As I'm acting as editor for our online magazine fucazine i am finding it difficult to criticise other peoples work. as they are my peers and friends constructively criticising pieces and even ideas is a constant battle. i am trying to be as honest as possible but also having to be careful about how i write the criticism as most of this is done by email and can be taken the wrong way.
trying to balance the write amount of negative with positive. as i want to keep my team motivated. especially as i am now asking for 2 pieces of written work a week and have set a strict deadline for Tuesday 5pm. as Emily is doing most of the technical design work i have limited her writing to one article a week. until the design is finished.
we are hoping to go live by next week and fingers crossed we will. I have also noticed the importance of communication. i can no longer just put my work off as i have to be on top as people are looking to me for advice on their pieces. this is quite a lot to take on and i didn't realise there would be so much organisational skill involved but i am enjoying the responsibility and skill involved in running a team. we are organised and ideas are flowing and people have kept to their deadline so far.
everyone knows what their doing and i am making myself readily available for my team whenever they need advice or criticism. so fingers crossed I'll keep it up!
design wise we have decided through talk with Steve that wordpress might be the way to go. frustrating because we don't get the design aspects we could with dreamweaver but it will be more consistent and easily updated using wordpress as it acts as a cms itself. need to discuss all the options and check how well wordpress is going to work with our interactive aspects, like if people are able to upload their own photo's if not can we link out etc.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
all going to plan
OK so this far in and we have given our website a home page and designed some templates for the features. we've decided the look and feel of the website and justified everything a million times over. With me being editor we have set up fucazine@live.co.uk where we all communicate and send our written pieces in to. we've also looked into forums and galleries and in today's lesson we discussed using polls and not having drop down boxes on the menu bar as it can clutter things up.
I am also in the process of working out a proper production schedule and through the email account the other group members are able to pitch me ideas which i am able to constructively criticise and give feedback. we have also suggested that everyone must now be writing 2 pieces a week the deadline for this being 5pm on a Monday. this will give us enough content to launch in the next week or so.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
who's doing what on the web?
Last lesson we looked at web analytics, we looked at how using programs or google's own program you can see who's using your website, how they got there how long they spend on each page and how users navigate through your website. Unlike magazines you can see pretty much see every detail about how someone uses a website. This is ideally great for advertisers as they can see how well their advertisements do. It also shows how so many advertisers are choosing to advertise on the web over print today and it seems likely that this trend will continue. Not only are they able to see how well their advertisements are working, how long people are looking at a page for example and where they a clicking on to after but it also means that instead of spending huge amount paying to advertise in newspapers or magazines online advertising seems relatively cheap in comparison. although as it becomes more popular, prices will rise.
If for example you have a magazine in print and also online like most magazines have today, the use of web analytic technology means you can see what a user wants to read, most popular hits for example and how many people and from what region of the country or even what county they are from, as this technology reads where the ip address is coming from. In realistic terms it means you will have a better knowledge of your audience and you have evidence of what is working well and what isn't. You can also see whether people are coming direct to the site using the url or whether they are using search engines. This means if people are coming through search engines it may be important to make sure your website is high up on the google result. Optimising your google search result can be done by using google keyword tool. Using phrases and words you think people might be looking at it gives you other words to use that are most common among users giving you a better chance of moving up the google results list. Repetition of these keywords will be needed which is a huge difference from writing for any other medium. It seems quite difficult to repeat yourself a lot but without making the writing sound patronising. once we get our site live i think it would be good to keep checking the google analytics of the site so we can see how its being used and take advantage of it. If people are taking certain paths through the website or one topic is more popular than another it will help when adding new pieces to the site. Possibly adding different buttons on the home page to get attention and take the users another way.
If for example you have a magazine in print and also online like most magazines have today, the use of web analytic technology means you can see what a user wants to read, most popular hits for example and how many people and from what region of the country or even what county they are from, as this technology reads where the ip address is coming from. In realistic terms it means you will have a better knowledge of your audience and you have evidence of what is working well and what isn't. You can also see whether people are coming direct to the site using the url or whether they are using search engines. This means if people are coming through search engines it may be important to make sure your website is high up on the google result. Optimising your google search result can be done by using google keyword tool. Using phrases and words you think people might be looking at it gives you other words to use that are most common among users giving you a better chance of moving up the google results list. Repetition of these keywords will be needed which is a huge difference from writing for any other medium. It seems quite difficult to repeat yourself a lot but without making the writing sound patronising. once we get our site live i think it would be good to keep checking the google analytics of the site so we can see how its being used and take advantage of it. If people are taking certain paths through the website or one topic is more popular than another it will help when adding new pieces to the site. Possibly adding different buttons on the home page to get attention and take the users another way.
