Matthew's Blog

What's Going On?

2005-09-14T17:23:00.000+02:00

So much has happened but I will sum it up quickly. The first two weeks of school were all about parties and getting to know each other. Fun, but oh so exhausting. Third week into med school we were involved in a fund raiser. By the time everything was over, everyone was sick and tired of parties, events, happenings and we were very much ready to actually start reading. That’s when I got sick. This nasty virus has had me stuck in bed for 2 weeks, absolutely terrible, I’ve never had anything quite like this! The fever has subsided now so I expect to be able to go back to my life by Monday.

I don’t think I will be blogging anymore. I am very busy and blogging just for the sake of blogging is pointless. I would like to create a homepage that also has a blog but that’s a little into the future. I need to figure out exactly what I want the page to contain, how I want to present it, and so on. I might pop in here every once in a while but not on a regular basis. Take care and thanks for reading my blog!

A Fresh Start

2005-08-14T21:07:00.000+02:00

I’ve taken a well deserved break from the computer over the summer. It’s been great. And, I got into med. school, I start tomorrow, am really looking forward to it!! The summer has passed just as quickly as it always does. We’ve had a lot of guests from abroad and I have really enjoyed not having to think about anything school related. I made sure to enjoy each day as I know I have busy times ahead. I didn’t blog because I have hardly spent any time on the computer. 10 months of nothing but the computer is enough. Though actually, I just bought a laptop, a smashing ultra-thin and ultra-light one from Dell. I just love Dell and I simply couldn’t resist. Now, I will be able to take notes directly onto the computer and work (or do other things) in stead of staring at the well during the gaps between lectures. My plan is to digitalize as much as possible and organize it in some way that will be beneficial in a few years from now, when things will have piled up. I haven’t quite decided what to do with this blog, should I stay, should I move, will I even have time to blog on a regular basis? I don’t feel I need to have a blog just for the sake of having it, but I do think I will have interesting things to write about, as soon as things settle in. Well, I’ll keep you posted!

Really the End

2005-06-17T16:33:00.000+02:00

It’s really hitting me that summer is here since all the results are in, including the one for the web design course. But here is the thing, and it’s rather sad really, the results make absolutely no difference to me. Why? All I need is a total amount of points for all the courses I have taken in order to apply for medicine. The grades you get make no difference at all. This means that an A is just as good as an E, in this case. I am really sick of being in that mode as it’s not really motivating to be doing something and knowing that all you need to really do is barely pass. I didn’t take the web design course to necessarily get a good grade, nor was I planning to do nothing and barely pass. I took it for the fun of it, to do something I like to do (and get credits for it, in addition to the other not-so-much fun courses I had to take), get new inputs and learn something new. It’s what has kept me sane. I am very pleased with the outcome, the amount of new inputs and this whole CSS design thing will definitely keep me busy for months (if not years) to come. It’s been great, and we had a good teacher; one that knows what she’s talking about and actually likes what she’s doing, one that makes you look forward to the next class. Those are rare qualities in a teacher. It shouldn’t be like that but it is. In turn, the lack of good teachers makes you really appreciate the few good ones. That’s life.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

2005-06-13T01:52:00.000+02:00

WOW! This has got to be the coolest movie I have seen in a long time! It’s an action-comedy, and I stress the comedy part, about a married couple with problems. The story is simple; boy sees girl, girl sees boy, boy and girl get married. 5 (or 6) years later it ain’t so great no more. The twist is he’s a hitman. But there is a double twist: so is she! And then of course they are assigned to kill each other. Don’t worry, I have not given anything away, anything you can’t read on say the official movie site (which is very cool). It’s a really cool movie, an action packed comedy. I cannot remember the last time I saw an action comedy, when things blow up and it’s funny, you laugh. Ok, so this is not a 100% realistic film but that’s alright, you don’t expect it to be. Some of Brad and Angelina’s facial expression are just priceless. But it’s an exciting movie too, the story keeps you going. I saw the trailer for this movie a year ago, before that whole Brad & Angelina thing, and the movie turned out to be just as fun and cool as the trailer set it up to be. If you’re looking for good entertainment then this is definitely it. It will make a great addition to my DVD collection in a few months!

Something Went Wrong

2005-06-10T13:15:00.000+02:00

I am not going to spend all day trying to figure out what exactly went wrong, but something did go wrong; the links to previous posts and archives were not working. I've fixed it and the links are working again. That's life.

HUIN 105 Evaluation

2005-06-08T15:14:00.000+02:00

It’s been almost two weeks since we finished the web design course. The final weeks were crazy but I now feel that I‘ve gained some perspective and would like to say a few words.

I didn’t know what to expect going into the web design course. I started doing design 5 years ago, so I knew that for me this wouldn’t be about learning the basics. I have noticed that some people have commented on the course description which states that no knowledge of HTML is required for this course. Although that may technically be true, I do think that it should say that some (X)HTML and CSS knowledge is an advantage, but not required. I know that people who took this course with no coding experience did feel a little lost. It’s just something that does not happen overnight. I still remember those first steps very well. And no matter how many books you read, you still won’t "learn" design, or web design in a month or two. Web design is a learning-by-doing experience. It was a pity that there were no introductory lectures in HTML, I mean something more extensive besides that one lecture that was offered. No, I personally did not have any interest in it, but I would have had I been completely new to web design, especially since CSS design is a major part of this course. CSS is easy enough on the very basic stage, but a few classes would have been helpful once you hit the barrier where nothing is working anymore. We had one HTML and one CSS class within the total of 9 lectures. Both were rather about theoretical technicalities. Fine with me, but what did the beginners get out of it? I would not mind lectures throughout the semester, but maybe it’s just me.

Being a web designer means evolving all the time and trying to keep up with the current standards. I felt like I had gotten rather good at table-design. It was through this course that I discovered CSS design. Don’t get me wrong; I used CSS styled-tables, but CSS Zen Garden opened my eyes to something completely new and fascinating. I also got the CSS Zen book, which explains the philosophy of CSS design and shows you certain aspects of csszengarden.com. My goal became to switch from tables to full-CSS. It was hard at first, but once I got over the bump it all worked out very well. I achieved my goal and was quite happy with the result of the group project, even though I had only about 4 weeks to do it.

Another big part of this course was looking and web pages and analyzing them. I have to say that I did not know what I was doing at first. We looked at what different pages are trying to communicate and how they are made. Who is behind them? Who is the intended reader? And so on. I am very critical of web pages but then again, web design is so subjective. What analyzing web pages has taught me is that I have to be more aware of what I am doing and the way I choose to do things. Does my work fit its purpose? What do I want to communicate to the reader? Who am I making this page for? Also, through looking at various pages I would have otherwise never encountered had it not been for this course, I learned how each page is, in its own way, a story. A digital story, if you will. It’s not just the physical text that makes out story, but all the elements on a web page; graphics, navigation, etc.

Blogging, another big part of the web design course. On several occasions I had asked myself, should I maybe start a diary? But what’s point of writing to myself? And maybe I would find my diary in 20 years and go "oh, that’s what I did that day". Yay… I’m not much of a writer either, at least not a diary writer. Blogging wasn’t too appealing either, really. I had seen big, extensive, wonderful blogs that had loads of comments under each post. That seemed liked a great thing to have and run, but what was I to do with my little, insignificant dot of a blog? There are 11 million blog today. As it turns out, just like with life, it’s what you make of it. All of a sudden traffic increased significantly. I made a post about that gang from the hit TV-show Friends coming back together for a movie. All of sudden people googleing for Matthew Perry found their way onto my blog. Having a blog is like having a diary in the 4th dimension. Sky is the limit, you can do anything with it, and your blog becomes a part of something greater, a whole community. I didn’t realize it before, but web design is not only about making your own web page, but also understanding how the web works and knowing (or at least knowing of) different aspects of the web and its functions. Although it is not technically necessary for the part of designing a page, it does help in a wider sense. It’s all connected somehow.

It’s been really great to be able to take this really inspiring course just for the fun of it, even though it has nothing to do with what I do. I’m off to medical school in the fall. I just may set up some sort of medical blog. The life of a medical student, hmm. I have a few other ideas too but I’ll have to see how things work out. Thanks for reading this, and comments are always welcome!

When Hell Freezes Over

2005-06-05T17:25:00.000+02:00

I think it’s safe to say that a lot of us were surprised when Adobe bought Macromedia. "Yeah right, when hell freezes over...". Well, I came across this funny graphic made by Chris Flick. I just had to share it. LOL. Check out his site for more graphic stuff!

Blogging

2005-06-04T21:04:00.000+02:00

I’ve taken some time off from computer activity and I have been away. It felt great, but I started to miss it, so here I am, back and blogging. Speaking of blogs, Jill is featured in an article in today's Dagens Naeringsliv!

Now here is what I’m thinking; since a new blog is born every 7 seconds (that’s right), soon, having a blog will not only not be a big deal, but you will be expected to have a blog! In turn, every person is going to have to make that extra effort to maintain his or her blog and keep it up to code. If your blog ain’t all that, then the next and more exciting blog is (will be) only a click away. Hmm. That being said, I am wondering what to do with my blog. I didn’t quite see the value of blogging at first but I have to come to realize that it can be a quite powerful learning tool, if it’s used in the right way. I would like to do something about it for the fall semester, but I’m not quite sure what. Another Hmm.

