Designing for Online vs. Print (2)

Designing for Online vs. Print (2)

Priciples help designer determine the relationship between the parts or design elements involved and serve as rules that a designer can follow when combining these elements in a design (Evans, P. 2006). A designer have to understand the goal, audience and context in order to attract readers. Goals are very important to a print document designer because they need to be ubliseaware of what type of information are they going to published to the readers and the purpose of an article. Then, they need to know what type of the audience are for the specific print document. The context have to be suitable to the target audience. There are some design principles that a print document designer have to be aware of, which is hierarchy, balance, proximity, scale, unity, variety and texture. Unlike designing for an online document, a print document have their own design elements, such as shape, line, colour, type and imagery. For a print document, a designer main consideration is to understand that design is an effective communication, words, shapes and images are language. A design should be invisible which is complementary to the text (Cookman, B. 1993)


References:

Nielson J., http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html

Schriver, K.A. 1997, Chapter 6 in Dynamics in document design.

Evans, Poppy 2006, ‘Chapter 2 and 5’ in Publication Design, Thomson-Delmar, New York.

Cookman, Brian 1993, ‘Dekstop design: getting the professional look’ in Design basics, Blueprint, London.

Designing for Online vs. Print

Designing for Online vs. Print

According to Jakob Nielson, if a website is not easy to use, people simply leave and ignore the page (Jakob Nielson 2006). Thus, a webpage designer need to be aware of the tecniques to design a webpage in order to attract people. Document designers need to resist 'romancing the screen' and focus on how readers interact with the document. A better does not equals to a better communication necessarily (Schriver 1997). According to Nielson's research findings, 79% of the users always scan information on the computer screen, whereas only 16% of users will only read it word-by-word. Besides that, Nielson also pointed out that reading from a computer screen is 25% slower than reading from papers. He also pointed out that a web content should be 50% of the paper equivalent (Jakob Nielson 2006). In Nielson's findings, he found that users' main reading behaviour was fairly consistent across many different states and tasks. This dominant reading pattern looks like an F-shaped pattern.

Users first read in a horizontal movement, across the top part of the content area. This initial element forms the F's top bar. Next, users will move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement . This element forms the F's lower bar. Finally, users will scan the content's left side in a vertical movement. This last element forms the F's stem.

The F pattern's implications for the web design are clear and show the importance of following the guidelines for writing for the web. Users won't read your text thoroughly in a word-by-word manner. The first two paragraphs must state the most important information and start subheads, paragraphs and bullet points with information-carrying words.

The three main guidelines for writing for the web are to be succinct, which is write not more than 50% of the text you would have used in a hardcopy publication. Then, write for scannability, don't require users to read long continuos sentence of the text. Try to use hypertext to split up long information into multiple pages.

Classification of blogs and example(s) of blogging communities

Classification of blogs and example(s) of blogging community

The classification of blogs can be divided into many categories. the media type of blogs included vlog, sketchlog, tumblelogs, linklog. sketchlog contains a portfolio of sketches, blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs, whereas linklog comprising links to other websites. Many blogs are combinations of styles, which makes identifying unique types difficult. I will usually read blogs with the style of the blogs and the topics which able to attract me. (ucsi.edu.my)

Communities from around this shared interest, and the stronger groups turn that interest into a passion. One of the famous blogging community that I know is mybloglog.com. This is blog which enable bloggers to interact with each other to share their viewpoints on a certain topic.

Blogging community can be created by joining a forum, include hyperlinks in a blog to link to another blog, comment on a certain post and also tag other person's blog. Jeff Ooi's blog enables other bloggers to tag into the blog due to the sufficient information provided from western websites such as BBC and CNN to South East Asia. Readers who tag Jeff Ooi's blogs will give comments and information.


Reference:

http://www.ucsi.edu.my/jasa/3/papers/AC8.pdf

Blogs as current phenomenon and effects on community (2)

Blogs as current phenomenon and effects on community (2)

Social blogs can be seen as a personal 'diary' to bloggers to share their personal interest, daily lives and get to relationships with each other. Political blogs are usually written from a country's perspective, especially during election times. The most popular political blog in Malaysia is Malaysiakini.com which contribute information and news about current affairs in our country to the nation. Business blogs usually contains adverlets, which is posting advertisements on blogs. Public Relations (PR) companies use blogs to connect with their customers to run projects.



References:

http://www.ucsi.edu.my/jasa/3/papers/AC8.pdf

McLaughlin D., (2006), http://www.b5media.com/benefits-of-blog-networks

Swammer D., (2006), "An Obscure benefit of having a weblog" http://www.sctriallaw.com/cat-things-to-know-about-writing-a-weblog.html

Wright J., (2006), "Benefits of blog Networks", http://www.b5media.com/benefits-of-blog-networks

Blogs as current phenomenon and effects on community

Blogs as current phenomenon and effects on community

Blogs are one of the most important and popular tools nowadays. People create blog to interact with each other and foster their relationship by posting their thoughts and information that they need others to be aware of. The size of current blogosphere is very big, since everyone uses blog nowadays. Blogs actually contribute many benefits to Malaysian communities. According to Wright (2006), on his blog for b5 media, (a global new media network featuring more than 150 blogs (McLaughlin 2006)) he mentioned some of the important things that a blogger look for are, for example, to to upgrade their profile, to increase their income and to expand their community. For those who are seeking for extra income and online job, they can have the chances to upgrade their profile, whereas for those who wish to seek a group of people that share the same viewpoint on certain topics, they can have the benefits to expand their blogging community. Swammer (2006) article shows the improving of visibility within the same interest group of a blogging community.

Purpose of My Blog

Purpose of My Blog

The main purpose of doing this serious blog is to discuss about publication and design issues which is relevant for the third assignment for this course, Issues in Publication and Design (IPD). The content of this blog will be document design, and also include the knowledge that I have learnt. The audience of this blog will be mainly the students of IPD and professional document designers.