Assignment 2: How I went

To be honest I was completely bewildered when I first picked up the essay question, how on earth was I going to write about everything I had learnt and relate it to the concepts. So, what i did was take a completely different method to that which I usually take and created a mess!!! On a serious note though, I had all the concepts printed out and chose the ones I felt most passionate about, once I decided on them I linked them to the the skills I had learnt on the course and created a sort of physical hierarchy. Laying all the printouts on the floor, with the attached skills, I created an essay structure, (much to my flatmates amusement!). I then found relative quotes and references. Once my physical paper hierarchy had been created I was ready to begin my introduction. From there, it was smooth sailing. I hopefully have answered the question to the best of my knowledge and am quite satisfied with the result!

In conclusion to having written the essay, I managed to tie together in my mind the relevance of everything we have learnt, I say this because I was wondering why these concepts we were originally given. I now have a clear understanding that a knowledge of the concepts we were given are vital if we are to be successful Internet users. A knowlede of the background information creates a base from which we can develop, and keep developing our skills. Learning about the internet is an ongoing process, it is forever changing, and to keep up with it we have to keep learning!

Low Litracy Internet Users and My View

I was scanning down the Low Literacy Users, Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, March 14, 2005, when I came across the "Characteristics". I was mortified, points they made about a low literacy internet users could have been made about me. Which made me start thinking about how I expect instant gratification when searching for something on the net, the points Neilsen made are not so much true because I am illiterate, but more so true because I am lazy. I often skip grand chunks of text because I do not think they will contain information that I need, I hardly ever reach the end of a web page, I often lose track of pages when there are constant pop ups. This instant gratification is not only true of me, but many, many internet users out there. Why would you sit for hours searching through the search engines when you can just pick the first link that came up and gain a decent amount of information on a subject? The world is becoming more like that every day, and the point I made a few blogs ago, about language on the net reitterates this, people are not illiterate or unintelligent, THEY ARE LAZY! Language is becoming lazy, we as people are becoming lazy (regarding sport and the amount of tv we watch etc.etc.), and of course, being able to use the internet for pretty much all information and now for bookings, learning, teaching and communicating is making us less hard working. Everything is available at the touch of a button, why sit and scroll when the first button will do?! This is vital information for anyone trying to create a web site that will reach people, all the above should be taken into account. Having the main point of the site in bold lettering at the top, with the main contents easily seen just bellow it, will ensure that people will read it, regardless of their literacy rate. Prioratising the text is essential. People are more likely to look at pictures and diagrams, so is there a way you can convey the same message with a diagram, will this keep people interested and more likely to delve deeper? I know from my personal experience that I am less likely to carry on viewing a site that I do not understand the moment I open it, than one that starts with the basics on the subject and then moves on to the more technical information. Under the heading Improving Usability for Lower-Literacy Users, Neilsen makes the following points:
Prioratise information
Avoid text that moves or changes
Streamline the page design
Simplify navigation
Optimize search
Should these points not be true for most internet sites? It speaks for itself with the results of the Case Study: What's at Stake? http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050314.html.

Module Three: WWW Standards

My Top 5 Rules fo Writing Online

• Be Concise, everyone will appreciate it! The point you are making will be understood, and not confused by additional information that is not relavent.
• Use lists, diagrams or pictures to convey information when possible, this will aid those who learn visually, and will be a quick explanation.
• Do not use too many seperate windows, and if there are windows containing different sections of information, make sure they are headed clearly, and make it easy to navigate back to the page they came from.
• Do not make a single web page too long, perhaps split it into two sections, that way the reader will find it less intimidating, and is more likely to read more of it.
• Do not distract the reader from information with too many links, pictures, adds, games, the more stream line a page is the more likely it is that the viewer will stick to the information they were there for rather than heading off to another site and being distracted form their initial point.

