AFTER THREE MONTHS OF BLOGGING: THE VERDICT

Blogging has been a surprisingly good experience. I never, not for a moment, thought that I would grow into it, and then live to regret that I have mainly been talking to myself. I now see what the furor's all about, especially among those who like to write. It has been interesting to find my voice in this medium, to own this blog, to enjoy thinking about this blog as much as I have, to find myself compelled to make corrections after a post had been up a week or even two months. You never know--someone might read it.

Amazingly, I have encouraged others to begin their own blogs. Like me, they are technological neophytes--middle-aged writers and activists, and some even older. I heard myself offering to help them, surprised that those very words were coming from my mouth. "I know you'd love it," I enthused. So far, no new bloggers have entered the blogosphere at my behest.

I entered the blogosphere thinking it was peopled by the self-absorbed. (Not that I'm not. I just didn't want to expose it, but I believe I could). Instead, I found useful corporate blogs, helpful student blogs, amusing satirical blogs, diverse political blogs, edgy design blogs as well as fairly decent personal blogs, some of which were actually fabulous. The occupants of the blogosphere appear not to be any more or less self-absorbed in their writings than are people in live encounters. Like anyone else, bloggers sometimes use bad grammar, write poorly, and use too much slang. But, you can always change the channel with a click of the mouse. Now that's an advantage!

IS WRITEBOARD THE RIGHT BOARD?

I thought so. In a recent collaborative online writing effort--my first, actually--I had the opportunity to experiment with Writeboard, and I had no complaints. However, since I am a novice in such matters, my evaluative criteria is fairly simple. As long as there is a decent product at the end and no major snag that I am forced to spend hours correcting, I leave the desk with a smile on my face!

With Writeboard, no snags! As a web-based collaborative writing tool, Writeboard is an easy interface to use. Truth be told, there was one snag: the bold, italics, and other font modifications didn’t work for me. What I mean to say is that I couldn’t get them to work properly. As this was happening, I simply thought, “I must not be seeing how to do it." I am, however, happy to report that my co-writer mentioned the same difficulty in her blog. She describes the Track Changes feature offered by Microsoft Word as perhaps a more sophisticated tool than Writeboard. Until she said this, I never thought of Track Changes as sophisticated either, but I admit to being impressed by the newer version that describes the changes made to a document in little balloons that appear in the margins.

Back to Writeboard: it is a product of 37signals, a privately-held Web design and Web application company based in Chicago. They are committed to simplicity in software design, as evidenced by their credo:

We believe most software is too complex. Too many features, too many buttons, too much confusion. We build easy to use web-based products with elegant interfaces and thoughtful features. We’re focused on executing on the basics beautifully.

With Writeboard, I’d say mission accomplished. It is ideal for the non-tech team. I could easily see using it in human services and other such industries, where wikis and other online apps might add stress. More technologically sophisticated work groups might feel otherwise, but for the bulk of users, Writeboard should be fine. The following users could benefit from it:

• Students and work groups who are not physically on the same campus or worksite
• Colleagues with different skill sets or areas of expertise, all of whom must contribute to a document
• Work enviroments without the capacity to share documents
• Technophobes

A good end-product can result if participants have well-defined roles, i.e., someone who checks for accurate information, another who ensures the writing is cohesive and grammatical, and so on. 37signals seems to favor smaller work groups in their endeavors, and this might well apply to users' intial introduction to Writeboard and online collaborative writing. How big a Writeboard group before the process becomes unwieldy? That aside, it is a great way to see how others work and retain all good thoughts and ideas. Writeboard also allows you to see earlier versions of a document in progress, and gives credit to the contributor.

Bottom line: good show!

ALL SPRUCED UP FOR SPRING!

I've cleaned up the blog, making most headings, font sizes, and links consistent in appearance. Much prettier, yes? Also, with a little help from a friend, I added sidebar color as a modification to the original template. Gives the blog a little pizzazz, I hope, without compromising my commitment to fashion! See my April 14th post, Dashing Dots, for the full story.

DASHING DOTS!

In case you hadn't realized it, my blog design is a template. Yes, I know. You would never have guessed it. In a flurry of ambition, I was going to change the template, then modify the new one, but these things aren't yet my forte. Instead, I have found ways to justify the status quo--something I do much better at the moment. Here goes...

