Chapter 13
Designing Electronic Communication
Baden and Borth
Characterizing Electronic Communication:
Users and designers often have different perspectives about electronic communication. Users tend to think about tasks they want to accomplish, such as finding information, purchasing a product, or playing a game. Designers tend to think in terms of design and functionality. Both the user and designer see electronic communication as...
Interactive and nonlinear- Electronic communication environments are established by multiple possibilities for interactions among users, computers, software, interface components and developers.
Virtual and open- Virtual spaces do not have a material, face-to-face reality. Open means two things, both related to consistency and user expectations: (1) spaces allow users to move beyond boundaries at will. (2) Standards and conventions are fluid, leading varied designs and functionality and often uneven experiences for users.
Complex and dynamic- Complex development efforts include managing both static and dynamic content, hundreds of individual text and graphic files, multimedia components, and databases. Technology changes rapidly, becoming more dynamic and multidimensional; designers must plan for differences in users’ available technology.
Audiences and Electronic Communication-
Meeting the needs of audiences should be a primary goal of writers and designers of electronic communication. Electronic environments offer audiences unique opportunities to co-construct the environment and information each time they enter it. The sequence of links that users select leads to individual interpretations of information.
Reading and Navigating Electronic Communication:
Reading in electronic communication environments is different from reading on paper because it involves interface; it is interactive and brings with it a number of complications.
Screen and page size-
How much text can a reader see at one time? Larger screens enable the reader to see more, however, a reader has complications even with large screens because reading on a computer monitor reduces their awareness of where they are in relation to the whole document.
Legibility-
How easy is it to read what’s on the screen? Factors such as spacing, background and text color affect legibility. Readers also have difficulty with visual cues such as boldface and italics may not show on the screen and spacing is sometimes difficult to judge.
Responsiveness-
How quickly should a system respond to users’ actions? If the response time is more than ten seconds, people usually lose attention and wander to other tasks.
Navigation-
How easily can readers navigate the Web site? How easily can readers move through and locate places in the text? Web readers and users are influenced by images and icons that affect their ability to navigate on the Web, by color, links and backgrounds, typography and layout.
Equipment and service-
How much are readers constrained by physical realities? Even though fast modems and higher bandwidths are available, the modems and lines used by most people are too slow for decent Web response times.
Principles and Practices of Effective Design:
Information architecture- Is the framework that structures content. The structure should meet the goals and expectations of the user. Structure can be sequential (Web pages that link to the next in a linear style), hierarchical (outline format), or interlinked (less structured, liberally linked).
Page/screen design- Is the look and feel of the information the space on the screen. Organization and context help users understand the information.
Identification- Include critical information and site identification at or near the top of each page.
White Space- Don’t fill every pixel of your page. White space is important to help guide the user’s eye around the page. Leaving space is often preferable to creating divisions with graphics or color bars that detract from your content.
Scrolling- Prevent horizontal scrolling.
Content- Is organized and written differently for electronic communication that for traditional print documents. The style of content should match users’ ways of finding and reading information using electronic devices.
Graphics:
-Enhance the design and usability of the information
-Help establish identities for Web sites and create excitement and interest
-Help users navigate by calling attention to links, sections of sites, special features and different areas of pages.
-Provide information to illustrate products to consumers or as integral parts of Web-based articles, reports, or other documents
JPG image (“j-peg”) - named for the Joint Photographic Experts Group that created the type. Works well for photographic images, images with a high number of colors (above 265) and images with graduated color.
GIF image (“gif” or “jif”) - short for Graphics Interchange Format developed by CompuServe. Works well for images with ‘flat’ color areas, transparent images and for small images such as icons. Gifs manage up to 256 colors.
PNG image (“ping”) – for Portable Network Graphics. A new graphics type that promises to offer qualities of both .jpgs and .gifs with smaller file sizes. Older browsers do not support this image type and some graphic production software packages do not include the capability of saving images in the .png format.
