For the French Revolution site, the content is there. The content is great. The content just needs to be presented better. First of all, a visitor needs a better idea of what is on the site than what is currently presented on the main page. I have revamped the information architecture and hammered out a few pages for this week. They aren’t bad, but I know they need some more styling. Some things will be impossible to accomplish even for the final next week because they relate to the information that is stored in the database which needs to be revamped. That will take some time. Here is my preliminary design.

I also commented on Jenny’s blog that: (1) I think her design is great and a very good use of the web to present historical content because it is interactive and dynamic, and because it provides information that probably isn’t available elsewhere, so real value added. And, (2) that for those of you in the history program, I can understand how it is hard to worry about your content as you design these sites, but the class is about the design, and so, in my humble opinion, you are allowed, even expected, to neglect your content a little bit as you focus on learning design. That way, later on, you can simply recall all the fundamentals of design you’ve learned in this class and apply them with ease, allowing design worries to fall to the background as you write brilliant history. Right? I would add that I thought of using a paper I wrote in graduate school years ago for one of our projects, and I was far too concerned about whether or not my content was still well-written and indeed good enough to be posted online. So I completely understand the worry, and I can tell you I am much happier this week working on “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” where I absolutely do not need to worry about the content, only about its presentation.

I have also commented on Mark’s blog, saying that he has organized a large project very well, and he made some great image choices. I also think the site would benefit from more consistency in header style and from more dreary or violent colors to provide an appropriate and consistent ambiance throughout the site.

One of Gee’s arguments, in the section about “co-design,” is that a great quality of games is that they can make players think and learn. I would argue that some clever players could play the game without seriously thinking or learning. Perhaps then Gee would say they are learning without knowing they are learning and he would argue that is a good thing. I would counter that learning without awareness that you are learning often leads to what he says later on in the article: “the well-known phenomenon that students with As because they can pass multiple-choice tests can’t apply their knowledge in practice.”

I do think Gee has some good points. He fails to acknowledge that many of his principles are actually applied in private schools and for many years have been part of the reasons parents choose these schools over the public educational system. These schools, generally speaking, do not “dumb it down” because they aren’t required to move as slowly as the slowest student in class. They also incorporate creative methods of learning, personalized attention and feedback, and interactivity. I would add that most science classes and language classes have more creative and interactive curricula than English or history classes. What about dissecting animals in biology lab? Or mixing chemicals in chemistry? Nowadays, language classes no doubt use computer programs to facilitate learning and to provide additional interactivity outside of class.

The bottom line for me with Gee’s argument is that some of his principles are good, but none can be employed without also reading and writing and attending class in the traditional way.

Niall Ferguson’s article “How to Win a War” was inspiring and very convincing and nearly makes me want to go out and buy that game The Calm & the Storm. He makes a clear case for some valuable ways video games can be used in an educational manner. Particularly with counterfactual questions. Games other than The Calm & the Storm, he says, are “just playing Space Invaders…with fancy graphics.” Still, without some basis of knowledge with which you enter the game and some discussion with a teacher about what you’ve played in the game, how can you know that the students are learning and learning to think in new and different ways?

I’ve commented on Ken’s Historiarum about using gaming as a teaching method because video games are a common experience for children today, and on Jenny’s blog about how Gee must have hated his own experience in school and how Ferguson’s article makes a more compelling case for the value of educational gaming.

I thought the sites were overall very good. We each have our skills and our areas for improvement. It seems clear to me that with each assignment most of us pick something we want to accomplish and aim for that while letting other things fall to the bottom of the to-do list for that week. At least, this is what I do. I’m here to learn certain things and improve certain areas of my skill set, and I can’t do it all every week. It’s really too much. Especially when we have such a short period of time to complete each assignment. There are clearly some folks who spend more time than others on these projects and take it more seriously, but in the end we get out of this what we put in.

I’ve added some comments on Karin’s site, because I thought she did a really great job and the critique got a little carried away, and on James’ blog. Perhaps I’m saying this because I know that for this project, I worked nearly non-stop on it for the past 10 days or so, and in the end, I think my design is terrible. The process I went through, however, was not. I learned a ton about Photoshop and grids and typography. And about people’s opinions. So, frankly, I don’t want to hear that you don’t like a dark background and light text, that’s a matter of opinion. Many designers are able to pull off very appealing sites with this kind of scheme, and I was trying to create something similarly edgy and different for a hip, cutting-edge place like CHNM. I’m disappointed that I fell short of that aim, but I’m not finished yet…

I am approaching the design as if it really were an assignment for CHNM, but at the same time, I’m trying to let myself do things that may push the limits of design to come up with something totally different. Since I’ve been reading The Zen of CSS Design, I’m inspired by those designs and trying to incorporate many crucial design elements: color, repetition, alignment, imagery, and proximity. It’s hard work. I’ve been meticulously working with a gridmaker that Jeremy showed me in Photoshop, and trying to get all the margins and boxes aligned with all the right spacing ain’t easy. I’ve had to re-create images over and over and over and do lots and lots of math. I’m trying to keep it simple and clean, as is my style, and yet I want to incorporate lots of color and imagery. I keep thinking I’m almost there, then I decide to change something.

