Style and School

Gestault

2007-03-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

week 4 makup:

when designing a webpage a similar look and feel for the site from page to page is a no duh, but how much farther can we take this principle? for example similar navigation? similar text size and similar font faces can help establish a cohesive identity but why stop there? Other applicable factors are different sizes for different pieces of navigation, what's bigger seems to belong together, main links bigger and grouped make them stand out. keep it simple and understandable and obey basic principles and the gestault theories can be really useful to guide users without them even realizing it.

affordances and constraints help people do the right thing whether they want to or not. if it is possible prevent a user from doing something wrong by making it impossible to do. don't allow an improper command for example, automatically tab over in phone number box's to allow someone to continue typing, they may still click in the box but at least it doesn't prevent those who don't from not continuing with the phone number. some better examples are given by donald norman in DOET and this reading but for now that is something that would be very nice as a convention. a real example of affordance is the fact that i am bound to the earth, this is a relationship between me and the object earth, only with great difficulty and the proper career path can i break free of this constraint and in my lifetime it really is a constraint. i cannot move my cursor out of the screen and i cannot exit the atmosphere.

Third time:

2007-03-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

I copy and pasted this time:

I hate this stuff kathy, blogger is so unreliable... I just lost a long blog post... I'm not typing all that again.

I was trying to make up a blog post from week 5 but now i feel really defeated because blogger deleted it by not connecting then not allowing me to go back.

in short:

it was on the organization for the masses reading and I was talking about how the card sorting was a very useful experiment that I actually subjected several of my friends to which allowed me to realize that many people think radically different about where things ought to be so for my website realizing that I couldn't make one system of navigation work for all the users I focused on designing manysystems that worked for some of the users and i think that it manages to provide more benefits than harm when you design for difference. That was a huge lesson...

More Wires for us to work off of.

2007-03-06T17:51:00.000-08:00

this one took a while:

This one was easier pwr point slide:

wireframish

2007-03-04T16:38:00.000-08:00

Home page

Tasks

2007-03-04T11:06:00.000-08:00

Task One: Find out Viacom's subsidiaries biggest subsidiary.

Task Two: From the site map, Find out when Kube 93.3 was founded.

Task Three: From Home: navigate as quickly as possible to Warner Bro's upon arrival submit review request to acquisition history.

Breakdown.

2007-02-23T14:34:00.000-08:00

So I thought I would break down the tasks into responsibilities we could go over before our group met.

Consider this an agenda to go over for the meeting.

Introduction:

Sounds like this is not one of our responsibilities and that this has already been completed, if we need to make any changes to this document however then there should be someone who knows when we might have to do that.

Project Object ... ives:

This is the scope of the project, we will forum over this in the meeting today and it will be decided.

Someone will then have to put dates to "deliverables" for example the goals that i posted about the design chances are this person will be me. deliverables include blueprint of webpage and go live dates.

Definition of success:
What constitutes success on this project? In this situation it might be easier to define faliure.

Site map:
One of us will have to outline this, it should take 5 minutes on paper and perhaps 10 on computer. It's pretty fricken obvious. This is a deliverable.

Functional Specs:

Much of what will go into here was in my design post, Is anything missing?

Technical Specs:

After we decide upon the functional specs then the technical side must be resolved, we should try to make it as web based as possible with little to no flash or other applications needed.

Privacy Policy:

We can nick this from almost any website out there and make small edits, also a deliverable.

Content plan:

This is possibly a large assignment or a small one, how do we input content, we will need to figure out whether or not we would make this a wiki style site or a controlled input of information for the public.

Wireframes:

We need more information about this, as we are not creating the site how much fo a wireframe do we actually need? this may be a difficult point as well if we actually have to create a site that functions as kevin and I were discussing in class. pictures and mockups are easy but will those count as wireframes? who will design the wire frame? either way this comes after the other information is decided.

Aesthetics

2007-02-19T21:32:00.000-08:00

I think this is a really valuable reading.

This is something that applies not only to web pages, in fact it makes a lot of sense, for example:

Surprisingly enough to most MBA students, powerpoints should not be bullet load after bullet load of text on top of that the format should be similar from slide to slide to make the viewers feel involved and able to easily recognize the slides and information. This is true also of a webpage or any other display of text. text especially informative text needs to be displayed in a user friendly manner that reduces cognitive load. If something is easy to read and aesthetically pleasing a reader can learn more from ten words than ten paragraphs.

The rule of thirds is something I have encountered before in communications theory. I can't over emphasize the clean, visually pleasing use of the above the fold space of a website. Following the rule of thirds you can design a clean look for the fold space that the user will see upon entering the website or websites and this can make the experience much more pleasant overall persuading the viewer/user/reader to stay and browse around more.

I swear to god...

2007-02-19T21:04:00.000-08:00

These deadlines... I always wind up missing them! class exercises are... well... I didn't know it was noon today, I remember monday not noon... whatever.

My group had government, one inclusion i came up with is public documentation is a must, most gov are on .gov but if they are not they are on .org as something like ASUW governments so here are my websites:

http://www.aswsu.org/

http://www.il.gov/

http://egov.cityofchicago.org/city/webportal/home.do

These have information about the government and offices held and officers, and have public documents and are .org minimums.

Project goals.

2007-02-19T14:38:00.000-08:00

These are the goals that we need to complete in steps broken down in attainable format to create a database search form of website that is both user friendly and functional.

Knowing the type of website that we are designing and the type of content (and knowing we don't have to put the information in ourselves) we should design the website to be the most user friendly as possible.

The first step in doing so is creating an easy to use navigation.

What is the design of the navigation for the website that we want?

Goal 1 Navigation:

Decision #1:

Do we want top down navigation begging with the top dog and ending up on the smaller corporations or do we want bottom up navigation where all streams lead to the ocean? Should it be alphabetical etc..
These questions are the symptoms of the over arching idea: where does navigation start?