First and foremost, The Philadelphia Inquirer tells us that polka dots are "in" for spring. This young woman appeared in the paper's Image section on April 15th, and she's wearing my blog template--colors and all!

Polka dots have deep historical roots. Wikipedia tells us that "polka dots are ancient. They first became common on clothing in the late nineteenth century in Britain. At that time, polka music was extremely popular and the name was also applied to the pattern, despite no real connection between them. Some believed that during the 1st World War, the British used polka dots as a place to hide morse code and other secrets without being noticed." Aha! Polka dots have obviously had pragmatic and lofty uses.

Artists and athletes of note have embraced the use of polka dots in their work. Yayoi Kusama is an example of one such artist. Then there's Dusty Rhodes.

Anyone who saw the televised celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the White House during the Clinton administration will never forget the dress Barbara Bush wore, ever--thus showing us how very memorable polka dots can be.

Speaking of memory, polka dots can be pleasantly nostaglic. Remember the comic strip Little Dot? While not my favorite, I never quite forgot Dot Polka. Last, but not least, let us not forget that classic Yellow Polka Dot Bikini song from 1960.

With all this going for them, the polka dots must remain on this blog, especially because they're in! I may modify, but I cannot say goodbye--yet. Let's just hope that summer doesn't bring us paisley prints!

OPTIMIZING READER EXPERIENCES ONLINE

Hailed as the guru of Web usability, Jakob Nielsen uttered timeless words back in 1997, when he described how users read on the Web. “They don’t,” he said. A full 79% of users simply scan for what they need rather than read word-for-word. Why would this be? Nielsen gives us four good reasons:

• Reading from the screen is tiring, and about 25% slower than reading from paper.
• The Web is a user-driver medium. Users feel that they have to move on to the next thing.
• There's competition on the Web. Users wonder if this is the page they need, or will a better page come along.
• People are busy. They get email and voicemail. They get paged, and receive text messages. If what they need online isn't right there, they move on.

How best, then, to engage users and meet their needs? Must website content play second fiddle to bells and whistles in order to grab readership? Not really. A website may gain attention for graphics and design, but content is king and will keep users coming back for more. The information must simply (or not so simply) be packaged for a highly visual, user-driven medium. Here are a few rules of thumb from Sun Microsystems, Nielsen, and other sources on writing and preparing website content:

• Think audience first. What do they need to know or accomplish? What do you want them to do? A pharmaceutical company, for example, may need to host website information for both scientists and diabetics, so they need to offer pages and visuals that are geared toward both groups. This same principle should guide the development of all website content, from the pages that comprise a large professional site to one’s personal web pages.
• Put important information at the top of the page, in accordance with Nielsen’s inverted pyramid style. Conclusions come first!
• Don't frustrate the scanning impulse. Highlight liberally so your readers can pick out what they need.
• Yet, don't cater too much to scanning! Slow readers down when you can. Bullet points and lists help accomplish this.
• Use links to move detailed information onto secondary pages. Pages that are dense with text are better off as links. If you think your users are likely to print these pages out, it’s not out of the question to use a font like Times New Roman, which is more suitable for print than a website.

Writing for the Web is a bit different than writing for other mediums. You’re writing for an interactive audience. Give them opportunities to interact. Posting print materials as pdfs usually isn’t the best way to go. If you’re putting up an annual report, for example, consider what your users want to know. Write about those items, and then link them to their respective pages in the report. For more writing tips, check out Riches Communications and Jennifer Kyrnin's web article.

As for graphics, once again, let users be your guide. Firstly, decide if the visual is really necessary? If the answer is yes, then what do users need to know or do? If they need an overview, a picture can be most helpful, as we find on this page of Milton Roy's website. If, on the other hand, readers need to know how parts fit together, then using an illustrated cross section, a phantom view, schematic, or wire diagram should be considered. Graphs can be a great way to clarify and reinforce textual information, as we see in Milton Roy's section on metering pump characteristics. Finally, to show how parts relate to the whole, use an exploded view, cutaway, blueprint, or a photo of an individual part. Photos also work well if you need to show a pattern, as do videos and realistic drawings.

The long and short of it is to make readers the focus of your website. In so doing, you show respect for their time, needs, and goals--something we should all enjoy and aspire to!

THAR'S GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS!

