Revision history for ReadingDiagrammaticWritingBJR
Additions:
- I was thinking again about how Drucker inserts herself and draws attention to her authorial presence in this piece by writing small asides to the reader. This as a convention brings the reader in closer relationship with the writer. Krug points out how one objective of web content and web design should be to establish a relationship with the user from the get-go. Drucker does this right away with the copyright comment.
- I started to think about ways that text is converted or redesigned to fit different purposes. Print to digital or HTML to PDF. (*Side note: I wonder what it would be like to assign a text in HTML to half a class and the same text in the PDF version. How would their experiences differ and would they arrive at the same endpoint?) Or when a book is published one way and then undergoes a redesign for a new release, sometimes including illustrations or something else that will re-structure the original design.
- I was thinking again about how Drucker inserts herself and draws attention to her authorial presence in this piece by writing small asides to the reader. This as a convention brings the reader in closer relationship with the writer. Krug points out how one objective of web content and web design should be to establish a relationship with the user from the get-go. Drucker does this right away with the copyright comment.
- I started to think about ways that text is converted or redesigned to fit different purposes. Print to digital or HTML to PDF. (*Side note: I wonder what it would be like to assign a text in HTML to half a class and the same text in the PDF version. How would their experiences differ and would they arrive at the same endpoint?) Or when a book is published one way and then undergoes a redesign for a new release, sometimes including illustrations or something else that will re-structure the original design.
- I was thinking again about how Drucker inserts herself and draws attention to her authorial presence in this piece by writing small asides to the reader. This as a convention brings the reader in closer relationship with the writer. Krug points out how one objective of web content and web design should be to establish a relationship with the user from the get-go. Drucker does this right away with the copyright comment.
Deletions:
Additions:
I started to think about ways that text is converted or redesigned to fit different purposes. Print to digital or HTML to PDF. (*Side note: I wonder what it would be like to assign a text in HTML to half a class and the same text in the PDF version. How would their experiences differ and would they arrive at the same endpoint?) Or when a book is published one way and then undergoes a redesign for a new release, sometimes including illustrations or something else that will re-structure the original design.
Deletions:
Additions:
- The subscript to the copyright/licensing information right away lets the reader know the content of this book is going to be different. The author is up to something by commenting on the actual text, placement, appearance of the simple copyright info.
- The following page is another example of the text representing the content in a way. The two sentences are about the mutual relationship, and these statements are placed side-by-side, in solidarity against the white blizzard of nothingness surrounding them.
- Lost again in white. When she begins again, she deconstructs the structure of the very text she's putting on the page. She writes about how we respond to certain stylings - but also how much of this is culturally programmed into the reader. Readers come with certain expectations. Readers from a western culture also feel differently than Eastern readers about things like symmetry and when/how to enter a reading space.
- It's interesting how she forces us to remember the text, because of the expectation that it will pick up and continue later on...
- The "less important" text she displays in small print on pages 8 and 9 is an interesting arrangement because even though it's not given a place of prominence on the page, the reader still wants to finish the text that was started on page 8 before reading the more prominent paragraph on page 9. I was willing to postpone reading the isolated paragraph on 9 to finish reading the fine print at the bottom.
- The aside on page 10 describes exactly what I was feeling ReadingTheWhiteSpace of Islands. A bit of anxiety is induced by blank pages. However, when the reading is an assignment, and the reader has a lot of reading/work to do, the white also comes as a relief because it's one less page of work. So context matters.
- Page 11 made me laugh because while we know, as writers, that the page is finite (except in Wikis!!!), we try to do all we can to manipulate the text we want to fill the page. When the writer has much to say, he/she will play around with smaller font sizes to get more content in. When a writer is struggling to meet that page requirement, the fonts will be manipulated another way to fill the space.
- Hierarchy is again addressed on page 12. - She points out that visual hierarchy does not always translate to value. As she says, a snark footnote can undercut the argument of a long, sustained text block.
- Not sure what's happening on 13. The juxtaposition here is confusing. The visual and textual hierarchies comment on each other. Does she need the footnote at the bottom? What's the purpose of this? I find this strange.. Actually, the aside on page 10 was strange too. I feel like she's telling us what we already know, so is that on purpose? Is this that affirmation Krug says we need when reading? Are we supposed to read her notes and say, "Oh, good. I got that. I'm reading this the "right" way?"
- The discussion on page 15 about the function of frames in a textual space - or embedding text is interesting. **Krug** talked some about whether or not to embed a video or something into a website and the difference between embedding and linking. Drucker's take on embedding is interesting. The frame as protector or captor. Her argument that the size of the font also determines the strength or authority of the text being framed is interesting. **Krug** discusses the volume of the web page, and I think page 15 kind of speaks to that. Is the framing necessary or is it adding clutter that is distracting and just adding noise.