Decision #2:

The navigation style is only one of the two components to navigation that we need to make the other is a decision about navigation format, flash, frames, or archive. What is the best type of website to browse through this navigation? Is flash appropriate for something like this? or should the website be displayed in a similar fashion as theyrule.net? Perhaps this is an occasion where frames are in order?

Goal 2 Content:

Decision #1:

How much content is going to be inside each page? graphics, videos, pictures? Are we going to list in text all the information? If so what type of text? A history of each media company? or perhaps a history of each media companies acquisitions and takeovers? some of this may be decided in the navigation issue but perhaps listing the companies subsidiaries or superiors on the company page is what we should do as well.

Decision #2:

The scheme of the website is going to be what keeps a user there, this falls into homepage design and color format partially aesthetics partially hitting the right information right away. what information is going to be on the landing page? will there be a landing page? navigation will dictate much of this but this is important on it's own. if the site has a landing page what will it look like? the colors and format of this page will dictate what much else of the website looks like to make sure the user knows they are navigating through our site.

Goal #3 control:

Decision #1:

How much control does the user get in this situation? do we want them to be able to use the back button? a link to home on every page? will we allow the user to adjust the text size or is this a one size-fits all page? once again, part of this is in the navigation but part of it is not, how will we limit the users ability to alter our design, if at all?

Decision #2:

This is largely a component of navigation that does not have to be decided until now but is more of a design and expectations issue, top nav? side nav? L shape navigation? web 2.0 style? are we going to try to fit into a genre? or are we just going to make one up? Where will the search box be? will there be something to subscribe to? email alerts? what features do we need to have that we haven't thought of yet? (now you can go crazy on it Kevin)

Goal 4 Blueprint:

Once we have thought through these goals we will lay a blueprint out as a conglomeration of the ideas we have decided upon and this will be a semi final markup of the site, we will are review the blueprint and tear the blueprint to shreds any way we can think of, it will not be an html blueprint it will be a text written blue print (possibly with accompanying JPG example).

Goal 5 Feedback:

Self explanitory.

Goal 6:
Implimentation of feedback, this section will be expanded when there is something to be expanded upon.

The Design of Everyday Essays

2007-02-13T17:31:00.000-08:00

I'm going to be talking about the design of everyday things in class today, I couldn't pick a good book and broke down and bought design. Turns out I don't regret it. Too bad he worked for apple, but despite that, it's a good informative insightful read i look forward to talking about. I learned a lot about the ignorance of engineers and design award winners. the book really should be called common sense for smart people. Donald A. Norman : Design of Everyday Things.

I picked the book because it was on kathys list and sounded interesting and not overly web related.

Key points include user centered design over elegance or switch bombing. Chances are it's not your fault its the designers. and really please in the future make toasters safer and really really really try not to make a nuclear console difficult to understand that there is an actual malfunction when it is about to tear an island apart.

Design for error, and stop thinking your so creative by making doors that look like walls.

fink

2007-01-30T19:49:00.001-08:00

Turn handle open door, enter bathroom, flick switch, turn toward mirror, locate and pickup toothbrush, put tooth brush down, pick up tooth paste, open tooth paste, apply tooth paste to tooth brush, apply pasted brush to teeth, vigorously move tooth brush in circular fashion against teeth while lightly salivating, cover any area that is made out of enamel calcium or borders between gums and tooth, brush roof of mouth, brush tongue thoroughly, spit aiming at sink, turn sink on by rotating hot water knob, gurgle water once hot, spit, gargle more water, spit, wipe the mouth with wash cloth, rinse sink, turn hot water off, turn light off, leave room, close door.

Click projects once link loads. Groove to music. Click on interactive, see splinter cell and xbox 360 get distracted and click. Click back to project index because the back button is non functional. Click on film main titles, click back to projects click on interactive, click on e-commerce ibm link, click back to projects, click interactive, click Honda, redir- projects.

Click on contact, click on map and driving directions to new york office, click on suggested search.

Imaginary forces fell into the trap of flash, there is no back button usage which means every button is in the website and is flash based. The text size does not allow us to alter it to make it easier to view. There’s a photo gallery and I am not quite sure what it wants me to view. The reading on affordance and constraints really applies the most to this website as it decided to ignore all constraints and was constructed in a very uncontrollable fashion, music that plays automatically, text that is not adjustable, and worse no back button on the browser. It sacrificed everything for a sleek looking page but a warning for flash layouts, if the menu system isn’t clear be prepared for trouble.

black and white.

2007-01-23T19:39:00.000-08:00

I'm a little grey on the idea of design still. I understand it's purpose but I just read two web page articles on design which broke the standards of ... well design. I was very frightened without my top navigation bars and almost blinded by images that confused and perplexed me, luckily I was able to continue reading to glean some helpful information from these articles... I think. Actually while the second article i read (reading them in reverse order) was image less the author painted a much clearer image of what they were trying to explain. I now feel much less guilty about my use of piles. I have a pile for stuff that needs throwing out, a pile for reading, a pile for homework and a pile for laundry.. piles are very useful organizational tools. heck i wouldn't be able to go anywhere if it weren't for the useful pile of shoes at my front door. I would almost go so far as to say piles are the standard in my apartment. hah.

The idea that prototypes should always be rough is kind of an ah ha to me. sometimes i would think that if you make a finished as possible prototype then more people would support then vision, but I suppose in more thought about it, many may glean a different idea they support more from a rough model version of a toy or car or website that they approve more from the prototype being rough than finished because they use their own imaginations. One of the things I find interesting is the ambiguity of the design mentioned in both the readings. In my opinion the most important design aspect is the UI (user interface). The design can be all over the place as long as it is easy to use and doesn't distract the reader from the message/user from the goal. the design of the unified theory of design created a lot of noise for me when reading it. I found this normally what would be easy to read page, noisy and distracting because of the graphics placed all over the reading. As far as the writer I would like a citation on his definition of wisdom, I am a student of the Tao Te Qing and some things said in this article were very interesting but conflict with the nature of the words he was using, perhaps if he was less focused on flashy words and more intent on making his content easier to read it would have been less argumentative in my mind. the one part that spoke extremely clearly to me was the part on organization. after reading his input on organization it is entirely possible that organization may be the single most important feature, nay the pupose of the word design. i will have to think about that.