Business Applications for Social Networking

Another article from The Economist...this is a short one that I found in their April 7-13, 2007 edition, and it looks at business uses for social-networking sites. One obvious application would be the marketing of products or services. Ted, whom we assume (and hope) is a fictitious Pizza Hut driver, has a profile on MySpace where he alerts friends of the chain's promotions: "Dude, I just heard some scoop from the Hut." Hmm. In all charity, what can I say? They have guts? Well, how 'bout that they're still up and running. Not so for Walmart. They just got booed off the stage and closed down a site devoted to teens, but Reuters is looking to jump into the fray with a site for those in the financial-services industry. Safe to say that many more such ventures are on the horizon.

The article goes on to discuss social-networking as a job recruitment tool. On sites such as LinkedIn and Jobster, members pass suitable vacancies on to friends and colleagues, and refer potential candidates to recruiters. This is, at present, social networking's greatest value to companies. Need we say how very valuable this is to the social-networking sites? Here are the figures cited for LinkedIn: ten million members and $87,500,000 in revenue. Well, the article didn't exactly say $87,500,000. What it said was that more than 350 companies pay up to $250,000 each to advertise jobs to LinkedIn's expanding network. Meeoow--a very long tail indeed!

Another interesting and, I would imagine, very lucrative application for social-networking is "knowledge management." Apparently, IBM has just floated out "Lotus Connections," a platform that allows company employees to post detailed profiles about themselves, team up on projects, and share bookmarks. The article cites that one manufacturer is testing the software by using it to put inexperienced members of its customer-services team in touch with the right engineers. That sounds pretty good, as does the software's capacity to identify in-house experts. Quite frankly, if I were working at such a company, I'd be more than a little watchful. My fear? After the company makes participation on the site mandatory, I am sure I would open my big mouth about something that would allow them to nail me with some horrible task and banish me to the metaphorical hinterlands. Yes, I know. I'm a cynic, but I've seen and experienced it, and probably for lesser disclosures.

Lastly and most curiously (at least for me), The Economist article discusses the work of VisiblePath, a New York-based start-up that analyzes email traffic, calendars, and diary entries to identify a company's strongest relationships, both inside and outside the company doors. This can generate sales leads. But, the author of the article asks the following question: will sales people, driven by commission, share their best leads with their colleagues, or will they hide them with their cloaking devices? I wonder about this as well. We know where this leads: one person does the work, someone else closes the deal, and worker bee gets screwed out of a commission. Happens every day, without the benefit of the software. That aside, the article concludes with a nod to the software's obvious potential: if who you know is more important than what you know, this product's on to something.

I pretty much summarized the article, but if "Joined-up thinking" is still online, you may read it here in full (and without commentary). Otherwise, you might try the VisiblePath link above, to see if they're still hosting a link to the article.

TAGGING REVISITED

Tagging—that’s what I did when I worked for a drycleaner, many long years ago. I tagged, sorted, and bagged clothing, among other perfectly dreadful tasks. From what I can tell, not much has changed in the dry cleaning business, except that these days my dry cleaner’s cash register thanks me and says goodbye. As for the Internet, so much has changed that it’s a little daunting to keep up with it. Which brings me back to tagging. On the Internet, I tag once again, but it is much more fun than it was at the dry cleaners!

My return to tagging occurred just this past week, as I spent time on a site familiar to many, but new to me: del.icio.us. Wikipedia defines del.icio.us as “a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks." It is now part of Yahoo, and its acquisition by Yahoo remains the highest profile acquisition of its kind. At the risk of stating the obvious, del.icio.us is not the only social bookmarking web service in the land. There are others such as Furl and Shadows, many with a more targeted focus, and most of them unknown to me at this point in time.

del.icio.us, like Furl and Shadows, may be described as a broad folksonomy tool, which to my understanding means that there is a lot of tagging. Unfettered tagging promotes personal refindability and creates value for users. So says Thomas Vander Wal who is credited with coining the word “folksonomy” to describe what was happening on the Web. Wikipedia tells us that “a folksonomy is a user-generated taxonomy used to categorize and retrieve items from the Web, such as Web pages, photographs, links, and other Web content.” Obviously, a folksonomy is not a professionally developed taxonomy with a controlled vocabulary. From what I see on del.icio.us, that would be correct. With the exception of labeling suggestions that del.icio.us users are free to ignore, there’s nothing controlled about the labeling process on the site. Moreover, folksonomy should not be confused with folk taxonomies. True. According to Wikipedia, folk taxonomies are “culturally supplied, intergenerationally transmitted, and relatively stable classification systems that people in a given culture use to make sense of the entire world around them, not just the Internet.” What goes on at del.icio.us does not, at this time, appear to be a classification system for the ages. It seems more like a random cataloguing process that’s done by us, the folks, as George Bush 2 calls us. This process has its hazards. But, if you keep in mind that people like me are still writing down URLs or forgetting sites entirely, it’s a real boon to be able to tag and store web content in one tidy spot, and then share this information with others.