- page 16's discussion of hierarchy and the unfolding of arguments reminds me of **Krug's** discussion of hierarchies in the early chapter of his book...each level of heading showed a different level of authority, bullets demonstrated supporting details, smaller font size showed further details and it continues to descend until you begin a new topic of importance.
- Entanglement... is this like hyperlinking? Is this like tag lines? On the web?
- Page 19 also made me laugh because I've seen articles before where a portion of text was made much larger and asserts that portrayal of being very important, but the text that was chosen for this prominent visibility lacked any real substance or any real connection to the article at all. It left me feeling really confused and distracted. I think this ties to **Krug** because sometimes what the designer wants to emphasize might not make sense to the user. We saw this in class when we looked at specific websites. Many companies over-emphasized one aspect of the website that we thought missed the mark. (i.e. the ski resort spent too much time on promotions and sales rather than promoting the experience they offer, RCTC spent a lot of effort trying to reach too broad of an audience without addressing the critical tasks of their most frequent user. Devoting one whole slide of the slideshow on the mainpage to advertising the open call for applicants for the position of college president was an important process for the college, but this slide only applied to a tiny fraction of visitors to the site. How many visitors paid attention to that slide, thinking it must be important if it's one of the main five slides, only to find out it totally did not apply to them in any way?)
- If we're not paying attention, we will fall into the trap of using the conventions to do the work for us rather than actively reading the text for ourselves.
- Page 21 demonstrates that as a reader, we are more easily able to adapt and adjust to some changes in conventions more than others. What she does early on the page is unsettling and a little frustrating because it's hard to read linearly. The bottom half of the page is easier to figure out. As a reader, I like using conventions. Anything else is distracting... except when the distraction or the change in convention is really meant to further push the content as in "And by Islands, I mean Paragraphs."
- **Krug** wrote chapter three using visual hierarchy to show what he was writing about. Drucker flips this to show how conventions can be manipulated and/or misused... I'm not sure if this is how I want to say this.
- I notice a change in my own reading by 23. When the text is going all the way to the edge (into the "gutters" as she says), I am concerned that I might be missing something. If the text has bled out this far, how do I know some words are not floating out in space someplace?
- *Is the footnote on page 23 her main argument? Placed in a tiny footnote at the bottom of a page, hidden, buried in the middle of this lengthy article? I mean, I know the argument is supported and unfolding through the spatial and semantic relationships she constructed, but this little footnote seems very telling.
- I liked her argument on page 24, although, I hated reading it. But the concept that as a writer (or a designer... or whatever word we're using), you can support your text or be hostile to it- knowingly or most often, probably, unknowingly. It's an interesting idea.
- Her final pages bring up the idea of texts being in dialogue and the myth of having an ending... the most distracting thing about reading this article was I couldn't stop wondering HOW she was able to get the text to break all the rules! What type of programming genius helped with this, or how many excruciating hours did it take her to achieve this layout?
- The following page is another example of the text representing the content in a way. The two sentences are about the mutual relationship, and these statements are placed side-by-side, in solidarity against the white blizzard of nothingness surrounding them.
- Lost again in white. When she begins again, she deconstructs the structure of the very text she's putting on the page. She writes about how we respond to certain stylings - but also how much of this is culturally programmed into the reader. Readers come with certain expectations. Readers from a western culture also feel differently than Eastern readers about things like symmetry and when/how to enter a reading space.
- It's interesting how she forces us to remember the text, because of the expectation that it will pick up and continue later on...
- The "less important" text she displays in small print on pages 8 and 9 is an interesting arrangement because even though it's not given a place of prominence on the page, the reader still wants to finish the text that was started on page 8 before reading the more prominent paragraph on page 9. I was willing to postpone reading the isolated paragraph on 9 to finish reading the fine print at the bottom.
- The aside on page 10 describes exactly what I was feeling ReadingTheWhiteSpace of Islands. A bit of anxiety is induced by blank pages. However, when the reading is an assignment, and the reader has a lot of reading/work to do, the white also comes as a relief because it's one less page of work. So context matters.
- Page 11 made me laugh because while we know, as writers, that the page is finite (except in Wikis!!!), we try to do all we can to manipulate the text we want to fill the page. When the writer has much to say, he/she will play around with smaller font sizes to get more content in. When a writer is struggling to meet that page requirement, the fonts will be manipulated another way to fill the space.
- Hierarchy is again addressed on page 12. - She points out that visual hierarchy does not always translate to value. As she says, a snark footnote can undercut the argument of a long, sustained text block.
- Not sure what's happening on 13. The juxtaposition here is confusing. The visual and textual hierarchies comment on each other. Does she need the footnote at the bottom? What's the purpose of this? I find this strange.. Actually, the aside on page 10 was strange too. I feel like she's telling us what we already know, so is that on purpose? Is this that affirmation Krug says we need when reading? Are we supposed to read her notes and say, "Oh, good. I got that. I'm reading this the "right" way?"