I have worked extensively in the web development industry and the issue of standardization is what makes it possible for people to easily share information and create new programs/websites/applications. Standards should be more widely embraced due to the fact that most of the time they only help make any situation easier for those who are involved in production. ex : web standards help web developers make only one version of website instead of multiple for each web browser. High defenition television has been mandated the broadcasting standard, not because people want to sell more televisions but because the spectrum tv operates on is the peoples spectrum and television companies must be responsible with it. the signal strength of hd tv is stronger and will help emergency broadcasting systems around the states further more with hd this will help broadcasters by making television more interesting and involving, this is a good thing for advertisments as well. a standard was mandated and while it may be a hassle for some stations set in their ways who didn't want to switch just yet ( as many stations were switching to hd already those who did not would be left behind as inferior shortly) it benefits all by accomplishing this task now instead of later. Standards help progress.

Wasn't planning on creating a website... so im not sure what to do about those two url's needed.

I think instant messaging is supperior to email, end. IM needs a standard set of code that can connect to others via something like email addresses instead of the 50million different versions of screen names IE: msn's email address VRS AIMs screen name. I am a user of msn and don't really feel like changing to another system I would not mind however if somehow I was allowed to chat with those on other systems. this would make communicating with others easier and effective.

Team Work.

2007-01-16T19:42:00.000-08:00

I would really like to figure out the necessary people involved in creating a production (both movie and music) studio. I would like to figure out the budget and plan a solid business idea for how much money and time it would cost to create a movie and a record. Every aspect of both, and I still would like to either find out a competitive method of acquiring a good script or learn to script write competitively. obviously there is a point to these goals in concert. To help the goals along the way a team member role i would most like to be assigned is project manager. I don't know if these are website team goals but i can put them in terms of web developing if necessary. that is the only all applicable goal i can really think of that i would prefer. I would not like to be the camera man or the html dev. I would not like to be the accountant. I would like to be the actor/director/content creator/writer. these are the skills I am hoping to pick up and use to help create something in the future.

We-Ness

2007-01-16T18:14:00.000-08:00

I think I'm cheating on this one. First I would subscribe to some project management software that we could all post and maintain goals and files on different projects through. second I would use a hack to that software that allows everyone to log into a chat room to discuss in real time, any issues they had come up. I.E: Base camp and campfire. I would also have everyone on an instant messenger, aim or msn for example and able to chat via these 1 on 1 or in large groups for discussions that only pertained to a couple of people. The 'we-ness' would come from the close discussion and inter involvement that all team members would participate in. when the product was approved and finished everyone could be proud as they would all be informed of the launch or completion via the company project management software. I have worked on a team with these programs and features before. initially there was simply a chat system we used via instant messenger but we couldn't all be in the same chat room. When we got what is called 'campfire' going it brought a lot of us closer together as co-workers instead of simply people who worked on the same project at different times. group interaction on the internet is very useful and can make physical barriers like geography seem irrelevant.

Potential drawback is you cannot punch out at the end of the day on friday and grab a beer with co-workers. that sucks.

Ah Ha! a New class! 585

2007-01-16T16:59:00.000-08:00

So in order to get a different perspective on how to build a website I took a look at mcdonalds.com and wendys.com.

The thing is I come from the point of view that websites are incredibly easy to build and can operate on a budget of 2k or so a site. After reading goto's project proposal manual I decided I needed to look at something huge and corporate. Man did i learn a lot about fast food.

First I would like to say both nutritional information sites are extremely well done, if you are ever wondering how much calories your burger is from either place with or without mayo, or ketchup or maybe even that little onion piece they put on for you, that is definitely a resource you should know about. The second thing that i realized is man, this was one expensive site. I don't know if someone could come up with a fixed variable bid/price for a site like Wendy's.com. I built blogs for lawyers, we didn't have to worry about half the things in that proposal, we loaded up templates smashed some artwork onto it and taught the client how to blog but I can see where all these management steps could help prepare someone for a bigger project like building the Wendy's website. I don't know if the proposal covered all the bases though, In my opinion the Internet is a place where you have to manage a brand identity through and through, the company working with the web developers should either work with a web developer who understands branding and sub domains or have someone on staff who thoroughly understands this from their half of the table. in the era of blogs and informative marketing I don't think you can afford not to. Planning out every aspect you can think of really is key, and that is the first Ah ha.

I really like the way the blogger spell checker works, HUGE improvement.

The second Ah ha belongs in the budget, Due to my work experience I have had many differences of opinion with the articles we read for class but in regards to the budget I strongly agree with and understand a couple points. I think that when you block out everything pre-developement it gives you credibility with the client and allows you wiggle room you may need in the future. Even if you don't anticipate needing to develop any new html leaving 10 hours or so for someone to make sure there are no mistakes within the coding of each site is a smart move. The same thing with copy writing/tradmarking labels, normally this has to be hard written directly into each website or page and that can take some time and a special eye to catch errors. I think it would be terribly unprofessional of a website devloper if when the word Wendy's appeared on half the pages it was without the ® or was lower case wendys.

No sooner do I finish my instructions when..

2006-12-13T12:11:00.000-08:00

I just finished a comprehensive research paper... and well made a prediction that happened the next day almost. Not quite what I had in mind but, I like myself right now.