I’ve commented on Ken’s, Marty’s, Steve’s, Chris’s and Bill’s blogs about their designs and about Bill’s comments on mine…that, yes, when I find time, I will try to post something of my process for any of you who are interested. Unfortunately, my parents are coming to town, and we have our final design project. But, if it would help any of you, I’ll try to get something up next week. And, thanks Bill, for the vote of confidence. Unfortunately, the site didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped.

Nonetheless, the Lost Museum seemed really cool at first, but as I started to wander through, I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. I do like the concept of a virtual museum very, very much, but I really dislike having to slide my mouse around until the cursor changes, then click, or more realistically slide it back to that precise spot where the cursor changed and then click. Then you ask yourself, is there anything else to see in this room? Well, let me slide my mouse around some more and see. Frankly, I would have to be incredibly interested in that topic in order to stick around and slide and click all over the place. (I have a similar reaction to playing Myst, but I’ll save that commentary for later.)

The Historic Tale Construction Set was a riot. I loved the style and music. Monty Python-esque. But, I had a hard time getting it to work or understanding the point. That said, it was pretty well-designed with an easy to understand drag and drop tool. But, there were no other links or any additional information about the site, how to use it, or who designed it.

The British Library’s Turning the Pages site looked very exciting until I had to go download the Shockwave plug-in, which I believe I had downloaded and installed a couple of weeks ago. Even still, I couldn’t get the site to work properly. I kept getting Shockwave error messages. Designers ought to be concerned about this very problem: does my user have everything he or she needs to view my site? If not, does my site prompt them to go and download it, does it not function without some special technology, and does my site “downgrade” effortlessly and effectively so that a user, who doesn’t have or doesn’t want some extra doohickey they have to leave my site to go hunt down, download, and install, can still enjoy the content of my site. I always try, though I’ve never designed anything so fancy. Maybe this is part of the reason I haven’t. After finally getting a book to open and making several clicks elsewhere around the site, I grew frustrated over a failed zoom attempt and left. The designers of that site should talk to Steve Krug. Or at least read his book.

Then, I couldn’t login to the system to read Josh Brown’s article (can’t remember my email password since I never, ever use Webmail), so I’ll get that from someone later perhaps? But, this is yet another frustrated effort today. Lastly, for now, the article on Participation Inequality made me want to scream. The implied tone of the title is that it is somehow bad that not everyone participates in interactive web experiences. So what? Not everyone votes either. I myself am usually a lurker, and I like it that way. And, frankly, I don’t much care what the average web user has to say about my blog or anyone else’s. I don’t want some random person editing the article on the Tiananmen Massacre, I want an actual expert on Chinese history to tell me what he or she thinks. Why does everyone need to have a blog or need to post in it more than every once in a while? I don’t see much advantage in a greater portion of the web user population converting from lurker to contributor. The only benefits I see, at least from the article, are commercial. Marketers can better target their customers, customer service can change its practices, etc. Aside from the advantage of a discount or special offer, what advantage does the user have in contributing?

I see the web as a resource, a place that makes information more accessible to more people more quickly and more easily. That, alone, is a very good thing. And that is, I believe, what history and new media is about. Not about requiring your users to participate in some sort of interactive experience, but to make information available to them that was previously unavailable. The goal should not be interactivity and participation but access to and comprehension of information. If these goals can be achieved with some degree of non-annoying, no-additional-downloads-required interactivity, More Power To It.

See my comments on Tad’s blog, Ken’s Historiarum, and on Maureen’s blog.

“Visual Architecture: The Rule of Three” by Carole Guevin showed how placement and interactivity among images guide a viewer through a web page (or printed page). I think, however, that until my graphic design skills improve tremendously, my websites will not be able to take full advantage of this tool. That said, of course one can use this concept with headings and text blocks and logos. I suppose there are levels of implementation of this rule of three: from basic visual structure to complex imagery. The underlying principle is the same—a visual guide through the page—but the implementation differs by orders of complexity. At least that gives me something to strive for and an area for improvement. Although, obviously, the article had a commercial bent, these concepts would still apply to serious historical work. You can still present the information so that it is visually clear and enticing, while drawing your readers to sections with your use of imagery (or titles, subtitles, etc).

