Thursday, March 19, 2009

Studio Tasks


Making Toast: “step by step”

1. Wash & dry hands.

2. Take note of power board.
3. Check if switch board is turned ‘OFF’ before plugging in cord. Is it? Y/N
4. Plug in cord.

5. Turn switch on.

6. Put a slice of bread in each slot.
7. Set timer to 3.

8. Push down on lever on the side to start toasting bread.
9. When toast is done, allow to cool.
10. Is toast safe to touch? Y/N

11. Is the bread toasted enough? Y/N

12. Prepare toast for serving.


Making Toast: “flow charting”





Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Informational/Instructional Design

Information is data organized into relationships and patterns. An organizational approach is important because when data is presented poorly or in mass amounts, the user is unable to receive or understand the message given instantly. Information design furthermore visually represents large amounts of data in a minimalistic approach through organized data, graphics or images with an aim to present this complex data in a more simple, easy and comprehensible structure for all audiences to view in an effective way and also successfully communicate the context around it.

Instructional design serves as a learning tool, to guide and teach an audience for either a directional or informative purpose. Visual aids are commonly used to further enhance the meaning or show how something is done. However whether the design is represented either visually, through audio or text information, to be successful it must provide the relevant information and be understandable by the audience. Considering the needs of an audience, when creating a design, is immensely important as they are your top target audience to communicate a message to. Through new advances in technology, basic instructional designs of flow charts have enhanced to such things as interactive step-by-step tutorials that allows the audience to visually engage with a task.

Examples -

  • Street signs, Retail signs and Maps

  • Graphs

  • Tutorials or Manuals

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Interactive Design

Interactive Design is the collaboration of sound, motion, video, and images into a new media that turns plain information into a more user friendly, clear, and enjoyable application by lessening reading time and increasing its effectiveness through interactive and engaging experiences. It aims to improve communication and networks between users with the help of new and evolving technology that enables users to interact with each other and gain some sort of knowledge through these experiences it delivers.

According to Nathan Shedroff, the four main ideas of interactive design are:

  • Control and Feedback - How much control the audience has over the outcome and how much feedback exists in the interface depending on the amount of user interaction.
  • Adaptive Experiences - Those that change the experience based on the behavior of the user. (E.g. A game becoming more difficult as the player becomes more proficient.)
  • Productivity and Creative Experiences - Allows users to share something ‘themselves.’ Creative products and experiences require that others participate by creating or manipulating instead of merely watching and consuming.
  • Communicative Experiences - Enabling an opportunity to communicate with and meet others to share personal stories and opinions. Because the experience involves two or more people, they also essentially involve high levels of control and feedback. (E.g. telephone, discussion boards)

Great Web Design Examples -

Web 2.0

Firstly, before Web 2.0 of course was Web 1.0. Web 1.0 was about connecting computers and making technology more efficient for computers. The World Wide Web didn’t contain just information anymore, Web 2.0 became a way for connecting people, and making technology more efficient and convenient for people through instant communication and created new experiences for the end user though different web pages. These web pages didn’t just allow users to retrieve information, but allowed them to build and manage their own web sites by running software-applications entirely through a browser and creating networks.

From these networks leads to the evolution of web-based of communities, hosted services, and applications (such as social-networking sites like ‘face book’), video-sharing sites and public blogs.In regards to how effective web 2.0 has been, Tim O'Reilly reinforces that “it provides users with an engaging experience so that they'll want to return to the Web page in the future.” This interactive user experience is one major aspect of why web 2.0 has been so successful, since web 1.0 only contained information and did not allow users to interact or contribute their opinions to the site.

Here are some simple yet interesting points about Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0:
- Web 1.0 was about reading, Web 2.0 is about writing
- Web 1.0 was about companies, Web 2.0 is about communities
- Web 1.0 was about client-server, Web 2.0 is about peer to peer
- Web 1.0 was about home pages, Web 2.0 is about blogs
- Web 1.0 was about information, Web 2.0 is about opinion

Examples of Web 2.0: