Subtitle: Along with two examples of the more well known "How Not to Be Seen".
Going mainly off McClurge and Mayer's articles here, but it seems to me like most of what we read this week is fairly obvious media arrangement ideas. Mayer's scanned "article" seems to deal with a much more cognitive discourse of design principles, so I will be focusing more on McClurge's "The Principles of Design". And of this article, two main points, and examples of them done wrong.
First off- Dominance. Most sites do it well, the presentation of pertinent information is usually the primary purpose of most sites. However, there are well known examples where Dominance is butchered and turned on its head. Want an example? Try Pinterest.
That never-ending scroll is also known as a Sisyphys Scroll. It never goes anywhere- dominance and continuance is ruined as you are constantly bombarded by a swarm of material. And that annoying pop-up window that follows you pisses me off to no end. If I want Facebook with images I'll go to Facebook.
Secondly, and even worse from a business perspective: Similarity. Those bland pages make me want to stop reading quicker than it takes my anti-virus to tell me it's finished installing yet another update. Want to see a big culprit in the sector of crappy site design? It may surprise you.
itunes.apple.com. Check the font. If you're on a laptop, you got it good. Now go to a desktop. Notice the font similarity to the background. Good luck reading that without some straining. Out of question for older people. When I see that on a site, I might as well close that tab and go back to 4chan. Yes Apple, you're being 1 upped by 4chan. How does it feel?
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
The Mittani.com and Apple Apps
It's nothing new for news websites- a reader app that displays information on a website in much easier to digest formats than the default layout. For my app design project, I am designing an app reader for the video game news website TheMittani.com. As a Goon and a contributor to the site's content (which mainly focuses around the games Planetside 2, World of Tanks, and EVE Online) the nonexistence of an app for this purpose (reading site content in easy and smooth ways) is quite frustrating.
But enough of my reasons for the development of this app. A more pressing matter garners my attention now- if a lowly site such as this, one that sees around 20,000 unique connections a month from an overwhelmingly gamer-centered audience, requires an app for a mobile view of its site, what does that say about other small sites? Does everything need an app? Should the app store be inundated with reader apps for news sites and forums? Is there a limit or line that must be crossed to necessitate the creation of an app?
And if there is, what is it? It seems almost wrong that it should require one or a few small dedicated few to develop ease-of-use apps for sites such as this. Perhaps it is simply the way of the world, but it seems like app development, rather than being the secretive science that it is, should get a bit simpler and easier to access.
But enough of my reasons for the development of this app. A more pressing matter garners my attention now- if a lowly site such as this, one that sees around 20,000 unique connections a month from an overwhelmingly gamer-centered audience, requires an app for a mobile view of its site, what does that say about other small sites? Does everything need an app? Should the app store be inundated with reader apps for news sites and forums? Is there a limit or line that must be crossed to necessitate the creation of an app?
And if there is, what is it? It seems almost wrong that it should require one or a few small dedicated few to develop ease-of-use apps for sites such as this. Perhaps it is simply the way of the world, but it seems like app development, rather than being the secretive science that it is, should get a bit simpler and easier to access.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Doublespeak - Is our smartphones makeing us dumberer?
In George Orwell's seminal dystopian novel "1984", the people of the bright and cold future use a speech vastly different from ours for the quickened statement of facts. This "Doublespeak" is remarkably similar to what we would call the "text speak" of today, in that it mutates and changes linguistic structures and forms for the communication of information in a much more quick manner. Of course, dystopian insinuations aside, much can be said when critics are up in arms about the easy targets of "leetspeak" and "text speak".
At it's core, "text speak" seeks to shorten and make haste over large and long to type words and phrases. "You" becomes "u", "wait" becomes "w8", and the well known "lol" (laugh out loud) becomes a universal marker for something we find humorous. The idea that this information and way of speaking is making us less intelligent though is like saying that dialects of Southern English make us stupid- on the contrary it is simply a different way of speaking. Smartphones, in their myriad uses and encouragement of multitasking, may be decreasing our prowess in different areas- yet their unique mode of speech use is not in and of itself an indicator of a loss of intelligence.
Multitasking itself bears some thought though. The various studies and other discussions in this week's readings make it clear that multitasking is bad for base human cognitive function in regards to the mental dexterity that is needed when dealing with multiple subjects at once. As the load increases, human ability to micromanage each part of the whole decreases, showing a classic inverse relationship between load and ability. Smartphones and other such devices encourage such micromanaging of multiple stimuli and loads, and thus I could support the claim that the use of such devices constitutes a overall systematic dampening of the human ability to balance and handle multiple activities and stimuli. In short- smartphones are making us less proficient at tasks, but they aren't making us less intelligent while performing such tasks.
At it's core, "text speak" seeks to shorten and make haste over large and long to type words and phrases. "You" becomes "u", "wait" becomes "w8", and the well known "lol" (laugh out loud) becomes a universal marker for something we find humorous. The idea that this information and way of speaking is making us less intelligent though is like saying that dialects of Southern English make us stupid- on the contrary it is simply a different way of speaking. Smartphones, in their myriad uses and encouragement of multitasking, may be decreasing our prowess in different areas- yet their unique mode of speech use is not in and of itself an indicator of a loss of intelligence.
Multitasking itself bears some thought though. The various studies and other discussions in this week's readings make it clear that multitasking is bad for base human cognitive function in regards to the mental dexterity that is needed when dealing with multiple subjects at once. As the load increases, human ability to micromanage each part of the whole decreases, showing a classic inverse relationship between load and ability. Smartphones and other such devices encourage such micromanaging of multiple stimuli and loads, and thus I could support the claim that the use of such devices constitutes a overall systematic dampening of the human ability to balance and handle multiple activities and stimuli. In short- smartphones are making us less proficient at tasks, but they aren't making us less intelligent while performing such tasks.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
On Facebook, Twitter, and the Rise of Social Media
The meat of this week's topics in class seem to cover the idea behind Facebook and Twitter, and mainly the proliferation of such social networking sites within the populace. Venezuela passing laws governing the use of social media according to ideas of public "outrage" and the disruption of order seems to be a government overstepping it's bounds- it could be compared to the State Department of Washington passing censorship laws against offensive editorials because they can cause public "outrage".
On the topic of Facebook, whilst the preceding argument could cover Twitter, the IPO of Facebook and the scandals involved therein on the pricing covers a whole different article. I don't think the IPO topic precludes the end of Facebook financially or intrinsically. Rather, the IPO story lends more weight to the more recent discoveries of Facebook's revenue losses (of over 5%) from personal computer users, but the jump in usage from mobile users going from 618m to 650m. I think Facebook isn't dying, rather they are stagnating and need to act fast to expand their spheres of sociality to mobile users rather than primarily targeting P.C. users. Perhaps my Facebook app will stop crashing every 5 minutes then.
On the topic of Facebook, whilst the preceding argument could cover Twitter, the IPO of Facebook and the scandals involved therein on the pricing covers a whole different article. I don't think the IPO topic precludes the end of Facebook financially or intrinsically. Rather, the IPO story lends more weight to the more recent discoveries of Facebook's revenue losses (of over 5%) from personal computer users, but the jump in usage from mobile users going from 618m to 650m. I think Facebook isn't dying, rather they are stagnating and need to act fast to expand their spheres of sociality to mobile users rather than primarily targeting P.C. users. Perhaps my Facebook app will stop crashing every 5 minutes then.
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