the words used on a webpage are essential to the way a page is perceived. "It takes more than pixels to communicate" can pretty much sum up the topic of the article. I really liked this page because thinking about wording is extremely important, and as designing a page that may not always be something instinctively one thinks about, but it really should be. The page gave fun examples of changes in wording that some sites use that I found interesting. Could the process of coordinating text and design create job related issues resulting in workers being territorial? Can you think of any sites that the text and design doesn’t flow together? What sites do this really well? What are some bad things that could happen as a result of a clash in text and design?

"Home Page Goals"

The author of this article puts a major emphasis on creating a homepage. I really liked the idea to create the home page last so that it parallels all the information pages precisely. “The home page is your first impression. And like the old saying goes, you only get one chance. So home pages themselves have a unique set of design goals” sums up the thesis of this article. The article sets up a series of 4 goals for a homepage to follow for success: 1.) Make sure your home page tells what the site and company or product it represents is about.
2.) Don’t get in the way of repeat visitors. This is where the technique of having a more dynamic home page comes into play. There should be a spot for a “sign in” area for previous users and “members” so that they don’t have to read and navigate through instructions that they are already familiar with.
3.) Always show what’s new. The article suggests blogs for their “what’s new displays first” set up.
4.) Provide constant and reliable navigation. If links appear in one place on the home page, that’s how they should appear on all pages after.
I really liked this article because it gave so many examples through out it’s explanations. The article also pointed out a lot of things that would have made the web sites we had just created as a class come out perfectly and are things we need to remember constantly while designing. What are the reprocussions of a poorly designed home page? Are there any other main points that are important when designing a home page?

"Anominity and Online Community: Identity Matters"

A main component of online use is anominity. This factor is slowly being decreased due to the many issues it has cause on some major websites. This article uses the example of Wikipedia to show the importance of having “members” and “usernames” to help a website prevent problems. We all should be familiar with the issues of Wikipedia and having the open option for anyone to submit information to their site and it’s abuse by current politicians. With this in mind why how did it take this long for sites to have issues with anominity? Why are sites like Wikipedia so popular yet they cause many problems and are the topic of controversy? I do like the suggestion of Pseudonymity through a “username.” The article stresses the fact that people build reputations on their usernames. Registrations are also a good idea for a web site to get familiar with the people that are visiting their sites. I did like the point of this article has that there should be a clear and constant communication between site managers its visitors. I also think the article had a strong point when it said they should have incentives for members so they are honest and rewarded for it. Some questions that were brought to mind with this article are:
Why do so many web sites have guidelines for what information can and can’t be put on their site, but no or poor consequences? (For example, Wikipedia has open additions but when a problem arises they have to quarantine the whole section, now allowing rightful users to add information.) Why did it take so long for many sites to get memberships especially when they know many people are dishonest on the internet?