Paper Here (Note that I wouldn't call it fit to publish just yet. I am making an exception, this was turned in 12/12 with a deadline.):

Magnus Gordon
Com 546 – Final Paper
Due 12/12/06

My goal is to determine the direction that search system technology should take in the future. Search systems are widely used on the internet and in other places such as libraries. Because of how vital this technology is becoming it makes sense that this technology is something that should be researched and improved upon. That is not to say that search systems are insufficient but that they can be improved upon greatly. Currently with search engines, in order to have a webpage show up in a search, a webpage must be optimized properly. This optimization is a very laborious process. The reason search systems do this is to minimize the possibility for incorrect results, spam-web pages (web pages that mean nothing and just try to pull in visitors), and abuse of the search engine system. One of the goals of creating a better search system will be simplifying the process of submission. While it may be appropriate for web developing businesses to have to correctly optimize a web page, the same reasons do not apply to personal web page creations or creators. Typically a web page creating business is going to try to sell its services to another business and if a company is creating many web pages per day this may not be the type of thing users would like easily categorized. If someone is making a webpage for restaurants or informative blogs on the other hand, than users may prefer that they can easily access this information.
One of the goals of a search engine is to be as relevant as possible. Unfortunately the need is secondary to the consumers need for the usefulness of providing semi relevant information immediately. Relevance seems to haven taken a back seat to speed and simplicity. Though many search engines offer query refinement on the page of the search results for personal experience and the results of a small unscientific survey it can be determined unscientifically that people are very unlikely to use these search refinements. This is also the suggestion that the previous paper eludes too. Academics on the other hand want higher quality results with less search time. While learning how to properly manipulate Boolean operators can serve an academic well, the problem remains that not every system supports these functions. The systems that do can be navigated with greater accuracy but the problem of time still exists. All these quandaries with the current day search system setup lead me to ask, what are the criteria needed to develop a more efficient and effective search engine?
The intriguing aspect of this area of search is how much psychology and language analysis is involved in formulating a good search engine. Imagine a search for high football scores in a lost game. The query entered is going to be in the form of a question, which many engines are striving to support at the moment. The answer is going to be in the form of a score. What’s the Seahawks highest losing score? The language required to analyze this statement is intense and complicated. Currently as of 12/12/06 this question returns the most recent win by the Seahawks as a top answer on Google (one of the webs largest search engines). Now imagine if you were on a web page where you could pick a category say for example ‘Losses’ and then type the keywords Seahawks high scores. Would this prove more effective? Or would it return the same result? This essay will discuss theorys behind the way today’s search systems function and process requests. Then the paper will discuss what direction search systems are heading in the near future.
In the search engine business users are money. The more users you have the more money you receive from advertisers. The industry is operating on a model of revenue where the beneficiaries of the services pay little to no money at all. Because of this it is in the search system’s best interest to continuously improve and refine their system. Google is known for its ability to keep people guessing what the next component to the search engine optimization it will incorporate. While many of these details are unknown about how a system like Google refines their technology I will examine several different functions that are not yet wholly incorporated into any major search engine and determine if they are an option that is worthy of further study.
Beginning the feature study is query reformulation. To define: ‘Query’ is the object/word/phrase that is entered into a search submission field for the engine to find and match similarities to. Query reformulation is the process whereby the original query is altered to match search results with more accuracy. Query reformulation initially (as discussed in the first paper) was a type of user reformulation that, because of the time investment allotted for reformulation, never won the popularity contest. This type of user reformulation was the most accurate form of search. Currently query reformulation refers to the process that search systems go through without the user being aware of the alterations to their initial search. Some of this reformulation refers to literally reformulating a sentence, such as our previous Seahawks question, into something more search engine friendly. Ex: It turns it into a ‘phrase including’ the following: Seahawks high lose score (Cafarella). You can see now why the results for this search might have almost nothing to do with the actual question I had asked in the first place. Another form of query reformulation is ‘query context’ (Jansen). Query context is reformulation where the engine adds on words to contextualize the results and the accuracy of the search. Ex: If I enter the word ‘bark’ the search system may insert ‘tree’ or ‘dog’ for added contextual results and search relevance. This contextual search can often be based off of a user profile or web search histories and popularity (Jansen). With the speed of contextual reformulation that the search system performs for the user it doesn’t degrade the performance enough to make those who value speed turn away from the system. The issue here is that sometimes the reformulations can be very misleading or send a less informed user in the wrong direction.
The feature of reformulation shouldn’t be reformulation. Currently there are several branches of search developing for many different search engines. It is strange that each engine compels you to go to a different website if a user wants to use the different forms of search. Clicking buttons and wasting time switching platforms every time you want to switch to a specific type of search may turn many users away. Unfortunately there may be a strong correlation between how clear a query is and how ambiguous the results are (Cronen-Townsend). What this is hinting at is that there should be a way to rapidly categorize and clarify search results without sacrificing speed or usability. Creating a solution to this problem is not hard. If there was a drop down category that would have the top ten easiest ways to sort results in them than it isn’t hard to imagine queries getting a great deal more accurate. Thinking about the categories and what they might look like it is easy to envision a ‘Business’, ‘Animal’, ‘Academic’, and ‘Government’ category. For example, imagine the difference in a search for ‘Medical Care’ in the context of all 4 of those query categories. If a user allows a computer to input the context of ‘Medical Care’ for them while searching for the best way to take care of their family pet then chances are that they will take a very long time trying to get the computer to insert that context. A simple method of classification at the beginning of a search engine is a definite candidate for consideration.
There are currently available evaluative search systems some even capable of mapping 3d images (Min). Why then do they ignore the basics in a question about sports scores? The answer to this is that there are many different types of search systems and some are better design to compare different functions than others. Not all of them are available for comparative searches like the graphically analyzing models mentioned. Some search engines like these graphical search engines are extremely user intensive. There are some engines however that take phrases from the query and convert them into phrases standard Boolean operators for the user. Knowing that a search engine can perform these type of analysis but do not typically search on the multiple endings of phrases for the user is frustrating. The Boolean query entry law* should return law, laws, lawyers, lawless, lawful, and more (Albano). Search engines should automatically return similar queries without the entry of the Boolean operator. Some search engines do but frequently many do not. If a search engine requires training it may not be as attractive to use as something as simple as Google or Yahoo! Similar to this is the ‘Binding Engine’ search that is currently in development. The binding engine allows for variables, not just Boolean operators to be entered into the query field. With the binding engine search and query refinement there are many possibilities. The binding engine on it’s own could be a powerful tool. An example of the binding engine is a search that allows the search not to search for the query variations itself and not just a sentence with the query in it. Ex: a search for ‘Slow noun’ returns, sloth, slugs, molasses, and time elapsed photography (Cafarella). If you could contextualize this search with the click of a button you are getting towards a powerful tool. Even without categorizing the Binding engine search would still be powerful for the fact that it allows a user to search for Seahawks score loss, which would provide all the scores with Seahawk losses as a result for the query.
Some search engines are more apt to adapt to complex, yet instantaneous search improvement. Yahoo! For example uses Boolean operators like * (Miramatsu). Other search engines remove what are called stop-words. These stop words would cause searches like to be or not to be to return absolutely no results (Miramatsu). The problem is determining when it is applicable to use this setting and who makes that decision. An idea for some search engines would be to have a qualifying amount of stop words that would hinder removal if the query contained an amount above that number. An example would be the searches ‘to be or not to be’ and ‘Seahawks win in overtime’. There is only one stop word in the Seahawks related query so the term can be removed for the search however; the ‘to be or not to be’ broke the limit of 3 stop words so none would be removed for fear of damaging the query. This system may conflict with some Boolean operators such as ‘creek and not mill’ yet as I explained previously most users do not want to think about complex query entries so they may most likely not be using these terms that may be hindered therefore it is not considered an issue just a precaution. The last factor in query entry that needs considering is term order weight (Miramatsu). Because of the substantial difference between ‘Seahawks beat’ and ‘beat Seahawks’ this is something that no search engine should do without yet surprisingly at the time of Miramatsu’s article it was most prevalent in only Lycos and Google. An educated user can currently navigate around various search engines quite effectively depending on what they are looking for. My argument is that because it is the search engines that are profiting from the users, they should help users remain happy by creating an educated search engine that requires little to no knowledge on the users end.