Web sites follow several useful rules of thumb:
-Balance graphics and text on a page
-Coordinate graphics throughout a site
-Keep size of image files as small as possible to reduce load time
-Notify users when you must include a slow-loading graphic
-Use larger images on lower-level pages -Don’t rely on images alone to convey informati
21 comments:
When I am doing research online, I tend to have a hard time reading large documents online. Something I find that helps me is when I need to read something online I print it out first and then read it in hard copy. It makes it easier for me to follow and comprehend. Another thing I will do sometimes is copy it into word and change the color and background to something easier to read and follow. I like that this chapter defined JPG, GIF, and PNG. Those are things I see very often but I have never known their meaning or what is so different about them.
The first thing of this chapter that caught my attention was the responsiveness section. As we all know, facebook has some pretty cool applications. The more popular the application, the less "responsive" it tends to be. Take the bumper sticker application for example. We all use it :) but it doesn't always work and when it is on the fritz I freak out. I get so frustrated with the "try again" button. Sometimes I get so frustrated that I wander off and do something else. I don't think this is what the creators wanted out of the application but until they get it to work consistantly, they are going to lose users.
This chapter does a great job talking about how reading online does not exactly make it easy to read compared to hard copy, because you are not aware of where you are compared to the rest of the document when online. It also talks greatly about screen size and text size, and it is so true that when people cram to much information onto one page with small text, it almost gives me a headache when trying to read it. Userability is another thing that is very important. When I can't navigate easily through a page, I get frustrated and leave it, this is not what the author of the page was trying to do because then they lose users.
While reading chapter thirteen’s summary, it made me think about a few things that I do when I find an article that I need to read. Usually the first thing I do to the article is make sure the font and font size is readable. If not, I change the font and the font size to something I’d rather prefer. The next think I do is make sure the paragraphs are clear. When I check this, I like to have the paragraphs be very defined. This way I can read and reread each paragraph without thinking I’m going on to the next one
Chapter 13 explains how many people such as my self have problems reading and staying focused on something when its not interesting. Adding color and images help something become real. It helps the text become real for people to see what it is that your explaining. This chapter also explained the different types of picture formates that are used. I never really understood them because I wasn't give an expaination on what they were, but now I have a good idea.
Many websites have different fonts they use to make the design of their website efficient. Yes, it looks efficient visually, but if the font is tough to read it makes their website pointless. I can't stand trying to squint at a website to determine what they are saying, so in most cases it's best to just copy/paste the information to a document and change the format to something I like. I am an IT major so electronic communication is very important, so most of the terms defined in the chapter were also very familiar to me.
This chapter was interesting to me in that the internet is very frustrating sometimes in the speed it takes to get to certain locations such as when you click on an item in google and it is taking too long I usually click on something else from the list. Also one thing that I find irritating is the page size and the information which is sometimes all over the place, such as when you open a site and there are links on the right side and links on the left side along with a reading or some sort of information in the middle with more links. This type of thing isn’t precise and sometimes tough to follow along. So navigating through the internet can be very overwhelming especially when looking for something fast rather than just browsing around looking at whatever pops up.
When it comes to navigating a website, I really think simplicity is key. I get frustrated very easily when there is too much clutter or the site is too difficult to navigate. I want to look at a website that is not only easy to read, but is exciting to look at. Several things in my daily “to-do lists” involve websites. I pay bills, check emails and facebook, look up activities to do with my kids at work, find pictures for fliers I need to make for church events, etc. I really need the websites I visit to be user friendly. I do not want to spend excessive time trying to navigate through a website when I have so many other things to do. As with other technical documents, websites really need to use graphics and layouts that enhance their usability, not confuse or distract it.
Nowadays with everything online and the amount of information made available these websites need to be easy to understand. If the website is not easy to read and easy to follow it makes it very hard to understand and get what they are trying to tell us. When doing research papers or other reports I need to find alot of information on my topic and I don't like the websites that are hard to read or they just ramble on about useless information.
