Optional Excercise

Part of the optional excercise listed on Webct is to arrange a variety of shapes in some sort of hierarchical structure. The images were to be various shapes, textures, colors and brightness. I have already completed this excercise in NED12. just last study period, and as this is just listed as an optional excercise, I have only posted one new version in this format.
I have hopefully formatted this page to show the European trend of starting top left corner, scanning across and then down. Admittedly, I probably could have used more 'whitespace' but was skimping to save room. Also I think I was emulating a newsprint format which does not display as much 'whitespace' as say a web design etc...

Understanding Visual Organization

Came across a good article by Luke Wrobleski that has a lot of the main concepts of good visual organization condensed into the one brief article. There is an interesting section that explains how we see visual relationships. The principles of gestalt are something I studied during VIS18s. (see image)

'Whenever we attempt to make sense of information visually, we first observe similarities and differences in what we are seeing. These relationships allow us to not only distinguish objects but to give them meaning. For example, a difference in color implies two distinct objects (or different parts of the same object), a difference in scale suggests one object is further from us than the other, a difference in texture (one is more blurry) enforces this idea, and so on. Once we have an understanding of the relationships between elements, we can piece together the whole story and understand what we are seeing.' (http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/visible_narratives
_understanding_visual_organization)

Visual Hierarchy

Whilst researching visual hierarchy, I thought I would try to google the World's best-designed newspapers - and up she popped. There is a website that showcases some of the world's best designs and layouts and they are awarded prizes. It is located at: http://www.newsdesigner.com/archives/002113.php there are some excellent examples of page structure and the principles of visual hierarchy. There is a long list of graphic examples that can easily be viewed.

The Presidential Website

Visual hierarchy

In reading Krug chapter 3, dealing with the conventions associated with visual hierarchy, it is easy to see how these visual prompts can lead the viewer, both in print form and websites. The two papers that are featured (see pic) are good examples of this as they are two leading journals in the States.
Reading on in chapter 3, I was intrigued at the mention of Senator Hatch's site V's the website of the Pres. as far as usability goes...so obviously I had to take a look. Hatch's page can be found at http://www.orrinhatch.com
and the Pres's page can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/
It was very interesting to see both sites and make the comparison. I think that Hatch was correct about the official Whitehouse site having a distinct lack of visual hierarchy.

some great resources

In my research for A2 I have come across a couple of ripper links for not only my assignment but for my browser bookmarks for future use... you can never have too many good links... the first is a site for all things 'usability', it has comprehensive cover and can be found at:http://www.usabilityfirst.com/websites/design.txl
I have also posted this to the webct db for my classmates..
link number 2 is a great site for referencing copyright issues. I have several sites like this in my bookmarks, but I recognized that this one covers the issues comprehensively and in plain english...I have also posted this one to webct db...
it can be found at: http://www.benedict.com/ ...back soon...

Update on questionnaire

well, I have finally stolen ten minutes to report on my progress...I have sent out my questionnaire and after some technical difficulties with MSWord'07 successfully posted it to the ned23 db... most of the problems have been compatibility issues with file formats and differing programs... but this is also topical because poor compatibility leads to inadequate usability... already had a dozen or so responses and appreciate my classmates and even tutor's response... have tried to answer several of my classmates 'Q's' as well... still madly trying to catch up with my reading of Krug's book...would only take 2 hours to go from cover to cover but as usual 'life gets in the way'... also reading the ned23 modules, my market research tutorial, the returned questionnaire's, and trying to at least get the formatting ready for my ned23A2pdf that will be due before I know it... so I wont waffle on here any longer...back to the books.

logo for website

above is the existing logo for OUSA, and the new one that I created... after a lengthy design process with a selection panel it was put to a vote from students...the inspiration was for the new logo to be modern, relaxed, and a little 'funky'. As other designer's will know, you are never quite happy with the end result...you always feel you could do better, but at the end of the day you need to move on to bigger and more important issues. I think that it is only once people become familiar with and accustomed to a new logo that it truly becomes branded.For example a red tick was... just a red tick, until Nike got a hold of it and the public did the rest.

OUSA West Midlands

This is the screenshot of the OUSA from West Midlands in the UK. The url for viewing is: http://www.ousa-west-midlands.co.uk/ and finally a link to the OUSA in Frankfurt which has on its homepage the links for all the OUSA's in Europe and the UK, which is well worth a look. The headquarters has a particularly nice looking corporate style structure and design. Here is the link: http://www.ousa-frankfurt.de/links/

OUSA Italy

This screenshot is of the OUSA in Italy and the url for viewing is: http://www.geocities.com/ousaitaly/

OUSA Luxembourg

Well, I have taken screenshots of the 3 or 4 competing websites for usability testing and critiquing as per study outline. The above screenshot is of the OUSA in Luxembourg and the url for viewing is: http://www.ousalux.info/

my website topic

Well I have chosen the website I will be using as a subject. It is the OUSA student association website. It can be found at: http://www2.open.edu.au/ousaa/
I have included a screenshot with callouts that point to the most obvious deficiencies. One of the most obvious is the uncontrolled 'whitespace'. If you visit the site you will notice that the blue header area and the white area to the left, container for the nav links, are actually fixed in position and do not scroll with the page. I have three other Uni student association sites for usability testing and critiquing, which I will include in the next post complete with links. I have completed a 'rough' of my questionnaire and I will post a copy to my website with links to it from this blog. In my research, I have been noticing that a lot of usability issues arise from a lack of communication in many areas...I refer to the following article, http://www.uie.com/articles/usability_tests_learn/

Market Research & Questionnaire

Module 2.2 Practice: Well I have read the preface, foreword, introduction, Chapter1 and Chapter 2 of Steve's book...now I am on to module 2.2 and reading my selected tutorial on Market Research & designing a questionnaire. I was hoping to find a University site for my research, but in the end I used some of the usability guidelines I have been learning to select my research sites. For Market Research I have chosen the following site: http://www.marketresearchworld.net/
and for designing a questionnaire I have chosen:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/W3241E/w3241e05.htm
so I will report my findings once I get my research underway.

Dont Make me Think

Started reading Steve's book on usability - a very comfortable style of writing, and quite enjoyable for a unit text...makes a nice change.

For mine, the conclusion to the first chapter is, "...the main reason why it's important not to make people think is that most people are going to spend far less time looking at the pages we design than we'd like to think." (Krug.2006)pp19.

and after chapter 2, my new designers mantra is, "If your audience is going to act like your designing billboards, then design great billboards." (Krug.2006)pp.29.

I think this book is going to be invaluable...