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
In your face with interface
The interface of your website is key to useability. Jakob Nielson found only 10% of users ever scrolled beyond what is first seen on screen. This means when making your website you have to decide to scroll or not to scroll. I personally don't scroll, i am one of the 90% of people that don't so i'm gonna choose not to scroll.
The navigation tools and menu should also be clear on the page. I personally don't like using icons and logo's and prefer having words as navigation tools. www.asos.com has good navigation tools, it also subsections to make it easier for people to find what they are looking for. they are also in an obvious place and you're not left wondering "how do i get back to that?" The menu should be clear and succinct so that the page doesn't look cluttered or overloaded.
The use of pictures and pull quotes within your writing can be used as a tool as it can help keep draw the attention of the reader and keep the reader engaged. Although pictures of a high quality can take a long time to appear for some users. Its important to keep in mind that a user will only really allow 10 seconds before they lose focus. re sizing images in photoshop can help with this problem.
Link colour is also important. Many people are happy with using the blue that most used links have but nowadays you can use other blues for example to keep it more modern. Nielsen suggests to keep links used links a similar colour to the default as most people will recognise that. However you can choose whatever colour you like if you feel its clear to the user of the website and it may fit in with your design more.
The navigation tools and menu should also be clear on the page. I personally don't like using icons and logo's and prefer having words as navigation tools. www.asos.com has good navigation tools, it also subsections to make it easier for people to find what they are looking for. they are also in an obvious place and you're not left wondering "how do i get back to that?" The menu should be clear and succinct so that the page doesn't look cluttered or overloaded.
The use of pictures and pull quotes within your writing can be used as a tool as it can help keep draw the attention of the reader and keep the reader engaged. Although pictures of a high quality can take a long time to appear for some users. Its important to keep in mind that a user will only really allow 10 seconds before they lose focus. re sizing images in photoshop can help with this problem.
Link colour is also important. Many people are happy with using the blue that most used links have but nowadays you can use other blues for example to keep it more modern. Nielsen suggests to keep links used links a similar colour to the default as most people will recognise that. However you can choose whatever colour you like if you feel its clear to the user of the website and it may fit in with your design more.
Writing for the web
The main aspects of writing for the web is determining what is going on for the user. With the web there is a lot more distractions, pop ups, other tabs and also the fact the people use the web while they are doing primary tasks such as working. Unlike a newspaper where you are able to give it full attention and to lay it down ready for when you next have time to read more.
Observing that the web is predominantly used by people at work or doing these other tasks means the writing first and foremost must be interesting and quick to the point. The writing MUST keep the reader engaged. This improves chances of the reader coming back to look at other written pieces.
In a practical sense the way an article is layed out on the page also helps the user keep focused. By chunking into 4/5 sentences per paragraph it breaks the text up making it easier to take in information. Also keeping what is written short, usually 50% less than what you would write for a magazine or newspaper. Using hyper-link text to give the reader the opportunity to expand on what is being told, and giving the writer the more freedom.
An inverted pyramid style of writing used for predominantly for news stories is helpful. As its easy for the reader to click away and still get the main points. which brings us back to keeping it interesting. With an effective first paragraph, the reader will want to carry on reading the article.
Humour is deemed to be good thing when writing on the web, but its important to be careful as people may not be familiar with your sense of humour, and it could come across the wrong way. Writing for the web gives you a chance to be a lot more informal and expressive but always keep in mind , what you are writing for? who your writing is aimed at?
IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER:
Observing that the web is predominantly used by people at work or doing these other tasks means the writing first and foremost must be interesting and quick to the point. The writing MUST keep the reader engaged. This improves chances of the reader coming back to look at other written pieces.
In a practical sense the way an article is layed out on the page also helps the user keep focused. By chunking into 4/5 sentences per paragraph it breaks the text up making it easier to take in information. Also keeping what is written short, usually 50% less than what you would write for a magazine or newspaper. Using hyper-link text to give the reader the opportunity to expand on what is being told, and giving the writer the more freedom.
An inverted pyramid style of writing used for predominantly for news stories is helpful. As its easy for the reader to click away and still get the main points. which brings us back to keeping it interesting. With an effective first paragraph, the reader will want to carry on reading the article.
Humour is deemed to be good thing when writing on the web, but its important to be careful as people may not be familiar with your sense of humour, and it could come across the wrong way. Writing for the web gives you a chance to be a lot more informal and expressive but always keep in mind , what you are writing for? who your writing is aimed at?
IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER:
- Useability
- Chunking
- Keep it interesting
- Inverted pyrmaid
- Use humour but be careful
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