Ok. So what did I tag and why? Well, I tagged sites and articles—ten of them—that I thought might interest technical writers, of course. Have a look at my del.icio.us favorites. You’ll mainly find resources for web design and usability. Writers Write is a resource for all writers, including technical ones. I liked This Is Broken, a site where users can air problems of all kinds—bad experiences on the Web, bad customer service, maybe even bad directions produced by technical writers! I loved librarian.net. The feisty blog author, Jessamyn, has been “putting the rarin’ back in librarian since 1999.” Jessamyn focuses on the intersection between libraries and technology, and I tagged her blog because she said something somewhere in there to allay my worries about Web 2.0 and the seeming hodge-podge that is social bookmarking. In response to the question raised in the video, The Machine is Us/ing Us, and that is, who will organize all the anticipated content on the Web 2.0, our friend, Jessamyn, confidently answered “librarians will.” I was much relieved. While I love the idea of a read/write Web and especially enjoy bookmarking for my personal use, we just can’t organize the Web in this way, can we? Don't we need an electoral college of Web 2.0 to control the masses?

Well, maybe not. Maybe our collective wisdom will allow the cream to rise. Also, as regards to social bookmarking, think of the knowledge that may be shared worldwide by professionals, academics, and students, not so much so on sites like del.icio.us, but in other more scholarly bookmarking communities.

Yes, of course. But just as I am gaining confidence in all of this, The Philadelphia Inquirer publishes an article entitled, Wikipedia pioneer launches a 'better free encyclopedia.' I always wondered about Wikipedia. It's ok for some purposes, but it's no Encyclopedia Britannica. I don't think it's even the Funk and Wagnalis encyclopedia I tried to collect as a kid, diligently buying one volume a week at the supermarket, and hoping I didn't miss any. At any rate, you'll find the full article about Wikipedia among my del.icio.us favorites. Read it, and find out who killed and ate JFK!

FLASH FORWARD

On his website, French designer Mathieu Badimon presents new possibilities for designing in Flash—new now, but these will shortly be les applications du jour. Visit and play with his fascinating and entertaining array of lab experiments to see what’s in store. Liquid form and gravity ball are especially amazing to me, but all of Badimon’s designs demonstrate what can be achieved with Flash and intense scripting.

The simplicity of the site’s appearance certainly belies the complexity behind it. Badimon’s selection of simple shapes and colors are just right, and he combines them expertly to create a game board of sorts, which lends an extra element of play to this exercise. The navigation tabs allow the user to control the orientation of both the game board and the activity within each square, offering all sorts of 3-D angles and a near endless assortment of views. Navigation is easy, even for a non-NetGen user like me. It occurs to me that maybe the NetGen user would find Badimon’s activities to be a little ho-hum, but I remember when telephones were rented from the phone company, and so perhaps I have a different threshold for surprise.

Speaking of surprise, there is a German website for an ad campaign about horses that is well worth checking out, if you are at all interested in innovative uses of Flash Video. The video is dramatic, captivating, and brings the horses up close and personal, as they snort and cavort through diverse landscapes. (Actually, they gallop, but I like to rhyme). Anyway, the site displays in full picture, with the Flash navigation bar remaining wisely hidden throughout the video. I admit, however, to worriedly seeking navigation while the film ran by clicking near the progress bar. "Good move," I thought, as the navigation appeared. Next thought: "Am I old? Does the need to see website navigation right away place me squarely within an older generation of less confident users?" Could be—or perhaps I’m just a control freak. (I think I'll go with that)! In any case, I imagine that many users, especially younger ones, would simply wait for the navigation bar to appear, and it does. So, when you enter this site, remember that there is no need to hunt for navigation. It's coming. Just relax and enjoy this fine work.

Oh yes, the link to the site. It's also coming. Here it is.