Because this paper was all about the uneducated user I had to get opinions from some close, not web savvy friends. These are regular people with currently no higher education than a high school diploma. There are ten friends total four female, six male. One male and one female are students at the University of Washington. Two females are students at Seattle Central Community College the other female is a student at North Seattle CC where four of the remaining males attend. The final male is my roommate and is not attending college.

The survey had a few very deliberate questions to determine whether or not a format of search could be perceived as user friendly and the rest of it was fairly open ended.

Below are the question listed in numbered form:
1. What do you think of current search engines? Is there room for improvement?
2. In what way do you think search engines could be improved?
3. How would you respond to a drop down category classification box that is normally set at default? Is this a good idea?
4. If there was a circle checked by default labeled ‘Perform Smart Search Operations’ and you had no idea what it did would this worry you?
5. If there was an option for ‘Advanced Variable Replacement’ that had a ‘what is this?’ link beneath it would you be inspired to learn more or just leave it unchecked?
6. If there was a community monitored search engine submission method that made it easier for good information to get in and harder for spam pages to turn up would you participate?

That was generally the extent of the survey simply to forum ideas with those who may not be familiar with the idea of ‘Binding Engines’ or stop word searches and Boolean operators. The results of the survey were surprisingly favorable. More specifically I am referring to the community moderation question. 7 out of 10 surveyed reported that they would support this method of submission. Even after hearing that a company could simply submit and check a few boxes to have the result listed in the proper area there was still a large amount of support for the idea from all those who supported it initially. The idea behind question six is that a company should not have to spend hours to optimize their page for search engines. When a page is created it should let the content and the quality of the site guide it to the rightful place in whatever search system. The user moderated forum is a take away from Wikipedia. Thomas Freidman mentions in “The World is Flat” that user moderated communities and user generated content is one of the great equalizers. Yes there can be abuses but in a community like a search engine moderation and submission community you could require real information from people and legitimize every submission by requiring logins for everyone who wants to submit or alter any web page classification entry. This combined with more advanced search functions such as a drop down classification box set at default and two other buttons that allow those not interested in higher level of customization to ignore everything and search as usual could be a revolutionary way to get more relevant results with less effort. Currently many systems could make the switch very easily. Yahoo! And Google have the infrastructure and Microsoft Live is creeping up right behind them. In the future I wouldn’t be surprised if many people make a move towards setting up this infrastructure. The system of Gmail and Google loyal subscribers along with Yahoo! Groups, and My Yahoo! have a great advantage to begin working on this now.
I don’t see these results too far off from now in the future. This is no great ten year prediction but more of a three year one. You can count on the big players in the industry right now to make advancements toward this. I would recommend a full-scale usability survey on the system that I mentioned. It is worth determining whether or not the drop down optional category system, optional ‘Smart Search’ button, and ‘Advanced Variable Search’ or ‘Binding Engine’ could be implemented in a clean user friendly fashion.

Bibliography

Albano, Jessica ‘Com 546 - Guest Lecture Week 2’ Communications Librarian, AUT 2006. University of Washington.

Cafarella, M. J. and Etzioni, O. 2005. A search engine for natural language applications. In Proceedings of the 14th international Conference on World Wide Web (Chiba, Japan, May 10 - 14, 2005). WWW '05. ACM Press, New York, NY, 442-452. DOI= http://doi.acm.org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.1145/1060745.1060811

Eastman, C. M. and Jansen, B. J. 2003. Coverage, relevance, and ranking: The impact of query operators on Web search engine results. ACM Trans. Inf. Syst. 21, 4 (Oct. 2003), 383-411. DOI= http://doi.acm.org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.1145/944012.944015

Fagni, T., Perego, R., Silvestri, F., and Orlando, S. 2006. Boosting the performance of Web search engines: Caching and prefetching query results by exploiting historical usage data. ACM Trans. Inf. Syst. 24, 1 (Jan. 2006), 51-78. DOI= http://doi.acm.org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.1145/1125857.1125859

Friedman, Thomas L. “The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century” Updated and Expanded 2005-2006 New York, NY. Farrar Straus and Giroux.

