Monday, March 9

Designing effective web sites: Johnson-Eilola

The first chapter introduces considerations regarding:

- usability = careful consideration of who will be using your site, for what purposes, and under what conditions;
- structure = planning an organization/link structure that will reflect the users needs, interests, circumstances and abilities
- navigation = choosing the specific devices/facilities that will enable users to move from one screen/node to another

The second chapter engages you in thinking about who your users are and how their identities and circumstances affect their interactions with your site.
Johnoson-Eilola points out:
- that the sites' purpose should connect to the particular users
- user characteristics to consider should include: "age, cultures, interests, movtivations and skills" (10)
- the sites' structures should reflect users' profile; sites can be tailored to users in terms of: navigation devices, size and resolution, aspect ratio, color, fixity and reading patterns (see 10 -18, take a good look at the section on reading patterns)

Chapter 3 considers users' contexts:
-technical
-physical
-mental (+ predisposition to look for certain information)
-social and institutional contexts

Over break you will be reading Chapters 4 - 7, so that after class discussion of these chapters in class Monday, March 23, you can map out a schematic for your site.

In addition to dsicussion Johnson-Eilola, we will talk over the exploratory writing you did for your hypertext essays, and discuss how to finish developing your research plan.


For Wednesday, March 11
Read: Johnson-Eilola 4 & 5
Blog 11: (we will start this post in class March 9) Describe your audience, purpose, focus and work out some of the consequences these features of your project will have for your design; provide links to sites similar to what you have in mind
Blog 12: Wikipedia post + report on-going interactions with wikipedia

Th Mar 12 Online class, Chandler at Conference
Develop your research plan
Read: Johnson-Eilola, navigation + structure; 6&7: come to class prepared
Blog 13: post your research plan