What Is The Big Deal?

2005-06-01T01:27:00.000+02:00

Ok, so some people scare easily. There has been a lot of talk about how scary The Grudge game is, but I just don’t get what the big deal is. So I though, it’s 1 am, I am here alone, in the dark (I turned off the lights)...I am gonna give this a go and risk having a nightmare for the fun of it. So I start playing the game, walk around the house, scary noises, wooooo. But you just expect scary, freaky things to jump at you, I did. Ok, so I did jump a little in my chair that one time. I guess scary movies are not that scary to me, I end up laughing in stead. However, people have said to me that they are like that too, but that The Grudge is different. Some have said they were so afraid it actually physically hurt. But I’ve heard that before, about The Ring….exciting yes, but not that scary. This is not to mock those of you who are scared by this genre. Honestly, I wish I was scared because I think it’s fun to be scared when it’s not real. I’ve been trying to find that really scary movie that will have me shaking in my boots. I haven’t seen The Grudge, maybe the movie is scarier than the game. Give The Grudge game a go and let me know what you think! If I survived it at 1 am in the dark, so can you!!

And Here We Are

2005-05-30T11:08:00.000+02:00

A new week has begun. And I can’t believe it but summer is here (not weather wise, though). It’s strange, I have put off many things throughout the year, for me to do in the summer, and yet I can’t seem to find the will to do anything. It must be the fact that I always finish in late June, and here we are, in late May. Something isn’t right. The weather isn’t exactly giving me much of a summer feel either. I’ve been working hard, loads of things to do, and now….I have this empty feeling. Or maybe that’s not what it is, am not sure. I have loads of things to do, so the problem lies elsewhere. It’s probably just a matter of getting used to the new situation. It was a sudden transition, from 100 to 0. That must be it.

That’s All Folks!

2005-05-27T11:50:00.000+02:00

This day concludes the course in web design. I am tired. There is a lot I would like to say but right now I have to rest and clear my mind. If you’re interested, take a look at my digital folder.

Nettstedsanalyse – Nokia.com

2005-05-27T09:44:00.000+02:00

Jeg skal i denne nettstedsanalysen ta for meg nokia.com. Fordi nettstedet er veldig stort skal jeg se på delen for mobiltelefonen i Europa, Midtøsten og Afrika.

Mange firma prøver å vise seg frem for å få oss til å velge nettopp deres produkt. Men veldig ofte kan flere firma tilby samme type produkt, noe som gjøre at konkurransen er stor. Mobiltelefoner er ingen unntak. De mest kjente mobilmerker er kanskje Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Siemens og Motorola. Vi har sett reklameplakater for disse merkene på bussen, sett reklamer på TV og mest sannsynlig også vært inne på nettstedene for å få mer informasjonen om mobilene. Hvordan reklamerer Nokia for mobiltelefonene gjennom sitt nettsted? Hva er det de gjør for at brukeren skal få mer informasjon om en modell og lettere kunne velge en mobiltelefon som er tilpasset brukerens behov?

Vi kan dele analyses i flere delere. Den tekniske konstruksjonen tar for seg siden struktur og form, bruksmessig funksjonalitet sier noe om navigasjonen og gjerne brukervennlighet, den estetiske dimensjonen er mer knyttet til emosjonelle effekter ved en webside, design og estetikk. Videre kan vi dele siden inn i tre lag; det dynamiske laget, so sier noe om bruk av video, Flash, og lignende, det auditive laget, som omfatter lyder og musikk, og til slutt det grafisk laget, som omfatter den visuelle delen av siden som layout og bilder og farger (Engholm og Klastrup 2004, 60-62).

Teknisk Konstruksjon

Med kun en liten logo i hjørnet og hvit bakgrunn er siden relativt enkel i utseende. Det er tydelig at fokuset er lagt på innholdet. Navigasjonen er lagt nokså høyt oppe på siden og tar heller ikke så mye plass. Til høyre er det en drop-down liste hvor man kan velge en modell blant alle modellene Nokia noensinne har laget. Hoveddelen av siden er viet til selve mobiltelefonene. Man kan velge mellom tre forskjellige visningstyper: De siste 20 modellene (der ca. halvparten av modellene er helt nye og ikke riktig enda kommet på markedet), fullstendig utvalg (viser alle telefonene som er på markedet i dag)¸og telefon arkiv (som viser alle utgåtte modeller som ikke lenger kan kjøpes). Alle modellene, uansett i hvilken kategori man befinner seg i, blir presentert med et tydelig bilde og en link til siden for modellen. I kategorien ”de siste 20 modellene” har også hver modell en liten beskrivelse under bildet.

Hver side for en modell har intuitiv navigasjonsmeny til venstre, mens i midten er det en Flash animasjon som viser frem telefonen. Under Flash animasjonen er det en kort oversikt over telefonens viktigste og kanskje mest særegne funksjoner. Man må bruke menyen til venstre for å få mer informasjon over telefonens spesifikasjoner og egenskaper. Til høyre er det en såkalt ”phone finder” seksjon med linker til sider der man kan se alle modellene, finne ”din” telefon basert på behov og bruk. Også andre linker er til stede, som for eksempel ”finn din nærmeste butikk”. En side for en telefon modell består som regel av flere sider som presenterer den gitte modellen slik at brukeren kan få mest mulig informasjon. De vanligste sidene er:

- Hovedside

- Spesifikasjoner

- Spotlight; en visuell (Flash) presentasjon av telefonen

- Phone Demo, en interaktiv. 360 g. presentasjon av telefonen der brukeren kan bruke musen til å flytte og vri på mobilen for å se den fra alle vinkler. Der er også mulig å skifte farger på dekselet og gå inn på telefonens meny for å se hva telefon har å by på!

- Tilbehør (med underkategorier)

- Applikasjoner; en oversikt over hvilke programmer telefonen er utsyrt med. Flere programmer kan kjøpes fra Nokia Software Market.

- Support og Software for eiere; en support siden der det er også mulig å laste ned et utvalg av programvare dersom du eier den gitte modellen.

- FAQ

Helt nye modeller som enda ikke har kommet på markedet vil gjerne bare ha et utvalg av de overnevnte sidene. De resterende sidene blir som regel tilgjengelige etter hvert som modellen kommer på markedet. Noen få modeller har sider som få andre modeller har, som for eksempel en video side der presentasjonsvideoer kan lastes ned, eller en ”personalize” side som egentlig bare er en lite side med linker til Nokia Software Market og tilbehør siden.

Alle disse sidene følger utformingen fra hovedsiden; hvit bakgrunn, svart tekst, store svarte overskrifter, og Nokias blåfarge er å finne i noen elementer, deriblant linker.

Bruksmessig Funksjonalitet

Nokia i sin helhet er en veldig stor side men den enkle og presise navigasjonen bestående av tekstlinker fungerer svært godt. Siden er delt inn i 11 kategorier og hver kategori har underkategorier. Seksjonen for mobiltelefoner er delt inni 7 underkategorier. Hovednavigasjonen er lagt til en blå stripe nokså høyt oppe på siden, og navigasjonen for underkategoriene er lagt til en grå stripe rett under den blå stripen. Navigasjonen er teknisk enkel, er plassbesparende og fungerer svært godt. Når det er mye informasjon som skal presses inn i et navigasjonssystem så kan ofte det enkleste være det beste. En drop-down meny i DHTML eller CSS kunne ha fungert like godt men heldigvis gikk ikke Nokia i Flash fellen. Mange store siden velger å basere navigasjonen utelukkende på Flash, noe som ofte fører til lang nedlastingstid og dårlig oversikt. På sidene for hver modell er navigasjonen for de modell-spesifikke sidene venstrejustert. Den tekstbaserte navigasjonen er enkel og intuitiv i bruk.

Estetisk Dimensjon

Siden er utformet slik at fokuset skal være på mobiltelefonene. Bakgrunnsfargen er hvit og Nokias ”tema” farge har alltid vært en spesiell nyanse av blå, en farge som er gjennomgående brukt på hele siden. Alle overskriftene har svart farge. Det betyr at siden er hvit med en god del svart tekst og overskrifter, og blå navigasjonsstripe (grå for underkategorier), blått logo er en god del blå linker. Denne utformingen gjør at fargebildene av mobiltelefonen uthever seg betydelig, samtidig som de gir liv til siden.

Denne utformingen er også til stede på sidene for hver modell. På noen sider er det brukt litt større bilder som ofte viser den gitte modellen i bruk eller understreker en viktig funksjon ved å vise et nærbilde av en bestemt del av telefonen.

Dynamiske Lag

Sider for noen av modellene tilbyr en video som er en kortfilm som viser hvordan telefonen blir brukt i et bestemt scenario. I tillegg tilbyr de sidene for de aller fleste modellene an demo der man kan se telefonen fra alle vinkler og lære mer om telefonens funksjoner gjennom et visuelt grensesnitt (Flash eller Javascript)). På hver hovedside for hver modell er det en Flash animasjon som presenterer mobiltelefonen og lar deg velge farge (Flash).