WEB 2.0 II

In their March 10-16, 2007 publication, The Economist featured an article on Tim Berners-Lee and his outlook on Web 2.0. Not surprisingly, Berners-Lee is especially "excited about three areas of the web's development: its spread to millions of new users via mobile devices, the growing interest in the technology's social and political impact and the 'semantic' web, in which information is labeled so that it makes sense to machines as well as people." It's definitely worth a click to read the full article!

WEB 2.0 PRIMER

Web 2.0 refers to a process that is occurring within the Web. Some say the Web is growing up, that it is witnessing a maturation process, and they accept Web 2.0 as conventional wisdom. Others have a more “wait and see” attitude at best, or they decry Web 2.0 as nothing more than marketing hype. Still others think that Web 2.0 offers the possibility to change the world.

The word “Web 2.0” was coined by Tim O’Reilly, of O’Reilly Media, Inc. In an article entitled quite simply, What Is Web 2.0, O’Reilly provides a detailed description of Web 2.0 that is interesting, if somewhat complicated for the layperson. If you think about it a bit, though, it’s really not that complicated. Most of us who have been on the Web at all, even those of us who are indifferent or impervious to developments such as Web 2.0, have bumped into it on eBay or Wikipedia. Still, here are the cliff notes!

O’Reilly tells us that Web 2.0 doesn’t have a boundary, but rather, a gravitational core. He envisions Web 2.0 as “a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles at a varying distance from the core.” His meme map, pictured below, shows what he means. (Click on the image to view or print out a better version).

In O’Reilly’s interpretation of Web 2.0, the Web is positioned as platform and the user positioned to control his or her own data. Companies that demonstrate Web 2.0 qualities are pictured in the green ovals above the orange square, with those closest to the square exhibiting the most Web 2.0 characteristics. The more of the following qualities that a company exhibits, the more Web 2.0-oriented it is:

• Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
• Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
• Trusting users as co-developers
• Harnessing collective intelligence
• Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
• Software above the level of a single device
• Lightweight user interfaces, development models, and business model

Unlike Amazon, a company such as Barnes and Noble, for example, would not be described as Web 2.0-based, even though they sell the same products. Amazon’s trademark is “user engagement,” and they utilize the results from such, that is, the wisdom of the masses, to lead customers to the most popular items first. Barnes and Noble, on the other hand, is smaller, features less user participation, and a search on their site is likely to yield the company’s products first. Their business model is presumably more traditional than Amazon’s.

That some Web 2.0-based companies claim not to possess or be able to describe their business model has been worrisome to some observers who blog on the Web 2.0 phenomenon. Among these bloggers is Mark Evans, who provides a distinctly Canadian perspective on the world of telecom and technology. Others such as Dion Hinchcliff, a self-described Bubble 1.0 survivor, acknowledge that there’s a lot of money to be made and a lot of “stuff” being made for Web 2.0, and wouldn’t we love to cash in, but they’re watching to see if we’re headed for another version of the 90’s dot.com bubble. Then there are those who exhibit open antipathy toward alleged Web 2.0 hype, as found in humorous sites such as EmptyBottle.org.

In his article, What is this thing called Web 2.0?, Kenneth Ronkowitz, Adjunct Instructor at New Jersey Institute of Technology, lists a number of current Web 2.0 applications. His list got me thinking about the implications of Web 2.0 for non-profit organizations (NPOs). Web 2.0, after all, appears to democratize the web in many respects—at least it seems so at this point. According to Thomas L. Friedman, Web 2.0—the technology, culture and business—mashes geography and flattens the world. Indeed! Besides this, another happy reality for NPOs is that many web tools and applications are free or low-cost. Thus, it is not surprising to find a growing number of services and applications targeting the fundraising and social networking needs of non-profit organizations.

Daniel Ben-Horin, founder of CompuMentor, NetSquared, and its subsidiary TechSoup, was quoted by MSNBC in a June 2006 article as follows: “Information technology is moving away from what nonprofits have the least of (money) and toward what we have the most of (people and community). Web 2.0 is a buzzword that may not last, but the social Web will, and what we’re seeing now is just the beginning."

He's right about that. Web 2.0 is the beginning of an adventure--for commerce, for non-profits, for many, if not all of us. The MSNBC article should serve to remind us that there are those who will be left out--the elderly, those without access, those whom non-profits serve. There are those, too, who may be endangered by the ability to more easily express their opinions from dangerous places. In addition, the of growth of Web 2.0 ushers in an era of greater concern about copyright, governance, privacy and numerous other issues that were cited in this blog several posts ago in relation to the Michael Wesch video, The Machine is Us/ing Us. As with many social trends and technological developments, Web 2.0 presents promise as well as problems. It will take time to understand and figure it all out.