Jansen, B. J., Mullen, T., Spink, A., and Pedersen, J. 2006. Automated gathering of Web information: An in-depth examination of agents interacting with search engines. ACM Trans. Inter. Tech. 6, 4 (Nov. 2006), 442-464. DOI= http://doi.acm.org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.1145/1183463.1183468

Mandl, T. 2006. Implementation and evaluation of a quality-based search engine. In Proceedings of the Seventeenth Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia (Odense, Denmark, August 22 - 25, 2006). HYPERTEXT '06. ACM Press, New York, NY, 73-84. DOI= http://doi.acm.org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.1145/1149941.1149957

Min, P., Halderman, J. A., Kazhdan, M., and Funkhouser, T. A. 2003. Early experiences with a 3D model search engine. In Proceeding of the Eighth international Conference on 3D Web Technology (Saint Malo, France, March 09 - 12, 2003). Web3D '03. ACM Press, New York, NY, 7-ff. DOI= http://doi.acm.org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.1145/636593.636595

Muramatsu, J. and Pratt, W. 2001. Transparent Queries: investigation users' mental models of search engines. In Proceedings of the 24th Annual international ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in information Retrieval (New Orleans, Louisiana, United States). SIGIR '01. ACM Press, New York, NY, 217-224. DOI= http://doi.acm.org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.1145/383952.383991

Ntoulas, A., Cho, J., and Olston, C. 2004. What's new on the web?: the evolution of the web from a search engine perspective. In Proceedings of the 13th international Conference on World Wide Web (New York, NY, USA, May 17 - 20, 2004). WWW '04. ACM Press, New York, NY, 1-12. DOI= http://doi.acm.org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.1145/988672.988674

Now note the New Engine Decipho:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=4122

Unfortunately because of Decipho's name I think this launch will ("be a total failure" Edit to: "Not be as successful as it could be" ), but you will never hear me say it was a bad idea, after all It was mine!

In order to have a name that can be competitive in the search market it has to have the same function that google has, that is currently in search people say "Google it" Well you need a name that can compete, My suggestion would be for Yahoo! to grab the domain Kwizz.com from the person who is redirecting it to a video game parking site and Implement my system to get people saying "Kwizz it".

Live push

2006-12-08T16:47:00.000-08:00

Recently more and more things have been pushing me towards what i will refer to as 'Microsoft Live'. I have been getting increasingly depressed with the transition from IE 6 to IE 7. It seems like there has been a drop in usability with that switch over. Because of this and the negative windows vista reviews I have been trying to stay away from New Microsoft computer products. I don't prefer macs but right now it seems as if Microsoft is trying to drive many users towards them.

Man do I love the 360 though. XBOX 360 so far has been the single most perfect gaming tool somebody could invent. With spectacular graphics I couldn't wait to see what this baby performed like on the Xbox live network. Let me just say that Gears of War + xbox live = No life ever again. I think my grades slipped a whole .5 when I hooked my xbox up(sarcasm).. But because of this success of the Xbox 360 live system I decided to try my hand at Windows Live search and Windows live mail. I had to create a 'windows live ID' anyways for Xbox and decided at this point it would be less harmless to do so online. I was mostly right.

I already had a hotmail account and I liked the way it functioned. On hotmail I felt much like i could organize folders on a computer and direct files(emails) to save in certain spaces like on my actual computer. but due to my enjoyment of hotmail and xbox 360 i decided, with the guarantee that I could switch abck at any time during the beta, to try windows live out.

I like it. You can organize your email with the same functionality as before, the difference is now it appears more like a 'feed reader' than an email in box. there are many options and many looks. if you compare the difference between feed demon and windows live mail they may wind up seeming very similar. This push from microsoft i believe is simply how they frequently operate. sometimes it can be disappointing sometimes it can be something I truly appreciate, it's hit and miss. I'm glad i figured out however, that i would enjoy the new system before i was forced to use the new system I moved during the gentle nudge instead of being dumped in with the "push". another big incentive of this was the ability to have more email storage. hotmail voluntarily upgraded to 1 GB windows live offered 2 GB of free storage. I kind of felt like MSN was being so nice, I could at least return the favor a little bit and help them try their new product.

At this point I am not sure which I like more, windows live or hotmail. they are both very functional, but I have a feeling that I will wind up appreciating windows live more due to the availability of many extra features such as formatting that is in microsoft word and even emoticons.

Windows Live search on the other hand is a giant mess of gradients and does not perform the one thing that allowed google to succeed over more relevant search methods. ITS SLOW AND LAGGY. I actually almost hate it.

I seem like a terrible blogger.

2006-12-08T16:15:00.000-08:00

Recently seattle faced a little downtime due to snow and ice. If you live in seattle you understand that a little bit of ice can shut the city down for hours. It's the type of thing that makes you want to curl up by a fire place and watch re-runs of ally mcbeal. Don't ask.

So during this time, I attempted to function normally, I had a lot of things to accomplisha nd i certaintly wasn't going to let a little thing like a blanket of ice an inch thick all over town stop me from doing them.
This snowy situation however happened to one of the most wired towns i can think of. Most people I know in seattle have cable internet at this point and often cable everything else as well. One of the ways I had to use technology because of this heavy snow storm was i was unable to commute to work within reasonable amounts of time so I worked from home. This was the second time I had ever worked from home before but this time there was something fundamentally different.