Auditive Lag

Videoene og presentasjonsanimasjoner bruker musikk (type bakgrunnsmusikk) til å utfylle videoen/presentasjonen og er ikke ment å være i fokus men heller som et tilleggselement.

Grafiske Lag

Hovedlayouten består av

- en header (logo, valg av land og søkemotor)

- navigasjon (to striper, en for hovedkategoriene og en for underkategoriene)

- en hoveddel

På sidene for hver modell er hoveddelene av hele siden delt opp i

- venstrejustert navigasjon

- midtstilt hoveddel som presenterer mobiltelefonen

- høyrejustert tilleggsinformasjon og nyttige linker

Bildene Nokia bruker for å promotere telefonen ofte inneholder mennesker som bruker dem eller som underbygger en viss følelse som en viss modell er ment å gi (for eksempel glede for NOKIA6101). Bildene er varme og hyggelige, noe som skaper et positivt inntrykk hos leseren. De aller fleste slike bilder er plasser øverst på siden for hver modell, noe over midten på skjermen slik at leserens blikk blir umiddelbart fanget av bildet for å så bevege seg nedover mot teksten.

Fordi Nokia bruker hvit bakgrunn, svart tekst og en blåfarge til detaljer og linker, er siden veldig rolig og indikerer trygghet og pålitelighet. Siden bruker teknisk avanserte løsninger som Flash og Javascript til å beskrive modellene sine men for øyet ser siden heller enkelt, men elegant og hyggelig ut.

Diskurstype

Diskurstype sier noe om hvordan en tekst organiserer meddelelsen sin. Vi kan delene tekstene inn i beskrivende, fortellende og argumenterende tekster. (Larsen 2002, 71). Nokia.com er en beskrivende tekst fordi den beskriver et produkt. Teksten er også på en indirekte måte argumenterende fordi den prøver å få deg til å bli interessert i produktet (særlig gjennom det visuelle) og velge nettopp dem og ikke noen andre.

Nettstedet som reklame

Det som gjør at nettstedet fungerer godt som reklame er at med en gang du kommer inn på siden så ser du alle de nyeste 20 modellene, hver modell har et tydelig bilde, av og til to bilder. Det står også ”coming soon” på enkelte av modellen og dermed fungerer siden som reklame også for kommende modeller. Videre kan man velge ”complete colletion” hvor man også gjennom tydelig bilder få oversikt over alle modellene som er tilgjengelig for øyeblikket, deriblant de kommende modellene. Til slutt kan man gå til ”phone archive” som viser alle utgåtte modeller. Ikke akkurat reklame det her, men kan være greit for referanser. Innenfor hver side for en telefonmodell bruker Nokia Flash på en bevisst måte, akkurat nok for at det er stilig (det vil være subjektivt) men uten at det blir for mye av det gode. De fleste modellsidene har en demo som er en direkte reklame for akkurat denne modellen. Demoen er interaktiv, brukeren kan i mange tilfeller selv velge hvilke sider av telefonen som skal presenteres, dette går både på funksjons så vel som på design/utseende. Bortsett fra generell informasjon om hver modell, har Nokia en veldig nyttig sammenligningsfunksjon som lar brukeren sammenligne flere telefonmodeller for å kunne bestemme seg for en modell basert på brukerens ønsker og behov. Man kan velge tre modeller og dermed få alle spesifikasjonene for alle de tre modellene ved siden av hverandre. Dette gjør det veldig lett å umiddelbart kunne se forskjellene mellom de ulike modellene. I tillegg kan man velge enkelt kriterier for listen av telefoner som man vil velge tre modeller fra. Må jeg ha kamera og radio med?

Konklusjon

Nokia.com er en høyprofilert nettside for en av de ledende merkene for mobiltelefoner. Gjennom relativt enkelt men elegant og behagelig design og layout er Nokia.com en side som viser frem de ulike modellene, både gamle, nåværende og kommende. Gjennom nøye gjennomtenkte bilder og teknisk informasjon utgjør sidene for hver modell en grundig presentasjon for telefonen. Også Flash og video elementer er brukt for å vise frem en modell i enda større grad og la brukeren få oppleve telefonen. Gjennom en telefonvelger kan brukeren sammenligne tre modeller og få spesifikasjonene listet ved siden av hverandre for å lett kunne se forskjellene på modellene utover det visuelle. Gjennom en fin side som skaper trygghet og tillitt hos brukeren klarer Nokia veldig fint å profilere sine mobiltelefoner. Siden fungerer på denne måte også som reklame.

Litteraturliste

Engholm, Ida og Lisbeth Klastrup, 2004. Digitale verdener - de nye mediers æstetik og design. København: Gyldendal

Larsen, Leif Ove, 2002. ”Tekstanalyse”. Metodebok for mediefag: 61-97

Prosjekt Rapport – Remembering Chile

2005-05-27T09:32:00.000+02:00

Elevator pitch

Remembering Chile er en webutstilling som tar for seg Chile i 1973, tiden før og etter det militære kuppet som fant sted 11. september 1973. Gjennom originale bilder og noe tekst belyser utstillingen 5 forskjellige tema som til sammen gir leseren et bilde av situasjonen.

Målgruppe

Målgruppen for siden er folk som har lyst å få innsikt i hva som skjedde i Chile i 1973. Siden er primært tilsiktet mennesker som ikke har noe (eller lite) kunnskap om emnet. De faktiske mottagerne kan være folk som liker, kunst, historie, webutstilling.

Arbeidsprosessen

Før gruppen ble dannet så jeg på andre museumssider og kom fram til at de var nokså kjedelige (visuelt sett) og hadde ofte upresis informasjon, som attpåtil var vanskelig å finne. Dermed visste jeg hva jeg ville styre unna. Vi begynte som en gruppe på fem. I begynnelsen var vi ikke helt enig om hvordan vi ville gripe fatt i prosjektet men tenkte at alt løser seg når vi får stoffet. Det var ikke tilfellet. Vi ble lovet bilder og tekst, men fikk bare bilder ettersom teksten var på spansk. Dermed ble stoffet ikke det store gjennombruddet vi hadde håpet på. Gruppen ble splittet og jeg kom i gruppe på to. Det er viktig å påpeke at stoffet kom etter påske, og resten kom noen uker senere. Det tok litt tid før alt falt på plass. Vi har derfor hatt betydelig mindre tid enn det vi skulle ha hatt. Vi prøvde å gjøre det beste ut av det og ta stilling til det stoffet som vi faktisk hadde. Først når en testside ble utviklet kunne vi se hvordan vi hadde lyst å presentere stoffet.

Evaluering av gruppearbeidet

Grupperarbeidet har gått bra, men arbeidsfordelingen ble noe ujevn. Våre tekniske kunnskaper er ganske ulike og dette har vi diskutert og blitt enige om. Til tross for at jeg har stått for den tekniske utviklingen så har vi diskutert sammen og forandret ting underveis. Hadde vi hatt like mye tid som vi egentlig skulle ha hatt så kunne vi ha utarbeidet en annen plan for arbeidsfordelingen

Brukertesting og kompatibilitet.

Tidsmangel er et tema som går igjen, og vi fikk rett og slett ikke tid til å utføre ordentlige brukertester. Vi har derimot vist siden vår til forskjellige mennesker og tatt til oss responsen og justert ting utifra tilbakemeldingen. Også i utviklingsprosessen var det ofte slik at noe ble lastet opp til serveren og vi så på det neste dag, og oppdaget at kanskje noen farger hadde feil kontrast, eller at noen elementer ikke var optimalt plassert. En viktig grunn til at jeg synes det er greit at vi ikke utførte en skikkelig brukertest er at siden vår er relativt liten. Vi går bare ett nivå i dybden. Det er med andre ord ganske vanskelig å gå seg vill. En brukertest er ofte interessant for å se hvordan en bruker klarer å finne noe, eller om ting er riktig plassert i forhold til hvordan man hadde tenk at brukeren skulle oppfatte innholdet. På grunn av strukturen til siden vår er en slik brukertest ikke fullt så viktig. Vi har derimot testet siden på PC, Mac og Linux. Vi har prøvd forskjellige browsere, Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox og Opera. Alt så bra ut, men Internet Explorer på noen datamaskiner viste noen feil i avstanden mellom tekst og bilder. Dette er en minimal feil som IE viser på noen men ikke alle datamaskiner. Siden er XHTML og CSS valid. Det eneste som forårsaker at sidene ikke blir helt 100 % XHTML valid er bruken av Javascript.