I feel that reading things online is very difficult because I tend to get distracted by all the other things going on in my computer. I feel hard copies of text is the easiest way to keep myself focused. I do however like creating things on my computer rather than doing it by hand. I really like design and how complex you can make things look. The more complex things look the more focused I stay on that topic because it isn't so boring.
Chapter 13 was focusing on the documents that we use online. I know when I am researching information for a paper I try to find something that looks easy to read and then if I like it I don't read the entire article online I usually get a hard copy of it so I can highlight or make notes while reading it right on the document. Also when reading articles it is nice when the key words are high lighted or bolded so our eyes are attracted to read those words more carefully and understand them better.
I believe that not only websites and documentation has the effects of designer and user. The author brings up the point that there are two sides the user and the designer. Not only does a website need to be ledgible and have reponsiveness, but products do to. Cars need ledgiblity on the dash so a driver can see at night. Responsiveness has much to do with cars as a website. A driver needs to have brakes that respond instantaneously to avoid accidents. On websites I agree that finding things easily is very helpful, as well as pictures and symbols.
I think the principle in industrial design called KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) also applies to the design of website. The Google homepage is one of the simplest web page and it is also one of the popular website. A website should be easy to use and navigate. Beginner webmasters or web designers tend to overuse graphics. Having too much images can distract users. Some tend to overuse navigation links. There are websites with horizontal and vertical menu and many other links not in the main menus. A website should have a purpose and the design should be gear toward that purpose.
When I'm reading documents that I find online, I want it to be easy on the eyes and simple to read. If the wrong text is used or even the wrong colors are used, I usually get frustrated trying to figure out what they're saying or I just go find another source. Also if the page looks too cluttered with pictures and what not, it can made it harder to piece sections together as well.
Electronic communication is very important in my life. I use it for researching a document, entrainment, and storing some important documents. This chapter reminds the readers and users of electronic environment to put in mind that when using an electronic device to consider if the document is legible, if the site is easy to navigate in short time and the document’s screen and page size. As a reader I consider navigation. When browsing through a document I will prefer to navigate easily. It prevents frustration to users who are new and don’t know much about computers.
This chapter explains with detail how important is to have well design electronic communications. I figured out that when I’m trying to obtain an article or other info I focus a lot in how the web looks and I know this is wrong but that’s how it works, if it looks to plain without anything standing out I'm more likely to skip it and keep searching. When it comes to managing a web for instance the one for this class, the designer has to make sure its simple so that any body is able to use it, because not everyone has advanced computer knowledge.
For me personally, I hate reading things that are huge documents on the computer. I especially hate it when the text is really small and tight together. It makes it very hard to keep your spot in the text and to also see, period. If the text is really small, it can also cause you to strain your eyes to read something so tiny. I prefer the text to be about 14-16 pt and have some good spacing between lines, like a 1.5 spacing.
For this chapter I again think of my work's website. We are always having to update it with new products or taking old products down and when we do it takes time because there are so many different components to change. We also pay attention to the navigation issues that might arise and put the most used features on the front page. I also think about Facebook. There are a lot of images that have to load on there and sometimes I just get sick of waiting for them to load so I go to a different site and most of the time when I finally realize the pictures I'm not as interested in looking at them anymore.
The online Web sites that I have the easiest time with are the ones that have the fewest things per page. When there is a lot of noise, I have a hard time reading everything. It can get very distracting. Having a long page with a scrollin option is useful too. It makes it so there isn't a whole lot of information jammed on a small space. I also liked that I know what JPG means now. It is on a lot of pictures online, and I never knew what that was.
When people publish stories online, it's important to make sure readers stay interested in what you have to say. People want to be entertained when they surf the web, more so than reading the newspaper. When people look at your Website and see that the font and/or the color is slightly difficult to read, they will bolt for another Website that is easier to read.
Personally I hate to read long documents online, I'd much rather print them out hand have a physical copy so I can hold it at a more comfortable level, rather than sitting straight up and looking at a computer screen. I've done this many times when reading our blogs for our class.
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