My First Assignment: The Ups and Down

My assignment has been submitted with a dash of anticipation and dollop of nerves. I thought I would write this to define the problems I had whilst doing it, as well as the break throughs. It started off well, though i think i might have broken off more than I could chew, choosing to create a web page. I started of using HTML but was limited by my knowledge of tags so I then enlisted the help of a HTML editor, which I think I have previously mentioned. The HTML editor helped me to create a more aesthetic page, though the page I ended up with was nothing compared to the one I had started (including many pictures). After showing what I thought was a really good layout to a few friends I was informed that I should probably choose a simpler layout, easier to follow, which is what I ended up doing. I discarded all the pictures and chose to use a more block like format with distinguishing colours instead. Not only did this turn out to be better to look at, but was also a lot easier for me to get my head around.

As for the content of the web page, I think I have some good links that will aid further education on being an advanced Internet user, but my writing of annotated bibliographies could be improved on, I found it quite difficult to find some of the sources of the web pages I chose, as well as the authors. This has been interesting, because I now realise the importance of making that information available when creating an online source. The reliability of certain web sites is very much in the air because of their lack of referencing and author information. I also learned a lot about what to look for when searching for information on the net, learning to look for their date last updated, their references, their reliability and any other information they could supply me with.

Over all, I tried to make my web site as easy to follow as possible, giving each subject a different page, and having the home page with all links available on it. I chose a certain colour for each subject and linked that colour to the referencing, so when the audience is searching for information on a certain link, it is easier to find.

I am hoping that my work on the web site will see me pass, and that it may even help someone doing this unit in the future. I have learnt so much creating this assignment, and am proud of what I have managed to achieve, even if it may not get me best results.

Personal Thoughts: Language on the Internet

Whilst doing my assignment, I began to think about our hap-hazard way of writing on the Internet, though there are guidelines in place that we are all meant to follow, it worries me that the language we use whilst chatting or blogging, or even whilst we are creating web sites, is becoming far too informal and abbreviated. Slowly with the use of text messaging, chatting and blogging, we are creating a new language, a web language that is full of abbreviations, smiley faces and terrible spelling. Whilst I think it is absolutely incredible to sit in on one of these chat sites and watch them communicate as if they were speaking a different language, I am beginning to think that we might eventually start becoming a little socially handicapped, we no longer need to use phones because we have the Internet, even with our mobiles, we are able to just send messages. Shopping can be done online, learning can be done online, most businesses now have chat sites where we can contact them..............are we eventually going to lose our power of speech???? Don't get me wrong, I think the Internet and everything it involves is amazing, but what is going to happen to actually being face to face with someone, the human touch, the expressions on a persons face, a REAL smile, proper social interaction!

Having gone to a school where English was VERY important, and the importance of spelling was drummed into you, (even though admittedly I am a terrible speller!) I have been reading web site after web site, blog after blog, where bad grammar, bad spelling and a ridiculous amounts of abbreviations are being used. There are only so many mistakes you can put down to typos. Even with spell checker, people are getting complacent, what message is that sending out to the Internet prodigies we have as children today? That it is alright not to be able to spell, or even write properly for that matter. That it is fine to use silly abbreviations instead of descriptive and powerful words?

My conclusion to my rant is that as advanced internet users, we should make it our mission to make sure that everything we write and publish has a certain degree of correct, formal English, as well as good grammar, to set a good example to those surfing the web.

Module 3 cont: html linking troubleshooting

I have spent countless hours trying to work out why I could not create a separate file for my pictures and still link it to my volcano html document, my conclusion, after much contemplation, confusion and frustration, is that my computer files the pictures, html documents, Photoshop documents and so on, automatically. When I open my work in progress file, created especially for the html tutorial, all my files are categorised into type by little icons, for example, the html documents have the explorer icon, gif images have a gif icon, so on and so forth. I have spent days feeling furious, when in fact, it was right there in front of me all the time, the important thing though, is I now understand exactly how folders I have on my computer are filed, and better still, I now have a very good understanding on how to get the files linked in a html document. WAHOO!!!

Neglecting my bog!

I have thrown myself into my assignment so much that I have neglected my blog terribly, this does not mean that nothing is being achieved though, or at least I like to think! My web page is coming along, although I find myself getting tied up in the asthetics rather than the content, which I realise is not the correct thing to be doing, especialy when my web design skills are so raw.