Det tekniske & grafiske, og hva jeg har gjort

Jeg har stått for den tekniske og grafiske utviklingen av siden. Siden er bygget opp med XHTML og CSS, og jeg har ikke brukt en eneste tabell! Tabeller er riktignok ikke så forferdelige, layout med tabeller kan være vellaget, tigjengelig og følge web standarder. (Zeldman 2003, 196). Tabeller kan tross alt styles med CSS. Men det er likevel lurt å bruke kun CSS til layout og design. Ved å bruke eksterne filer oppbevares presentasjonen uavhengig av dokumentet og kan dermed tilpasses ulike media; skjerm, skriver, prosjektør og til og med lomme-pc. Koden blir også lettere og siden lastes fortere (ikke alle har bredbånd). En forandring i CSS gjør at alle sider som bruker denne CSSen blir umiddelbart oppdatert. (Holzschlag 2005, 107). Grunnlaget for det grafiske kommer fra veggmaleriene som ble malt på gatene i Santiago på 70 og 80-tallet. Fargetvalget falt på jordtoner fordi det passet best til chilensk kunst generelt og på denne måten avbilder fargene noe av landet som siden handler om. Veggmaleriene har sterke farger og de skiller seg fint ut på siden. De originale bildene var nokså duse og lite tiltrekkende så en del av arbeidet sitter i bilderedigering or retusjering. På hovedsiden er det 5 bilder som hver linker til sin galleri. Bildene som brukes til de 5 linkene finnes igjen som logo øverst på hver av gallerisidene. Brukeren kan lett se sammenhengen og dette skaper en helhetsfølelse. Gallerisidene ser ikke helt make ut til hovedsiden. Noen ganger er det lurt å holde seg til få bilder og minimal layout, mens andre ganger må man få frem en sterkere beskjed. Det er opp til designeren å bringe frem et klart budskap som vil kunne forstås av et stort publikum. Det er mange måter å ha flere lag av informasjon og beskjeder under hovedbeskjeden (Shea og Holzschlag 2005, 53). Dette har vi gjort blant annet ved de 5 gallerilogoene. Bortsett fra at de danner et kontinuum fra hovedsiden, så representerer de også flere aspekter ved temaet som blir tatt opp på de forskjellige gallerisidene. Introen til utstillingen skiller seg ut visuelt fordi den skal være noe litt for seg selv, en slags teaser for webutstillingen, som forsøker å fange oppmerksomheten til leseren gjennom den mørke tonen og ellers det som vises i den korte filmen.

Jeg har ellers skrevet noe av teksten, som vi på gruppen ble enige om hva skulle inneholde.

Hvis vi hadde hatt mer tid

Man føler alltid at man har for lite tid, men denne gangeren var det med god grunn. Tingen med websider er at de egentlig aldri er ferdig, det er alltid noe man kan gjøre annerledes og/eller bedre. Jeg er allikevel svært fornøyd med resultatet. Hvis jeg hadde hatt mer tid så hadde jeg finpusset på det tekniske, både det brukeren kan se og det som er i kildekoden. Også en del grafiske finpuss hadde vært på sin plass. Jeg hadde også undersøkt muligheten for å erstatte Javascriptene med noe annet, eller andre utgaver som er XHTML valid. Utvikling av navigasjonen med CSS viste seg å være en større oppgave enn jeg hadde forventet, det var problemer med browser kompatibilitet, noe som nok hadde latt seg ordnet, med mer tid. I begynnelsen ble vi enig om å ikke lage prosjektet til en portrett side, men jeg skulle gjerne hatt en side til i utstillingen, en gripende personlig historie som er like fin i innholdet som visuelt. Når det er snakk om tragedier hvor tusenvis av mennesker mister livet så blir de mange tusen bare uvirkelige tall. Men hvis man klarer å presentere en gripende historie på riktige måte så kan leseren ble grepet og interessert og da forstå at man må gange den historien med x antall tusen for å i det hele tatt begynne å forstå hvor mange mennesker som har blitt påvirket av en slik tragedie.

Hva ville jeg har gjort annerledes

Jer er ikke sikker på om jeg ville gjort ting så mye annerledes. Det er begrenset hva man kan gjøre på kort tid og jeg føler at der gikk det bra. Det jeg hadde kanskje gjort hvis jeg fikk gjøre dette på nytt er å løsrive meg fra gruppen tidligere og enten alene eller sammen men noen andre gå i gang tidligere. Men det spørs om jeg hadde fått en klar ide om presentasjonsform av den grunn, vi fikk jo stoffet så sent og det var heller ikke det vi ble lovet.

Mine mål

Mine mål med prosjektet var å lage noe som kunne leve for seg selv og ikke bare være en side jeg leverte inn og ferdig med det. Når jeg så bestemte meg for å jobbe med museumsprosjektet ville jeg lage en side som ikke var en kjedelig side som ingen ville ha noe interesse i (selv om det vil være subjektivt). Da jeg ble introdusert for CSS layout konseptet hadde jeg naturligvis lyst å lære det og komme meg vekk fra tabellbruk. Dette ble et mål for hele HUIN kurset egentlig. Det så dårlig ut i begynnelsen men etter at jeg kom meg over knekken og kom godt i gang med utvikling av prosjektsiden oppdaget jeg at jeg hadde faktisk klart å ikke bruke tabeller lenger. Jeg er svært fornøyd med prosjektresultatet og dermed har jeg oppnådd alle mine mål.

Fremtiden for prosjektet

Det er Salvador Allende museet i Santiago som startet dette prosjektet. Det er stor interesse for å vise all den informasjonen omkring Chile i 1973, men på grunn av den politiske situasjonen er dette noe som må primært gjøres gjennom ekstern arbeidskraft. Museet er interessert i å se forslag for hvordan materialet kan behandles. Prosjektet vårt kommer til å bli vist i "the Museum of London/Iziko Museums of South Africa's "Museums and Diversity" series", som en del av en rapport for UNESCO.

Litteraturliste

Holzschlag, Molly E., 2005. Spring Into HTML and CSS.
San Francisco: Addison Wesley

Shea, David og Molly E. Holzschlag, 2005. The Zen of CSS design. Visual Enlightenment for the Web.
San Francisco: New Riders

Zeldman, Jeffrey, 2003. Designing with web standards.
San Francisco: New Riders

Blog Redesign

2005-05-26T00:10:00.000+02:00

I have wanted to do this since forever, but somewhere between Easter, the flu and loads of exams I forgot all about it. I also forgot that I already did prepare something. I found it in the archives just now so I decided to quickly tweak it. So here it is. It’s pretty recognizable, I just tightened the blog and made it a bit more personal. I have many ideas for completely new designs so I will probably not spend any more time on this one, other than a few minor adjustments. And the best part, it’s CSS all the way, baby! I used tables for the old design (shame on me) but I have gotten the hang of CSS over the last few weeks. I have tested the updated design in Firefox and IE but do drop me a message if it looks funny with you. Does it look ok on a Mac??

Project Progress

2005-05-25T19:52:00.000+02:00

I’ve been working all day, everything is taking just a little too much time, but I’m getting there. Our group of two had a meeting yesterday and we talked about what had to be fixed. I'm happy to say that all issues have been resolved. All of the pages and most of the text is up, but we have not yet put up the pictures that we want to show, so bear in mind that there will be pictures around the text.

Remembering Chile

Online Exhibition Is...Online

2005-05-24T22:24:00.000+02:00

Alrighty then, I’ve managed to put up our online exhibition. However, the links to the 5 gallery sections are not working yet, and we have yet to put up the content. Those pages will probably be up later tonight. Also, an intro will be present at the not so glamorous page that is the starting point of the exhibition. It will be up as soon as it’s finished.

Go on, have a look at our online exhibition, feedback is always appreciated :)

Not the End of FRIENDS

2005-05-24T12:04:00.000+02:00

Well waddayaknow, it looks like we may be able to see the gang from Friends once more, this time in a motion picture. Here is the article from ananova.com:

Friends Stars Set To Reunite
Could it be that we haven't seen the last of Central Perk and those six impossibly glamorous New Yorkers - who call themselves Friends?
There's chat that they may reunite for one last project - which could bag them each £10 million.
According to the Sunday Express, the six stars of the hit TV series are in negotiations to get together again to make a movie.
It seems that our penchant for watching repeats of the show has prompted movie bosses to believe there is still plenty of mileage in the characters - even though the series ended in 2004 after a ten year run.
If they do make a Hollywood film, it's reported that Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer could each pocket a healthy £10 million.
The paper quotes an insider as saying: "Although the cast have gone their different ways, none of them has quite repeated the success they had with Friends.
"And while Friends may be over as a television entity there are many who have believed for some time that people had not quite had enough of them just yet.
"David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston are the first to make positive noises regarding the film and it is thought once they are on board the others will follow suit."

Home, Sweet Home

2005-05-24T11:46:00.000+02:00

Finally! I just got back from hell, it was more or less like I remembered it, although they did build a few new buildings, and the humidity was truly at its best. The buss ride home was nice though. So here I am, 100 % comitted to web design until the end (which is Friday). For me, web design is not about working half an hour each day, it just never works out that way. The "I just have to" always turns into a full day of developing graphics and web pages. And what I hate the most is starting to work on an idea and not being able to finish (by finish I mean getting to complete a certain phase of the development), it’s very frustrating. I thought I would be completely dead today after a week of intensive studying and freaking out over the amount of crap that I have to read (unrelated to web design). Those days are over and I am surprisingly alright today. Now, I finally get to work on something I love. I am not sure how the day will turn out, but be sure to check back in the evening as we will put up the online exhibition, even if the content isn’t quite in place yet.