Steve Krug’s book Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability is great. I love the use of cartoons and diagrams throughout to help illustrate his points. Unfortunately, as some of you may have gathered, I do suffer from a rather short attention span. Or at least, if I can’t find what I’m looking for in about 2 seconds, I flip or click or otherwise look somewhere else. I’m impatient, and I value my time. I think this is actually the most effective part of Krug’s message: that when presented with information (be it a whole web page or a choice of links or a button), a user should not have to think, or at least only think minimally. This is a very difficult thing to design for because you often know what you mean when you type “Take Action” (just to use a recent example that I’m struggling with. But, how do you ensure your readers/viewers know what you mean? His answer is usability testing. This is such a hard thing to do. I’m trying to work on it, to find a way to incorporate this into my design process. For now, it’s one of those goals, like accessibility, that, for now, I’m only meeting the minimum requirements. In my mind, once my designing skills are better then I’ll improve on these things. Soon, hopefully, soon.

And, finally, Douglas Bowman’s “Design Process Revealed” was actually one of the first articles I read when I started re-learning web design last summer. I think it’s an excellent process and one I’ve tried to adopt or at least make my own. I particularly like his tip about creating an Illustrator file and playing with various fonts applied to your key text in order to choose your ideal font. Not only is this a great way to visualize and compare the different choices you have, but it is also a great way to begin gaining familiarity with the abundance of fonts available to us. I suggested to John on his blog that he try to incorporate this method, especially the early brainstorming stage, into his process for our upcoming design project. This brainstorming really helps me to think of types of images I can use and which of those images might work well together. When these ideas are all written down on paper, it helps me to see what the possibilities are, and when I’m in the middle of the design and needing something extra, I can look back to it and say “A-ha, yes, a bird would be an excellent addition to this motif.” Or something.

I also suggested that Misha, who cracked me up with her title “Good Design Beats a Poke in the Eye,” use Bowman’s design process. I think I’m just a very process-oriented person. Otherwise I get too distracted and/or waste time fooling around with things that are extraneous to the task at hand. But, seriously, working through this rather straightforward process, even if you take some shortcuts, can really streamline your efforts and achieve what you’re aiming for with greater ease.

Marty wrote about Krug’s book in his post “Clean pages = pleasant experience,” and I noted how there are indeed a few examples out there of successful commercial websites. By successful, I mean successful in design. They are clean, easy to follow, and visually interesting and/or appealing. I also mentioned how the legacy of old websites that need redesign and the lack of time to devote to such an overhaul is probably the main impediment to many of these businesses undertaking such an endeavor. I sympathize with those designers, because I know that it is most likely rarely their fault that the web site looks the way it does —as odd as that sounds. They take their direction from non-design management and, unless they’ve been employed there for 10 years or so, they likely inherited an old design that the company already has too much invested in to be willing to take on a redesign that this new designer seems to think is so important. There’s branding, recognition, and other equities I’m sure that give these businesses tremendous anxiety about changing the face of their Web presence. Creating a beautiful, clean, well-organized, visually uncluttered but interesting and engaging website is much, much easier said than done.

It is true that I have given little thought to taking these disabilities into account when designing sites in the past. That said, I have always operated on the assumption that if you design a site cleanly and clearly, you are halfway there. This is somewhat true. Many of the 25 points in “Dive Into Accessibility” are things that I already do, or at least try very hard to do. For example, choosing a doctype, declaring the language, making the page title meaningful, presenting the main content of a page first, ensuring that colors contrast sufficiently, using title attributes on links, using alt tags on images, using real links (not javascript links), and then others of the points that relate to designing with tables which are for the most part moot, except for using table headings and captions and using them appropriately. These are all things I strive to do as part of my regular design process. Admittedly, my own website and projects I’ve done for class, I have been focused on other elements of design and have sometimes let these important elements fall by the wayside.

That said, it is especially helpful to hear a screen reader (at WebAIM). Wow. I had an incredibly hard time understanding that, and I imagine it isn’t easy and is quite frustrating for anyone needing to learn to do this after losing sight later in life. Also very helpful was the note, made in a couple of these articles, that screen readers will read filenames unless you specify a title or alt attribute. Again, I try to put these in my sites, but now that I understand how exactly they are used (other than the nifty visual tool tip that some see), I will certainly make an effort to ensure these tags are used and used properly.

One final note is that I did not really understand how learning disabled people use the Web. I went to a high school that had a special program for kids with learning disabilities, and I always thought that they read slower because they processed information differently. I didn’t think that it was that they couldn’t read at all. Dyslexia, I always understood, is a disability that one can learn to overcome or compensate for. I know there are others. Some people learn better by hearing than by reading, so couldn’t they get a screen reader? Until I understand more about how this group of people uses the Web, I cannot accommodate them. The suggestion that all websites should be illustrated, as Clark mentions, is indeed a “cure worse than the disease.”

I continue my discussion about learning disabilities and accessibility on Mark Stevens’ Learn More History AND Technology, and I raise some questions about our audience on Maureen Guignon’s CLIOblog. In the end, I think that there are sufficiently accessible websites and there are websites designed to be accessible. Which one you require is a matter of your expected and intended audience, and as Mark says, “It does not take a terrific amount of intellectual ability to figure out that reasonable accommodations should be made in order that “disabled” people may access web pages.” Here here.