The first time I was ill, this time i was not. I was trying to be productive as possible on my PC at home. The first thing I found myself doing was organizing the system to give me as little trouble adapting to a network of communication i usually participate on with a mac.

The key difference in the way I used technology during this time is during this time period the IT dept where i work set up an internet based chat group/im web browser application with cammpfire. this allowed our group of co workers who are already spread about the country to function more seamlessly with each other and accomplish emergency goals more quickly. So anyways, because of all this innovation there was no difference in how much I was able to accomplish at home than from what I was able to do at work. Actually I was able to do more because I did not have many hours of commuting and was able to work earlier and stay working later.

I suppose in pre-internet eras I would have played console video games or watched reruns of holiday season television snows to make me feel better about not being able to work, and of course there would have to be a fireplace instead of a campfire.

Gilmore Guy.

2006-12-01T16:42:00.000-08:00

When I read, in chapter 3 of Dan Gilmore's 'We the Media', about RFID chips and how they were being described, I realized that this technology that has been developed could actually be a boon to consumers. Previously I have heard of chips like radio frequency imbedded devices or something similar to that affect (RFID) and I knew that walmart was using them to track the products going in and out of their stores so noone ever had to do any inventory ordering.. I also knew that this could be used to track repeat customers due to the chips never expiring. but what i ahdn't considered is how much of a boon this could actually be to consumers. We are able to utilize the same reading devices much the same as the company that provides the chipped items are. Now imagine if as Gilmore mentioned you could find out information on where your tennis shoes were made, or if there was important allergy information not included ona product. Imagine how useful it would be in identifying E.coli spinach growers if the people who had eaten the spinach had a chip somewhere in the food they had left.. and imagine if this chip had information on exactly where that food came from.

I wonder if it is better to be protected from this type of invasion of privacy or if it is better to exploit it to the consumer advantage?

Flattener 4

2006-12-01T16:14:00.000-08:00

The reading that spoke to me the most was world flattener 4. Community generated content is a powerful tool that we can use for the betterment of society. Sharing information freely is key to the beggining of a better educated public. Groups and websites like wikipedia allow people to moderate discussion on an academic level.. no longer is the privaledge of information restricted to a few people who haave PHD's and can be published in academic journals. Wikipedia provides a forum where content can be group moderated and edited. Community content is a wave that I don't think is going to stop anytime soon, yes it has it's flaws such as annonimity but these can be taken care of, in fact many might not consider these as large a flaw now as they were in previous days as we discussed in class.

Friedman mentions open source development of operating system linux as part of this miraculous development. The more people share the greater the progress a group can make in an area especially on group endeavors on the internet. This is a flattener that i cannot see a downside too. Information for all.

Free rider

2006-11-13T23:31:00.000-08:00

Before I get to agreeing with the author I would like to say exactly how poorly his first point was made. How in what world in order to survive do we need to minimize our work energy output? or even to reach the optimal level of sustainability... That was just stupid... and you know what.. I think that every time I read this.

Anyways...

Yeah...

Uhm...
So...

This tragedy of the commons is also known as the free rider clause in political science. I have been in an environmental ethics course or two.. fun stuff..

So back to the assignment. I don't know how the internet can be a polluted public good. As a matter of fact I see people putting into the internet to improve it and there are no public regulations set on content. At the same time a flourishing porn industry is made all the better because of the internet but is that even like pollution? Who does it hurt? The people who wanted Big @#$@ and White @#%@% for a domain name? What would their intentions be if it wasn't for porn?

I don’t like letterers. I don't like that corporations don't have stricter regulations on them forcing them to take into the account the cost of cleanup of the environment. But then again I hate environmentalists... not in an I hate you people type of way... but for the most part their arguments can be easily deconstructed... I don’t believe in global warming. It isn't that I support this free rider behavior. I don't litter though the cost to me is greater slightly to through it away economically speaking... I myself regardless of whatever anyone else does act on principals that if I did not follow them I would let myself down. If everyone acted as such I do not think this would be such a problem. Politicians do not seem to follow this code. But imagine if they did. How much more responsible do you think they would be?

Lets Live Remediated

2006-11-06T23:36:00.000-08:00

Cyberspace isn't limited by the limitations that are placed on other digital medium like wireless communication or television. With the internet, communication can happen in a mass communication form, both ways, and instantaneously. In cyberspace you can communicate during games while fragging your oponents just as you could talk with team mates in real life on the sidelines of a soccer field. Unlike cell phones communication isn't limited by the amount of minutes you have or the amount of people you can "3-way". This communication is something that allows for great potential as far as groundwork for communities. I am not surprised that people have been capitalizing on the ability to communicate with others freely. So far people have organized riots through the internet (WTO)1, embarrassed other countries for banning gameboys (Greece Olympic Games)2, and killed millions of pixels. the versatility that the internet allows for interaction also allows for a great divergence in types of communities. Already in class we have talked about the knitters circle as Barrie mentions in her post here.

We have touched on topics such as Second Life and this reading covered thouroghly MUD's. MUD's have been around for an extremely long time and are an interactive environment of text. With new developments in pixels and graphical interface however there are many more options than a simple text based environment. Second Life is an environment that emulates MUD's or Real Life or... Well something. Let's just say that second life is an environment that allows you to create something you can be a part of. As far as communities in cyberspace it is one of the biggest yet with about 1.2 million subscribers and 200k on at any given time.3 This new world, Second Life, is a place where you not only code your own environment like a mud but it actually is visable. If you have ever played around in a MUD before what happens is the code knows where you are as an individual explorer and your progress is logged on whatever server it uses. This works because it drops you in a set room and set environment and keeps track of your everymove. While there are no actual steps it is possible in MUD's to move near objects, to different rooms, and even accross virtual neighboorhoods. But because, in a MUD, you are constantly moving yourself relative to positions of other objects or places described to you via generated text: you can never get lost. In Second Life the technology behind many current MMORPG's (massively multiplayer online role playing games) and applies a graphical interface yet still allows you to create your own environment. In order to create your own environment one would have to know a good deal of code. In a MUD one needs to know relatively little code. This graphical interface of Second Life allows you to actually see instead of imagine your environment and you actually move through it instead of positioning yourself relative to other objects.