One Way Ticket To Hell

2005-05-22T15:30:00.000+02:00

Honestly, I don’t mind exams. No, really, they are a part of the learning experience and I usually have no (or almost no) problem with the fact of having to go through an exam. It’s different this time. Here is your one way ticket to hell. That’s right, welcome to hell - population: me. I have no time for anything, hundreds of pages to read (mostly boring and dry stuff) and my computer is acting up (not that I have time to use the computer). I have to reinstall the OS but I have no time for that now. What bothers me the most is that I have not been able to make any progress on the museum project for the web design hand-in. I know that some of you would like to see a preview, especially you guys from Ecuador, but I promise that as much as possible will be up on Tuesday (May 24). Tuesday is the big day, we will put everything online and start adjusting things. All of the content will probably not be up but you will at least get to see the big picture. So do check back on Tuesday evening (Central European Time) for a preview of the online exhibition.

Project Progress

2005-05-16T21:02:00.000+02:00

Finally some progress, I’ve made the template for the main pages and everything is up. Previews will be available later this week. There is no time for fancy CSS navigation so a simple rollover script will have to do. It resulted in a minor validation error but I can live with that. If everything else is in place and there is still time then maybe I will switch to a CSS nav but that is not likely at this point. Maybe if Molly’s book arrives before the deadline, I can only hope. There are loads of things that would be worth tweaking but I don’t want to get stuck with the little things rather than thinking about the big picture.

When Time Passes By Just Too Quickly

2005-05-15T23:41:00.000+02:00

Sadly, time is not my friend and I have not been able to produce new pages over the weekend. I did, however, convert the main page to all-CSS, at least it’s something. I have to figure out what to do with the navigation and I will conduct a test on a Mac tomorrow and take it from there. It’s important to make sure that the foundation works before moving on and creating multiple pages. Otherwise you are running the risk of having to correct several errors on more that one page. Yes, templates are handy, but we will be using only one template and 5 individual pages (for each section in the gallery). This is becoming somewhat of a rush job which I dislike strongly because web design is about taking the time to experiment and try out new things. But I guess I can only give it my best shot considering the situation. Everything fell into place so late, and I have other exams to think about as well. Conducting a usability test was mentioned during the presentation but there is no way we will have time for that as we probably will be still developing the page only hours before the deadline. Sad, but true. I am already thinking that the movie-like exhibition trailer for the online museum is going to have to go, I doubt there will be time to make it. The teaser is important though, it will make sure the reader knows what’s up upon entering the main page. Maybe the teaser can glide into some sort of a trailer, a prolonged teaser so to speak? But I fear that a long teaser will lose its attention grabbing effect. Hmm. I will post a link to the trailer as soon as it’s made. Maybe getting some feedback on the teaser to see if it has the effect it is supposed to have will be our little usability test. So many possibilities, so little time.

Pictures from Salzburg

2005-05-13T19:25:00.000+02:00

Reading Jill’s post about Salzburg made me think back to my summer vacation from last year. We went on a trip to Austria and we visited Salzburg (where we have friends), Vienna and also some smaller places. Although the center of Vienna was nice, I liked Salzburg so much more, the city is so pleasant and it has a special character. We lived in the outskirts of Salzburg and the scenery there was just so beautiful, very green and hilly, I felt right at home. Looking at Jill’s photos from Salzburg made me want to take a dive into my archive and so I decided to post some pictures of my own. Below are a few of them and there is more on Flickr.

Love/Hate Amazon

2005-05-13T16:28:00.000+02:00

Lately, people have been frustrated over Amazon.com’s various deals that only apply to US citizens. Of course, you don’t get to learn that until you’re deep into the sign-up. Yet I could not share Jill’s frustration on that one. However, something else has pushed my buttons. I have been wanting the "Spring Into HTML and CSS" book ever since Molly announced it on her blog. I pre-ordered the book at the end of April. I also bought another book. That other book shipped shortly after I posted the order while Molly’s book was said to be released on June 28. Pity, but ok, I though. Now, a few days ago, totally by accident, I stumbled upon Amazon’s page for this book, but now it said "Usually ships within 24 hours" and what was once the "pre-order" button was now a "add to shopping cart" button. Hmm, I though. I went into my account to see what had happened to my book, and the estimated delivery was set for late JULY, yes, July, as in the month before August! It’s not a book I really need for class, but it sure wouldn’t hurt if I got it before I have to turn in the web design project. Wondering if there was any chance of that happening, I ordered a second copy. The following day I got an emails saying that my book had been dispatched. The first copy I ordered in April was still set for a late-July delivery so I cancelled the heck out of that one. I could not believe Amazon pulled a stunt like that. Obviously the book was released just shortly after its April 22 release date and so, totally by accident, I will have the book next week, in stead of at the end of the summer (when I will have no time to explore it anyway). Grrr. But what can I do, at least I’ll get the book now. And yes, a short review and pictures will be up :)

That’s a Wrap on Round 2

2005-05-12T23:05:00.000+02:00

Phew, I’m done with the second round of exams. It’s been hell but it worked out very well in the end. This means more time for our Chile project. I will keep you posted and maybe even reveal new sites at the end of this week.

Project Feedback

2005-05-09T17:08:00.000+02:00

Thanks to everyone who gave us feedback at the presentation today. The page is still under development and I will be looking at several issues later this week. Upcoming exams are a tad more important right now. Also, thanks to Jill who showed us the Mac-room I now know that the page does not display correctly on a Mac. Well, that Mac anyway, it had some version of IE… *rolls eyes*. I still have to test it on a Mac/Firefox. I did take several shortcuts while developing the beta page so I am going to have to go back and fix a few things. Any feedback at any time is greatly appreciated. Don’t be shy, leave a comment :)

The Project – Beta Test

2005-05-09T09:38:00.000+02:00

So the time has come to reveal the beta test for the online exhibition project. We’re going to present it in class today and get feedback from our teacher and fellow students. The page is far from complete but it gives you an idea of where we’re heading.

Visit our page and do leave a comment here, constructive criticism is much appreciated! I should mention that all links point back to the main page. We are in the process of developing the remaining pages and more previews will become available at a later time.

Remembering Chile (working title)

Don't Believe Everything You Read

2005-05-08T11:07:00.000+02:00

Dagbladet has a truly ridiculous article about how people are taking courses in blogging in order to learn techniques journalists already know so that they do not come off as second rate journalists. But that’s not the best part, according to the article "most blogs are about politics or media criticism". Right...a blog is created every 5.8 seconds. There are over 5 million blogs now and if most blogs are about politics or media criticism then surely most blogs nominated for a Webby Award would have been such blogs, since there is practically nothing else to choose from? No? Hmmm.

Thanks to Jill for the find.

Oops...I Did It Again!

2005-05-07T23:54:00.000+02:00

Oh yeah, yet another day just flew by. It was that "I just have to..." thing again, I have practically completed the launch version of the main page. Everything just takes so much time, finding the fonts, organizing the page, and especially graphic editing, something that is quite vital for this page. We have tones of not so good looking pictures, both regular black & white (and brownish) pictures as well as pictures of art from the streets of Santiago. The art pictures are in color, but they're from the 70’s...so you know.

From what I can tell, the final version will not be that different in terms of looks, but I did take several shortcuts that are not visible at first glance. I’m quite happy with the way the page turned out, though. At least we have something to show on Monday. Hopefully people will find it interesting enough to take a look around when we wrap up the project. Check back on Monday for a link ;)

The Interpreter

2005-05-06T12:59:00.000+02:00

Just came back from the cinema. We saw “The Interpreter” with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. I really liked it and would really recommend it. I don’t want to give anything away so here is the story outline from the official movie site:

Kidman stars as African-born U.N. interpreter Silvia Broome, who inadvertently overhears a death threat against an African head of state scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly. Realizing she’s become a target of the assassins as well, Silvia’s desperate to thwart the plot…if only she can survive long enough to get someone to believe her. Sean Penn is Tobin Keller, the federal agent charged with protecting the interpreter, who nonetheless suspects she may not be telling the whole truth. Silvia and Tobin, by nature, see life from different points of view: one, a U.N. interpreter, believes in the power and sanctity of words; the other, a Secret Service agent, believes in reading people based on their behavior, no matter what is said.
In the right hallway, at the right time, all it takes is a whisper to tip the balance of power.

All I can say is that it’s a very interesting movie that makes you think, no matter if you like the movie or not. There were 8 of us today, 2 liked it a lot, 2 did not like it at all, and the other 4 were sort of in between. None the less, we got a very interesting conversation going. If you go see the movie, at the almost very end, pay attention to what is shown on the screen when Silvia (Nicole Kidman) is reading all the names. Well, you’ll see what I mean.