VISUAL DESIGN STYLE

In The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep tells her young assistant that she has no style. Ouch! What precisely is Ms. Streep’s character looking for? Rightly or wrongly, she obviously wants to see more flair and visual appeal. For her, there is something missing that enhances desirability. This would seem to be the core issue for any designer or visual design style, whether on the web, in photography, in packaging, and beyond, i.e., how to enhance desirability by appealing to our aesthetic sense and our emotions

Creating desirability varies across media and depends on the purpose and content of the piece. If we compare a few websites, we find differences in design style depending on their purpose and how market-driven they are. On Apple’s website, they open immediately and effectively with "hot news"--a montage of film clips that contains famous "hello's" from the movies to introduce their new iPhone. (By the time you read this, however, it may have been changed to something else, but it was great)! It would seem that the montage was timed to coincide with the 79th Annual Academy Awards, and it worked beautifully on TV in the days leading up to the show and even thereafter. The advertisement is simple, classic, engaging, entertaining and effective, and this seems to be Apple’s trademark design style from their unmistakable and memorable logo to their elegant video, print and web advertisements. We are intrigued and pulled in. Maybe we’ll even buy some of their attractively designed items. Contrast this with Bank of America’s website. Their logo, too, is well-known, uses the American colors, and appears throughout. On their websites, both Apple and Bank of America make good use of redundancy to give context and order to complex information. The websites are readable, uncluttered and useable, but we expect a more sedate image and design style from a bank, and we get it, which is probably intended to give a feeling of stability (even as banks routinely gobble each other up)! The bank’s website is also more task-driven. Many users are simply doing their online banking, not looking for fashion, attractive electronics, or entertainment.

In a bit of a different vein, the U.S. World Wildlife Federation website is also well-known and attractive. It has great deal of text. The text imparts a serious tone, and supplies much information that those attracted to the cause will likely get through. If they don’t, there are other interesting pages to scan or read more thoroughly, including a fun and games page. The panda logo appears on every page, and each is filled with beautiful photos—no video. The WWF design style is simple, serious, and attractive, and their website is very easily navigable and eminently useable. The elegance and sex appeal we get from Apple is not called for here, and would probably be counterproductive. Nonetheless, WWF is certainly marketing itself with their design style, albeit quite differently than Apple or the bank.

By developing and applying a recognizable design style, a company or visual artist makes themselves known, often with few words or no words at all. Thus, they maintain and attract the attention of their existing audience, and by repetition and variations on the theme, they can grow their base--especially if quality products are behind the visuals!

PICTURE WORTH 1000 WORDS

This wrongly translated Chinese proverb produces eyerolls from many who believe it to be a gross exaggeration. They counter by saying that a picture is really worth only a picture. Well, a thousand words are a lot of words, and ten thousand words, which was the actual number in the proverb's literal translation, are a lot more. It’s pretty hard for a single picture to hold up under all that pressure. Still, there is no denying how an image can captivate. Certainly, images add dimension and powerful meaning to text. Illustrations, icons, charts, graphs—the visual world is rich with examples of how these elements summarize or elaborate upon co-existing text, sometimes even replacing the text entirely.

If you look at the toolbar on your computer screen, you’ll see any number of icons that replace words, and most of us (at least those who are computer literate) have no problem comprehending their meaning. Because they are widely understood, icons can be used to great effect in advertising. On the Windows homepage, for example, Microsoft skillfully uses four of their common icons to introduce Windows Vista.

Graphs and charts are frequently used to provide financial data, usually supplementing and clarifying the figures contained on balance sheets and such. But here, on the website of a Philadelphia-based non-profit organization, we find posted a 2005 annual report that uses only pie charts to show revenue and expenses—perfectly appropriate for an audience that may not be interested in scrutinizing all the little financial details. (You’ll find the charts on page 6 of the pdf).

