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- From the beginning, Drucker shows us visually how the relational conventions of text are part of the meaning of any given text. The effect does not dictate the meaning in any way, but only instructs our senses of relation, proportion, and so on.
- This, I believe, is right in line with Krug's notions of meaning in digital media. The subtle relations between visual elements indicate to users where to attend, what to do, how to act etc. Drucker's use of a header to show how text frames or acts as navigation seems directly related to Krug's notions of persistent navigation. Even her drawing attention to where we expected the text to be on page 6 seems relative to Krug's notion of user expectancy when following links.
- In other words, many digital web page conventions follow, are the result of, or are related to these fundamental notions of how text relates visually, and thus orients understanding.
- Interestingly, on page 8, and probably elsewhere, Drucker draws attention to how these conventions shape understanding via perceived relation, but are in no way "rules", as Krug might like to claim. They are only possibility, strong inclination, but not necessarily a given truth. In light of Krug, we might say they are helpful to design according to preconceived user conventions.
- Ironically, perhaps again, like many of these texts we have been looking at, by the very act of creating a piece that draws careful attention to the conventions which it relies on, the conventions become a way by which the audience must have acute awareness, thus contradicting Krug's notions of increased use of convention in order to make all elements usable without a definite awareness of those elements.
- Footnote seven informs us that by drawing attention to these conventions, we gain a perspective of the truth value of said conventions. Again, these conventions are not inherently endowed with meaning, that meaning is constructed. Therefore, there are infinite possibilities of constructing new conventions that are not necessarily worse or better than the old. This may conflict with Krug's simple vision of clear cut web parameters. Drucker seems to be advocating for the education of the user so that convention becomes something of a nonissue, allowing for more exploration of the mode, rather than a slavish adherence to form.
- Drucker's point about Marginal Notes on page twenty reminds me of the ideas expressed in islands, the idea that visually we can represent the notion of rereading, redefining a given text based solely on relation between two separate discourses. However, I'm not entirely sure how this might relate to our notion of web design. It would seem rather counter intuitive to create conflicting discourses in relation to another, or discourses that redefine the other, or call each other into question.
- Perhaps that is our main Krug/Drucker conflict here. Krug suggests everything should be self-evident, Drucker tells us that everything at once is, and cannot be.
- The way the bridge lines intrude between the space of a page turn is quite provocative and disturbing as she points out, for such a simple break in convention. Its a neat/simple trick, but it says a lot about our expectations and attachments to form.
- I'm not sure where it fits into her visual argument, but there are a lot of subtle spelling mistakes throughout the piece. Perhaps its to speak to the porous, flexible nature of visual language structures. That even down to spelling conventions we can question and break apart why these texts mean how they mean.