What Webdesign Can Do to You

2005-05-05T21:58:00.000+02:00

I know some of you share my frustration. I sat down this morning in the attempt of moving things a little on the main page for our project, 2 hours, I said to myself. You will work on this for two hours and then move on to reading for the next exam. That was 12 hours ago. Yes 12 hours!!! This is horrible. Great fun it was, I have forgotten how much I love it and how much fun it can be but boy is it time consuming!! You’re "just" going to…but it’s never "just", it's always ten times more. But hey, at least we’ll have something to show on Monday :)

The Project

2005-05-05T09:20:00.000+02:00

After doing nothing but cramming for exams the last weeks I decided to finally get back to our big project. I am involved with the Chile exhibition project. It’s a rather big project involving the Infomedia Institute, several people from Chile and students from Ecuador and probably more. And yes, some people form our HUIN group are involved as well. We have been given access to original materials, mostly pictures taken during the coup of 11 September 1973 and in the following months. We also have interesting pictures of art that was made in the streets around that time. Our job is to make a online exhibition of some sort. Actually, Unesco is involved in this, and the people behind the whole project in associating with Unesco are looking for several different ways to display the materials. Our work might get published on Unesco’s websites. We’re just supposed to use anything we want in any way we want. You can do just about anything. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

The problem is time, or rather, the lack of time. On top of it all, we got the materials just recently, where as other students doing unrelated things were able to start working ages ago. That fact that our group was a very big one didn’t help. We couldn’t quite get around to deciding how we wanted to present the project, but that was before the materials came. Sadly, the materials were not the breakthrough we were hoping for. We thought we would get pictures and text (in English). We only got pictures, the text was in Spanish. Neither of us speaks Espanol. The problems continued as we just couldn’t lift off. Eventually the big group broke down into smaller groups and I am now working with Karoline. What we basically want to do is briefly (remember the time limit) want to show different aspects of the event and use the pictures and artwork around the site to make it more interesting for the reader. We will be presenting our project to the class on Monday so check back for a link.

One Way Ticket to Hell

2005-05-05T08:17:00.000+02:00

Well, I’m done with the first set of exams, that was nightmare, primarily because everything came crashing down at once. More exams are coming up, this time one at a time. And summer is only 22 days away! 22 days….that’s really not much. Mmm.

Molly Releases New Book!

2005-04-23T13:52:00.000+02:00

Molly Holzschlag, co-author of the Zen book, is about to release her latest book: "Spring into HTML and CSS".
Molly says:

"the book is prime for folks just coming into (X)HTML and CSS for the first time. It’s not written for advanced folks, rather, regular Jane’s n’ Joe’s working in da coal mines; accountants; doctors publishing their research; students writing their papers; folks working in educational environments. It’s for professionals whose primary job is not necessarily Web development yet who want to learn HTML and CSS in a standards-aware way."

It looks like another book for my "to buy" list. I don’t need food in May, right?

Jill Walker - The Mother of Blogs

2005-04-20T11:10:00.000+02:00

Apparently there was a program about blogging on the radio, and I found these two articles, both featuring our teacher and mother of Blogs (at least in Norway) Jill Walker:

http://www.nrk.no/programmer/radio/norgesglasset/4667397.html

http://www.nrk.no/programmer/radio/norgesglasset/4675120.html

Back to Reality

2005-04-20T11:05:00.000+02:00

I'm done with the flu, woohoo! It's my first day out in almost 3 weeks! It feels great and the sun is shining. The exams are coming up so it's definitely a reality check...

You Gotta Obey the Rules

2005-04-15T16:29:00.000+02:00

Now, it's interesting what effect some webpages can have on you. No matter how much you tell yourself that it's silly and not real...you cannot seem to help but obey the rules. I just came across this page. Do you dare to have a look??

The Zen Book Is Here!!

2005-04-13T18:11:00.000+02:00

Yes, yes! The Zen of CSS Design book is finally here! It took longer than expected for it to arrive from the States but I don’t care, it’s here, yay! (The book is now also available in Europe) It came a few days ago but I have the flu and have not had the strength to go through it until now. I’ve really been looking forward to exploring the whole CSS Zen Garden concept as it seem like such an innovative, future-oriented and professional way of designing a webpage. Sadly, I don’t really have time to fully engage in learning it right now as too much is going on and exams are just a few steps away. I won’t be bored in the summer though, that’s for sure!

I started drooling after only 3 pages, the book is just so beautifully crafted; sleek looking pictures and the design is just so very pleasant and calm. But it’s really about the content; the text, the tips & tricks and the CSS philosophy that Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag cleverly present throughout this book. The book covers a selection of the designs from CSS Zen Garden, each design is broken down and analyzed. The pages are just so gorgeous, I could look at them forever. I highly recommend the book! Summer is 6 weeks away, I am already counting the days...

Click to see the full shots

Mac vs. PC

2005-03-27T20:15:00.000+02:00

I am thinking of buying a Macintosh (laptop)....those little iBooks are just so darn cute! However, I have always been a PC person so I am not sure how that would work. I wouldn’t give up my desktop PC at home anyway. There is that whole compatibility question, although I know that it’s less of a problem with today’s Macs and OS X. I am told that Macs never crash. I’m sure most people would agree that technology is wonderful when it’s working, but when something goes wrong you just want to throw it up against the wall. My old PC took a lot of abuse until I decided it should retire. That was last year. And the PC before that one ran on Win98 SE, the worst piece of cr** ever made, but let’s not dwell on the past. I use WinXP now, of course, but it has its issues. So you can imagine how a non-crashing system would be appealing! I do realize that most of the smaller programs I use on the PC would not be available for the Mac. The laptop would have to be for working purposes only. I would need the basics; Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Dreamweaver and Photoshop. I could fiddle with the all the little stuff on the PC at home so having an iBook (possibly powerBook) might work. Then again, Dell (am a big Dell fan) has got some lovely light 12’’ laptops too, in addition to heavily equipped laptops. So many things to consider…*help*. Can you put me out of my misery, any word of advice? Don’t be shy, post a comment!

But there are other issues to consider as well, in either case, should I get a 12’’ or a 14/15’’? I love the idea of having a rather small and light laptop which is easy to carry around and does not require loads of space to set up. But how is working on a 12’’?? Isn’t it a bit too small? Maybe the smaller 12’’ laptops are rather for people who are constantly on the go, people who travel a lot. But then again, I always have the big screen at home so maybe a small screen on the laptop is ok?

And pssst, does anyone know when Mac will upgrade the laptops to G5?

Interaction Design Seminar

2005-03-25T22:26:00.000+01:00

A collaborative seminar on Interaction Design will take place on April 12th where Priya Prakesh, Crispin Jones, Simon Clatworthy and Anders Fagerjord will tell us about different aspects of interaction between man and machine, digital communication and interaction design in practice and theory.

April 12th, 9am – 4pm
Venue: Dragefjellet (Law Building), Aud 2
Free Entry – 250 Seats

Usability – The 411

2005-03-16T23:14:00.000+01:00

Usability – from “use” and “ability”. Although I could refer to some fancy dictionaries which would have varied technical definitions, website usability means simply the “ease of use”. How easy is it to navigate and get information from a webpage? Are you going mad because things are not working as they should? Usability is in other words the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which users can navigate and use a webpage. A website with high usability is well planned out, well structured, concise and delivers the message head on, there’s no beating around the bush. This is not the case with a webpage that has low usability.

Have you ever asked yourself how people read the web?

They don’t. Jakob Nielsen says in his article “How Users Read on the Web” that

"People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In a recent study John Morkes and I found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word."

What does this mean? A messy, unorganized, unstructured site will lose readers very quickly. People need straight facts right away and they will move on very quickly if your site is not looking presentable. There is more to presentation that just the visual part a webpage has to offer. The site structure, how the text is divided, where it is positioned, and the consistency of the text are all things that are just as important as the graphical elements.

Jakob Nilsen and John Morkes developed five different versions of the same website with the same basic information and navigation but different wording and structure. Several test users had to perform the same tasks with the different sites. It probably isn’t a big shock that improvements such as more concise text, scannable layout and objective language improved the usability significantly. And just like with design principles, the usability principles are rarely used alone. The principles combined resulted in a 124% usability improvement.

A well designed page is a crucial for today. If you want to beat the thousands of other pages that are somehow related to yours you have to make sure that your site has high usability, is well structured and concise. If you’re searching for something and come across a page that is difficult to figure out, do you spend another minute on it or do you move on in hope of finding something more suitable? I would have say the latter, most people know that they will find what they are looking for, presented in a user friendly format, if they just keep looking. Poorly designed pages simply don’t stand a chance out there in the big world.

I for one, as a web user and web designer, always try to think about the importance of usability. Is what I’m doing going to be easy to figure out for the users? Whenever I make a site I think to myself “remember that awful thing that some site I visited did? Don’t do that!”. It’s not that simple though, each case is different. All rules cannot be applied at all times, it’s about finding the balance. What I find particularly funny is that some sites are just drop dread gorgeous, but they are impossible to navigate. Either the navigation blends too much with the artwork that is the site, or it’s difficult to read. There is always something. The text portion of the site is usually less than optimally positioned as well. The page itself is stunning to look at though. However, that’s about it. You can look at it and gasp but actually using it is more than difficult. Sites like that made me realize a long time ago just how important every aspect of a webpage is; its design, structure, layout, choice of colors, positioning of the elements, comfortable and precise navigation. What good is a great looking site when you can’t really navigate through it and finding information gives you a headache? On the other hand, a well structured site that is easy to use but does not offer more than black text on white background will probably just as much make you move on to whatever else you can find. All these aspects (and more) are equally important as together they decide upon the site’s usability and appeal, the alpha and omega of a webpage.