In advertising and for other purposes, illustrations are often used in conjunction with or in lieu of actual photographs of products. Why use a photo of dish soap when an illustration might offer a more interesting visual representation of a common household item? The Skippy website, for example, uses illustrations as well as sound to create a feeling of child-like fun and exuberance. Images such as those on their Trail Mix page would be impossible to create as photos, and they would probably not be as entertaining. Throughout Skippy's website, we have many crayon-like illustrations and also photos and games, all geared for kids (but great for adults, too)! The only pages without images are the more serious ones, i.e., the allergy information and FAQ pages. (There are just a few peanuts on the latter)!

In a world where people are mainly scanning documents or websites for what they need or want, words alone may often be overlooked. Add a great illustration, and you may at least catch their attention and possibly even say a lot more, if not 1000 words. Let’s not get carried away!

HELLO "NEW" WORLD!

In his skillful video, The Machine is Us/ing Us, Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, uses Web 2.0 technology to illustrate the potential that Web 2.0 offers. This proves to be an extraordinarily effective technique. The Machine is Us/ing Us was released on YouTube on January 31, 2007, and it quickly went viral, becoming the most popular video in the blogosphere and the #1 video on YouTube on February 7th.



Wesch’s success is not surprising. His video is visually interesting, compelling, thought-provoking, even moving. Though younger viewers may differ with me on this, his choice of music (There’s Nothing Impossible by Deus) was superb, and it imbued the video with emotion, a crescendo of connection and possibility that leads the viewer to consider a number of undeniably important issues. As XML (Extensible Markup Language) ushers in Web 2.0, Wesch posits that we will have to rethink a few things such as copyright, governance, privacy, authorship, rhetorics(?), even family, love and ourselves. (I hate to be picky, but the use of the plural “rhetorics” hints that a little spell-check might be needed)!

From a design perspective, the Wesch video is successful at leading the viewer in precise and gripping fashion from one visual element to the next. The rhythm of the piece, the speedy movement of text on the screen, and the typographical changes that occur are amazingly complex. Some of the feedback on Wesch’s video suggests that different interfaces and desktops environments be represented in the forthcoming final version. Perhaps this is so, though most viewers will find The Machine is Us/ing Us to be effective and memorable just as it is.

TYPOGRAPHY AND THE WEB

Typography is part and parcel of our visual world, allowing us to distinguish CNN from NBC or Taco Bell from McDonald’s. Yet, most people tend to ignore it. The only time people really notice typography is when a composition doesn’t work or they can’t read the type. Technology is changing our relationship to type rather quickly. Anyone who has the right software package can design a typeface and create a layout, though probably not very well.

There are any number of guidelines and standards on typography for print materials, which made me wonder how the rules differ when designing for the Web. It seems there are significant differences, and these are created and complicated by the fact that each line of text, each font and typestyle is recreated by the user’s Web browser, server and computer operating system. Two resources on the Web offer a logical presentation of issues to consider when designing for the Web: Access by Design and Webstyle Guide. Here are a few basics that relate specifically to typography:

• Typefaces are rendered at lower resolution on the Web, and this affects legibility. Times New Roman, considered the most legible typeface for print materials, does not translate well to the screen. Better choices would be Georgia, Verdana, and Trebuchet, all of which come with most operating systems. However, dense text passages are likely to be printed out by the user. If a website builder suspects that users will print out the text, then Times New Roman remains a good choice.
• Left justification of text is safest to reproduce and easiest to read on the Web. Technological issues make it hard to control for excess space and other problems that may arise with full justification, and right justification is simply hard to read. As for headlines, when type is left justified, they should be, too.
• On most Websites, line lengths are too long for easy reading. While restricting line length is complicated by technological issues, a line length of fifty to seventy characters per line remains the ideal.
• As with print materials, the standard combination of upper and lower case characters enhances readability.
• Italics, bold, and underlined and colored text are variations that make it easier for goal-oriented Web users to scan for information. The use of all capitals for this purpose is, not surprisingly, less effective.

Obviously, I’ve just scratched the surface of this issue. There are a tremendous number of resources with variations on the theme. While researching this subject, I came across two interesting tidbits with which I will close this discussion...

Who knew? Helvetica typeface is celebrating its 50th birthday this year with an independent documentary film by Gary Hustwit. The film examines the proliferation of Helvetica in our visual world as part of a larger conversation of our global visual culture and how type affects our lives.

Check out Mark Simonson’s humorous piece, Let’s Talk Type, which he wrote in 1977, but contains a few eternal truths!