Second Life as I mentioned before has an incredibly substantial community. Businesses have even moved into second life to advertise and improve internet presence.4 The question is how long will these trends last? Udell draws many parallels between Second Life and snazzy web pages. He claims that Second Life may be a hot idea now but in the future it looks like history may repeat itself and Second Life will become a second hand web page.

What Second Life does is effectively remediate multiple aspects of the world simultaneously. Many would claim that Second Life is simply Remediating the web in 3d. I would argue that what is going on is closer to the name of the environment than the effect. Second Life remediates life. A Medium is that which remediates. Remediation can occur at several stages of the medium. The WWW remediates books, directories, phone books, and information hotlines. It took some time and development, but now the web remediates video as well.

Speaking of remediation, there used to be something called a Map which remediated the world. What the map did was allow a user to position themselves relative to the rest of the objects in the world on paper to see things that were beyond their range of vision. Well now courtesy of Microsoft I bring you the map remediated. I'm not sure whether this is rebringing you the world which the map remediated or if this is really doing something new. It looks like Second Life may have some virtual competition. Thanks TechCrunch for posting that update. Blogs are remediating conversation as Larry Bodine explains, you shouldn't defame people in real life and you certainly put it in an easily quoted web form.

Remediation can occur to any work at any time through any medium. Think about the differences of going to a museum and viewing still life artwork and examine in your mind the differences. Even the theme song is different. We are not always aware of the effects of the remediation, for example you may be cognizant of the music and you understand that the still life pictures move and change, but are you conscious of the differences between how you would perceive these photographs with and without the music/montage? These are not the most peaceful images, but the song's nice.

1 Warnick, Barbra. COM 406 PUB DISCOURSE ON NE Lecture week 5.

2 Lagos, Taso. COM 304 AM PRESS & POLITICS Lecture week 6

3&4 Udell, Jon (2006, October). The Social Metaverse. InfoWorld, 28(42), 48. Retrieved
November 7, 2006, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1152406241).

Predictions of Bush Predictions

2006-10-23T23:41:00.000-07:00

Well First he would predict that Iraq would be a nation state of terrible might and power if we pull out now. Then he would tout about how safe we would be though thanks to our Nuculer(sic) defense system that he implemented back in... Oh Vannevar Bush... My bad... hah.

He seems to have a pretty good grasp of evolution and the future. I can tell you what he would predict by predicting it myself.

Soon there will be instant on computers with hard drives so small and so efficient there will be no moving parts throughout the entire computer. These computers will have the ability to access memory so fast the user will become obsolete. Performing tasks and running processes on crystal core CPU's While accessing information seamlessly on disks that are formatted to accept billions and trillions of binary codes on tiny strands that cover the disc that respond to electrical current and nothing else will enhance computing to a level where desktops and minds meld. using projected light from high definition hovering displays with laser sensors to sense where your hand and fingers move through the light and interact with the display in ways that make the trivial 2 dimensional screen in minority report unsophisticated. All this in ten years. Imagine 40 years from now, walking into a room and sitting in a hammock, the room then comes alive as you are connected to a virtual 3d hookup reading your every facial expression and motion via laser. Video displays virtual conferences and interactive games not only feel life like but signals are transmitted in patterns that make you smell and feel like you are there. Games of course do not kill you when you are killed but transmit a feeling of loss and sorrow via the rooms lighting because 40 years from now, it's not just you hooked into your computer but the home you live in. A network is no longer necessary because you lease the usage of the computer through Microsoft who regularly updates the hardware and software to keep you jacked into the system. Work no longer requires commutes for the 30% of Americans who represent the elite lucky enough to have this system.

So I'm a little unclear on these deadlines.

2006-10-16T22:56:00.000-07:00

So I am just going to post my HW in reverse order.

This supervening necessity thing is just another way of saying forced creation.. Ha talk about Neil Postman and academic gibberish... The secret code in the other reading... nm.

Anyway. This forced creation is like the automobile and the seatbelt. It just makes sense. While these two things are fundamentally separate in this instance I still see relevance to something like the buckle and the car. Buckles are used for hundreds of other strap-like things not just seatbelts but originally probably intended... With absolutely no research to back this up mind you, for cars.

Speaking of cars they are a perfect example of how unintended consequences such as pedestrian death due to drunk or just plain shabby driving can be unintended... Cars are a mode of transport not high powered killing devices, unless they are in the right hands.

This U&G paradigm is yet another fantastical way to say something very simple. What are people using the internet for? Like what are people using the telegraph for? It changes the function and the main reason for a technology to exist. My project this quarter is very tied up with this idea because my inquiry is essentially what are people using search for and how do I optimize it? How did they find the same information in the past?

Discussion:
People usually adapt new technologies for something other than what they were intentionally created to do. What do you think?

2006-10-06T23:49:00.000-07:00

While the disruptive technologies is a good term to remember is it really that important that skype exists? I seem to have trouble grasping the idea of a voip network being more useful than a mobile phone... And contrary to the belief of the article... Any wireless user who uses skype on their phone will have to pay for airtime anyway but just be connected to the net instead of using the phone function... I mean it's amazing for long distance international calls.

A definite Ah ha moment with the theory of critical mass. It makes complete sense.. I wonder if apple/Mac will ever reach critical mass? Google was kind of a random player in the game up until very recently... They are making moves which shortly may have them achieving critical mass no problem... I don't know if they are quite there yet. I still use yahoo.

I don't know if there were really any others I usually don't get those from readings until i have a chance to discuss them in class with others.

This is primative.

2006-10-03T21:12:00.000-07:00

But it works. This Blog is for a UW class. I am Magnus.