Usability Test – www.mil.no

We created a usability test for www.mil.no. Those were the 5 questions:

1. You are 18 years old and have been called in for an examination of men liable for military service and would like to learn what it is you have to go through on this day.
The navigation was well planned out for this particular problem and the test person had to no trouble finding his way.

2. You are a journalist who has to find information about operation "Joint Winter 2004."
Although the test person eventually found a section covering military operations, the page he got for “Join Winter 2004” was just a mere short explanation of the operation and not the page for the operation itself. He ended up doing a search but that failed too. In the end it was the site map that got him where he was supposed to go.

3. You’re in your twenties and would like to get an education in the military. What options do you have and why should you choose the military?
The most interesting problem of them all, there is a big yet hideous ad for education in the military on the home page. Still, the test person completely misses it and starts looking for links. He finds and article about general education in the military which covers the “why should you choose the military” part. After some more searching he is unsure where to look but eventually finds a page that lists the different paths you can take, i.e. the options you have. The ad on the first page completely loses its purpose in this case. The ad is big enough, the problem lies in its design, the use of a questionable shade of yellow along with a dotted background makes the ad look like a commercial for something, the kind you simply ignore. And he did.

4. You would like to attend the Officer Candidate School (no = befalskole). How do you apply and how is the application deadline?
The test person immediately goes to the “education in the military” page but can’t find anything. A search doesn’t provide any relevant hits. After some more looking around he gives up. The twist here is that the information is available in the education section in a column to the right. It’s so obvious and right under your nose that it’s actually difficult to spot.

5. You’re a military veteran and would like to acquire information on the Daily Seminar hosted by the Museum of Defense, in association with the 100 years of independence celebration. Where is it, when is it, and who is invited to the Seminar?
This one was almost too easy, there is a button for the celebration on the home page and a link to the seminar hosted by the Museum of Defense is right there. Perhaps a much too easy and obvious question, but then again, as we have seen in the previous questions; what’s easy and meant to be obvious can be easily ignored by the user if not presented in the right way.

Comments: Getting to the very first page caused problems for almost everyone who tested this page. There is no clear home page button/link, the supposedly home page button takes you to the home page of the section you’re in. What most testers did was actually edit the URL to www.mil.no in stead of using some sort of link or button to the very first page which just wasn’t there. Ok, so it’s there, but it’s very small and it’s a text link. The text, however, does not indicate that it will lead you to the home page at all, unless you look at the URL in the status bar. This means you have to actively look for it. Shame, shame. This site is very big and organizing all the information is no easy task. Still, some fundamental elements should be present on all webpages, big or small.

It’s Beginning to Look like Easter….

2005-03-14T08:50:00.000+01:00

If this continues, we will definitely have a White Easter. It took 40 minutes to clean the car and driveway this morning. I hope the traffic won’t be too bad, every time it snows people seem to have forgotten how to drive. I’m off to the University, in this weather it will take at least an hour to get there, *sigh*.

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

2005-03-14T00:07:00.000+01:00

Is it snowing right now? Yes. Is there a lot of snow? In one word – YES! It sure feels like Christmas, there is snow everywhere. Easter is coming up, so I guess “It’s Beginning to Look like Easter”? I am so sick of snow though, I want sun and warm temperatures, lose the thick winter coat and pull out sandals. Yeah, that will happen. Not. The snow is pretty to look at, sure, but I am already dreading getting up in the morning because the first thing I have to do it is clean up the driveway and the 50 cm of snow on top of the car...

CRAP – The 4 Principles of Design

2005-03-13T20:32:00.000+01:00

Robin Williams’ book “The Non-Designer’s Design Book” is a very nicely written book about what you should be aware of when designing something. In less than 200 pages Robin explains the 4 principles of design, C.R.A.P. – Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity. By mastering these principles you are able to turn dull, unexciting pieces of work into interesting, eye-catching designs. It’s amazing how little it takes, something Robin vividly shows through simple yet powerful illustrations. It’s a useful book to add to your collection if you’re interested in design.

The Future Looks Flexible

2005-03-09T01:49:00.000+01:00

The topic for this week’s seminar is (among other things) the future of digital media.

I subscribe to a professional science magazine called Scientific American. It is a brilliant magazine featuring articles about physics, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, biology, computers, biotechnology, information technology, you name it. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest for science. But that is besides the point. Last year, in the February 2004 issue, there was an article entitled "The Future Looks Flexible – Organic Light Emitters Enable Better Electronic Displays". "Light-emitting organic materials offer brighter and more efficient displays than LCDs. And you’ll be able to unroll them across a table top."

Here is an excerpt from the article which explains the principle of this new technology. Also, be sure to check out the scan of the cover showing a prototype of the device.

"Used in displays, the organic materials are brighter, consume less energy and are easier to manufacture (thus potentially cheaper) than current options based on liquid crystals. Because organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) emit light, they consume significantly less power, especially in small sizes, than common liquid-crystal displays (LCSs), which require backlighting. OLEDs also offer several exciting advantages over common LEDs: the materials do not need to be crystalline (that is, composed of a precisely repeating pattern of planes of atoms), so they are easier to make, they are applied in thin layers for a slimmer profile; and different materials (for different colors) can be patterned on a given substrate to make high resolution images. The substrates may be inexpensive glass or flexible plastic or even metal foil.
In the coming years, large-screen televisions and computer monitors could roll up for storage. A soldier might unfurl a sheet of plastic showing a real-time situation map. Smaller displays could be wrapped around a person’s forearm or incorporated into clothing. Used in lighting fixtures, the panels could curl around an architectural column or lie almost wallpaperlike against a wall or ceiling."

Kodak’s EasyShare LS633 digital camera which has a 2.2-inch screen is the first device on the market to use an active-matrix OLED display.

Googlezon

2005-03-09T01:05:00.000+01:00

Have you not heard? Google and Amazon have joined forces and are now called “Googlezon”.

During the Monday lecture Jill showed us a very interesting video about a possible development of the media around us. The video tells the story of what happened from a perspective of being in the year 2014. Gotta love Googlezon!

I have uploaded the full video (8 mb) to a server but it will only be available for a limited amount of time.

Download the video (limited offer) – right click and “save target as”

Blog Design

2005-02-28T21:45:00.000+01:00

I tried making some changed to the blog design last week, only with moderate success. I think I just may lose this design (although I like the kitty in the corner) and start out with a simple CSS based design. Ok, I confess, I cheated a bit, I used some tables to keep things in place as CSS wouldn’t co-operate. I did use CSS, though, just not not exactly in the way that we were supposed to. It’s difficult to break free from the table-way of thinking. I’m Matthew and I’m a tableholic. The thing is that I really do want to learn the CSS way of designing pages as it has possibilities that are very beneficial and professional.

Speaking of CSS design, the “The Zen of CSS Design - Visual Enlightenment for the Web” book has gotten a terrific review from Digital Web Magazine. Definitely worth having a look! Also, if you’re interested, you can read Dave’s (co-author) comments to the review on his blog.

Website Analysis

2005-02-28T21:43:00.000+01:00

We’ve been talking about the website analysis that we are supposed to write (2000 words), not an easy task but I think bits and pieces are falling into place. After learning about how to look at a page and what to look for I think it’s going to be alright. We’re also supposed to raise a question which we answer through the analysis, which is good as that will keep us from losing track.

The Elevator Pitch & Blogs

2005-02-23T13:01:00.000+01:00

Today we talked about the art of presenting your idea in such a way that will make a potential sponsor interested, the so called “elevator pitch”. If you were talking the elevator to go to your fancy office on the 35th floor and you just happened to meet your boss along the way, how would you pith your brilliant idea to him? Your time is limited and you have to make sure it’s concise and interesting. How do you pitch the idea? Hence the name “elevator pitch”.

We also looked at several blogs. A blog is a diary/journal kind of webpage but that doesn’t mean that it has to have a classic “dear diary” set up. Some examples:

Jakob Nielsen
Derek Powazek
Moby
Anders Fagerjord

Museum Project - The Elevator Pitch

2005-02-23T10:47:00.000+01:00

The purpose of the museum project is to gather materials regarding the Pinochet-regime in Chile and the many people that disappeared without a trace. The materials will be organized and displayed in the form of an online museum which will contain text, pictures and videos on this subject.

The Main Project

2005-02-21T14:59:00.000+01:00

We’re trying to figure out what we’re going to do for the main project. Kate from Infomedia came by today to tell us about the museum project and it did sound interesting, although perhaps she didn’t say that much more than what we already knew. The thing is that the materials we are supposed to work with will not be available until sometime in March, and we’re suppose to present the outline of the project next week. Also, there seems to be very little interest in the museum project so I’m not sure what exactly is going to happen...

Class Project Summary

2005-02-13T23:18:00.000+01:00

The end of this week concludes the class project where every student made a webpage about something around the University campus area. I chose to write about the Mathematics & Natural Sciences building as this monstrosity is a place where thousands of students spend a lot of time trying to become something. However, it’s not a exactly the kind of place where you would want to be for hours and hours, yet, you have no choice if you’re in the science business. The building is just as ugly on the inside as it is on the outside. Read the story about "The Bomb Factory".