SCHOOL VERSUS THE INTERNET

The Internet is a powerful tool for engaging the minds of school-aged children. Students can collaborate on projects, pursue their own interests, gather their own information and communicate inexpensively with peers worldwide. Games, animation and stimulating activities offered by the Internet support the acquisition of math and reading skills and an understanding of science and the natural world.

For teachers, too, the Internet provides access to learning resources and experiences that were heretofore unavailable. Through the Internet, a teacher can interact individually with students and parents, send group messages via Listserv, and provide a personal website with electronic resources and assistance. Ultimately, a teacher may actually be able to give more individual attention to all students by spending less time in meetings, personal conversations, and talking on the telephone.

Does the Internet have it all over school with respect to getting kids to learn? Not really. School-aged children still need the human touch, the guidance and direction of their teachers, and protection from the dangers of the Internet. They also need kinesthetic learning experiences that the Internet cannot provide: participating in science labs, enacting a play, learning a musical instrument.

Still, the Internet has much to offer schools regarding how kids like to learn. Our schools are only at the tip of the iceberg with respect to harnessing the power of the Internet and taking its lessons to heart, i.e., bringing to the curriculum those aspects of the Internet that have made it so compelling for children. In the future, we may well see more self-directed curricula in our schools, with more games, interactive opportunities and other stimulating learning venues for kids.

A TALE OF THREE BLOGS

I am completely new to the world of blogging, and at first blush, I though it a colossal bore—so showy and self-interested. Until this very moment, I scarcely knew who was blogging and why, let alone that corporations had blogs, and used them to reach out to customers and other stakeholders in a personal way. Thus, I examined the blogs of three corporations that I’m actually connected to, i.e., I use their products or services, and these are Dell, Google and Hewlett-Packard (HP). In using this selection criterion, I thought I would feel more vested in the examination process, in determining what’s in it for me. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised.

Dell’s blog, http://www.direct2dell.com/, is visually bland, but easily navigable, and encourages consumer feedback. As with Google, http://googleblog.blogspot.com/, and HP, http://h20325.www2.hp.com/blogs , Dell seeks to position itself as a thought leader, and it shares with HP the intent to receive comments from consumers. Dell has longer initial postings than HP, with an internal Digital Media Manager doing many of them. Dell uses more hypertext than HP, which I didn’t find at all disturbing. If I wasn’t interested, I simply moved on. HP leadership (execs, etc.) have their own blogs, and their entries tend to be shorter—maybe a paragraph rather than a page. All in all, Dell’s blog appears to receive more comments from consumers, and longer ones—sometimes several paragraphs. It’s just a chattier blog, though few pictures and such appear. It’s mainly straight text. HP’s blog contains more visual elements, such as photos, and it resembles a regular website. Ultimately, Dell’s blog gave me the impression that if I said something, they might actually act on it. I didn’t get that feeling quite as strongly from HP, mainly because I would be responding to the company’s higher echelon. Of course, I could be wrong about this. I was pleased to see that HP had a Corporate and Social Responsibility blog, which is authored by their Corporate and Social Responsibility Manager for Asia-Pacific and Japan. Neither Dell nor Google appeared to highlight this issue as prominently and clearly as HP, though Google had plenty of engaging activities on their blog.

This brings me to the Google blog, which is quite different from the other two. Any number of company representatives produce the blog with the purpose of reporting on an activity, an award, a contest, etc. The blog is fairly visually stimulating, with color, pictures, hypertext and such. Though one may respond to a blog, I don’t know if many comments are made in direct response to posted blogs because I couldn’t quite tell where these were housed. Google’s strength, not surprisingly, is serving as an aggregator of other blogs that use their service or discuss them in some way. Their corporate image appears to be fun, friendly, with razzle-dazzle, while Dell and HP are going for a more helpful and responsive image. Obviously, they're all looking to keep their customers and get new ones, but Google may also be looking to add to their staff. There were several mentions of how great a workplace they are.

As for my inital criterion--what's in it for me--I found that the battery in my Dell laptop might have been recalled! It has been acting strangely, so I will certainly be back to Dell. Also, I found it reassuring that I could relate to company reps and other consumers via blog, or at least read about how they might have discovered or solved a problem that I, too, may have.

MISSION STATEMENT

While this blog will showcase my work as a technical writer, I'd also like to provide a forum for sharing ideas about writing as well as actual works--technical or otherwise. Writers of all kinds who seek to improve their skills and learn new things are welcome! Let's see where we go!