We were also asked to organize the individual pages using a system of our choice. I made a limited guide to the University campus area from the pages I thought could fit into such a description. I say “limited” because obviously all faculty buildings and sites around the campus were not represented in the class project. There are a million ways to organize a set of pages and I went for the option I feel is the most user-friendly and clean looking: a DHTML (Dynamic HTML) menu which I think fits well into the rest of the site content. The DHTML code prevented the page from being validated (2 errors) but it’s nothing major, the page itself is HTML 4.01 compliant. Since it is a guide to the University campus I naturally had to use a picture of one of the University buildings. However, I wanted to do more than just take a picture of a grey building and stick it on the page. I remembered that the Natural History Museum (which is a part of the University) has a display of bones from a full sized whale that are hung across the museum. They are lit up (when it’s dark outside) and you can see the lit up bones through the windows during the night. The result is the Guide to the University Campus Area.

Visual Presentation

2005-02-09T16:48:00.000+01:00

Today’s topic was visual presentation and organizing of content. We analyzed and compared the internet editions of newspapers like BT, Dagbladet, NY Times, The Guardian, The Sun, etc. We also looked at tourist webpages and drew a paper sketch of how we would design a tourist information page, which we later presented to the class.

Organizing the Pages

2005-02-09T02:03:00.000+01:00

This week’s assignment involves organizing all the pages each and one of use made last week. I picked out some pages and created a limited guide to the University Campus Area. Here is the link:

Guide to the University Campus Area

The Aviator

2005-02-05T16:35:00.000+01:00

I saw The Aviator last night. It was interesting but not that great...It lasted 3 hours and the movie was just not exciting enough to keep you interested for 3 hours! It was interesting to learn more about Howard Hughes, the man who made brilliant advancements in aviation and went insane in the process. The cast was brilliant, I am not much of a Leo fan, but he was in fact very good. My favorite was Cate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn, excellent. She is nominated for an Academy Award (Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role). I will not be upset if she gets it.

So sometimes the Oscar hype is not what it’s cracked up to be. I like to see the big Oscar movies though, they are often very much talked about and I will at least be able to state my opinion. Some of the big Oscars movies are indeed great. Next up is “Ray”, a movie about the life of Ray Charles. It’s supposed to be very good and Jamie Foxx has gotten great reviews. We’ll see :)

Have you seen The Aviator? Feel free to leave a comment!

Validation

2005-02-04T13:42:00.000+01:00

I finally got the “Pa Hoyden” page validated late last night. Some minor errors in the meta tags messed up the whole thing and the errors I got indicated problems with the body tag. What a mess. I’ve never really used validation before, there’s a first time for everything. If you happened to stumble upon this blog by accident and are having trouble with validation here is a tip: Start at the very top of the document and make sure all values have “ “ around them. Lack of the “ “ will mess things up more than you know. It took hours for me to figure everything out (I shouldn’t have used all those meta tags as they were the ones to mess it all up) but I definitely know how to go about it the next time.

The First HTML Page

2005-02-03T19:55:00.000+01:00

Our first website assignment was to create a simple page with text and a picture about something around the University Campus area. I got a little carried away and did a little more then we were supposed to. The page tells a silly little story about just how ugly the Mathematics & Natural Sciences building is. It’s a little exaggerated, sure, but you get the point.

Here’s the link: Matthew's Pa Hoyden Page

Feel free to leave a comment here, constructive criticism is always appreciated :)

Website Analysis From Last Week

2005-02-02T23:42:00.000+01:00

Here is an analysis of the website we looked at last week. A little late, I know, but as they say: “better late than never”.

http://davidstill.org/

Purpose

This site allows you to pretend to be David Still. Besides browsing through some general info and pictures you can write emails in his name and read the responses.

Structure

As far as the technical construction is concerned, the site consists of very large images and you need a rather large screen resolution to see what the pictures are about. The text used through out the site is fairly small so it is sometimes not too legible.

User Functionality

The navigation system is placed at the bottom at the page and it is very simple technically. However, it gets you wherever you need to go and it’s fully usable. Because of the choice of font size and font color the text on the pages is sometimes difficult to read.

Form

The form of the website is rather graphic as the images dominate on quite a few pages. The site is also focusing on text on other pages as emails are an important function of the site.

Design/Esthetics

The design is very unappealing (although this is very subjective), the use of large images and a light blue background (which fills a lot of the screen) creates a somewhat messy look and it is not very user friendly. In addition, red is used as the font color on far too many pages, and this significantly reduces the legibility of the text. The red text does, however, attract the attention of the reader.

University Capmus Text - Draft

2005-02-02T11:43:00.000+01:00

The new assignment is to create a (simple) HTML page about something in the vicinity of the Bergen University campus. So here is a draft (or rather a preview) of the text:

Not once, but several times have visiting friends, visiting friends of friends, someone I know is visiting or otherwise someone not from around (both Norwegians and foreigners) asked me what that bud ugly building on that far left of the University campus area is. What are they talking about? Yes, what could it be other than the Mathematics & Natural Sciences building…At a first glance it appears to be something that resembles a bomb factory. Not in a million years does it strike you as a place where thousands of students spend hours and hours every day in order to become something, to get a degree. The building doesn’t quite say “come in, let’s learn”. You’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, true, but in this case the pages in the book are just as unattractive as the cover. In fact, they are not that much different. The response I get after telling people that it is the Mathematics & Natural Sciences building is usually “oooh…..really?”. “Yes”. I say. “But it’s probably nice inside”, they respond. To which I say “Not exactly, it’s pretty much what it looks like”. Hmmm.

To be continued…

No Analysis Today

2005-01-26T21:50:00.000+01:00

We got our first bigger analysis assignment today. But you just gotta love when technology fails you. I probably won't be able to post the analysis until Monday as everything is at the university even though I sent it all home (webmail is wonderful!). You know the story...

Picture Assignment

2005-01-19T13:20:00.000+01:00

Our first practical assignment was to go out and snap a few pictures and put them online. Andreas, Aleksander and I went downtown to find something interesting to photograph...Naturally, we went through hell in order to get the pictures online, nothing seemed to work but flickr.com turned out to be our friend. Here are a few pictures from our exciting trip:

Website Analysis ( just a first draft)

2005-01-19T11:59:00.000+01:00

We took a look at GoArmy.com and came to the following conclusion:

1. Why was this website created?

This website was created in order to promote the US Army and soldier life, inform about the army, its service and possibilities, and ultimately get people to join.

2. Who is the target audience?

The target audience is primarily young American men between the ages of 16-25.

3. How are they reaching out to the target audience? Language? Appearance? Tone?

The website has a modern layout and uses Flash as an important tool to set the tone of the website. A dark background together with carefully chosen pictures containing vivid color create the illusion that the site is trying to promote a movie. The words are carefully chosen, positive, appealing slogans make military life seem fun and exciting. Most of the pictures used through out the site seem very idyllic (and somewhat unrealistic; the sky is always blue).

4. Is it working? Why or why not?

The website is very appealing and fun, if you view it from the outside and don't think about what lies behind it all and what goes on “behind the stage”.

Link

2005-01-19T10:48:00.000+01:00

Just testing out links. If you're into movies then this site will keep you up to date: Movie Trailers

Welcome

2005-01-19T10:37:00.000+01:00

Welcome to Matthew's Webdesign blog!

Matthew's Blog

What's Going On?

A Fresh Start

Really the End

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Something Went Wrong

HUIN 105 Evaluation

When Hell Freezes Over

Blogging

What Is The Big Deal?

And Here We Are

That’s All Folks!

Nettstedsanalyse – Nokia.com

Prosjekt Rapport – Remembering Chile

Blog Redesign

Project Progress

Online Exhibition Is...Online

Not the End of F*R*I*E*N*D*S

Home, Sweet Home

One Way Ticket To Hell

Project Progress

When Time Passes By Just Too Quickly

Pictures from Salzburg

Love/Hate Amazon

That’s a Wrap on Round 2

Project Feedback

The Project – Beta Test

Don't Believe Everything You Read

Oops...I Did It Again!

The Interpreter

What Webdesign Can Do to You

The Project

One Way Ticket to Hell

Molly Releases New Book!

Jill Walker - The Mother of Blogs

Back to Reality

You Gotta Obey the Rules

The Zen Book Is Here!!

Mac vs. PC

Interaction Design Seminar

Usability – The 411

It’s Beginning to Look like Easter….

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

CRAP – The 4 Principles of Design

The Future Looks Flexible

Googlezon

Blog Design

Website Analysis

The Elevator Pitch & Blogs

Museum Project - The Elevator Pitch

The Main Project

Class Project Summary

Visual Presentation

Organizing the Pages

The Aviator

Validation

The First HTML Page

Website Analysis From Last Week

University Capmus Text - Draft

No Analysis Today

Picture Assignment

Website Analysis ( just a first draft)

Link

Welcome

Not the End of FRIENDS