- The discussion on page 15 about the function of frames in a textual space - or embedding text is interesting. **Krug** talked some about whether or not to embed a video or something into a website and the difference between embedding and linking. Drucker's take on embedding is interesting. The frame as protector or captor. Her argument that the size of the font also determines the strength or authority of the text being framed is interesting. **Krug** discusses the volume of the web page, and I think page 15 kind of speaks to that. Is the framing necessary or is it adding clutter that is distracting and just adding noise.
- page 16's discussion of hierarchy and the unfolding of arguments reminds me of **Krug's** discussion of hierarchies in the early chapter of his book...each level of heading showed a different level of authority, bullets demonstrated supporting details, smaller font size showed further details and it continues to descend until you begin a new topic of importance.
- Entanglement... is this like hyperlinking? Is this like tag lines? On the web?
- Page 19 also made me laugh because I've seen articles before where a portion of text was made much larger and asserts that portrayal of being very important, but the text that was chosen for this prominent visibility lacked any real substance or any real connection to the article at all. It left me feeling really confused and distracted. I think this ties to **Krug** because sometimes what the designer wants to emphasize might not make sense to the user. We saw this in class when we looked at specific websites. Many companies over-emphasized one aspect of the website that we thought missed the mark. (i.e. the ski resort spent too much time on promotions and sales rather than promoting the experience they offer, RCTC spent a lot of effort trying to reach too broad of an audience without addressing the critical tasks of their most frequent user. Devoting one whole slide of the slideshow on the mainpage to advertising the open call for applicants for the position of college president was an important process for the college, but this slide only applied to a tiny fraction of visitors to the site. How many visitors paid attention to that slide, thinking it must be important if it's one of the main five slides, only to find out it totally did not apply to them in any way?)
- If we're not paying attention, we will fall into the trap of using the conventions to do the work for us rather than actively reading the text for ourselves.
- Page 21 demonstrates that as a reader, we are more easily able to adapt and adjust to some changes in conventions more than others. What she does early on the page is unsettling and a little frustrating because it's hard to read linearly. The bottom half of the page is easier to figure out. As a reader, I like using conventions. Anything else is distracting... except when the distraction or the change in convention is really meant to further push the content as in "And by Islands, I mean Paragraphs."
- **Krug** wrote chapter three using visual hierarchy to show what he was writing about. Drucker flips this to show how conventions can be manipulated and/or misused... I'm not sure if this is how I want to say this.
- I notice a change in my own reading by 23. When the text is going all the way to the edge (into the "gutters" as she says), I am concerned that I might be missing something. If the text has bled out this far, how do I know some words are not floating out in space someplace?
- *Is the footnote on page 23 her main argument? Placed in a tiny footnote at the bottom of a page, hidden, buried in the middle of this lengthy article? I mean, I know the argument is supported and unfolding through the spatial and semantic relationships she constructed, but this little footnote seems very telling.
- I liked her argument on page 24, although, I hated reading it. But the concept that as a writer (or a designer... or whatever word we're using), you can support your text or be hostile to it- knowingly or most often, probably, unknowingly. It's an interesting idea.
- Her final pages bring up the idea of texts being in dialogue and the myth of having an ending... the most distracting thing about reading this article was I couldn't stop wondering HOW she was able to get the text to break all the rules! What type of programming genius helped with this, or how many excruciating hours did it take her to achieve this layout?
Deletions:
The following page is another example of the text representing the content in a way. The two sentences are about the mutual relationship, and these statements are placed side-by-side, in solidarity against the white blizzard of nothingness surrounding them.
Lost again in white. When she begins again, she deconstructs the structure of the very text she's putting on the page. She writes about how we respond to certain stylings - but also how much of this is culturally programmed into the reader. Readers come with certain expectations. Readers from a western culture also feel differently than Eastern readers about things like symmetry and when/how to enter a reading space.
It's interesting how she forces us to remember the text, because of the expectation that it will pick up and continue later on...
The "less important" text she displays in small print on pages 8 and 9 is an interesting arrangement because even though it's not given a place of prominence on the page, the reader still wants to finish the text that was started on page 8 before reading the more prominent paragraph on page 9. I was willing to postpone reading the isolated paragraph on 9 to finish reading the fine print at the bottom.
The aside on page 10 describes exactly what I was feeling ReadingTheWhiteSpace of Islands. A bit of anxiety is induced by blank pages. However, when the reading is an assignment, and the reader has a lot of reading/work to do, the white also comes as a relief because it's one less page of work. So context matters.
Page 11 made me laugh because while we know, as writers, that the page is finite (except in Wikis!!!), we try to do all we can to manipulate the text we want to fill the page. When the writer has much to say, he/she will play around with smaller font sizes to get more content in. When a writer is struggling to meet that page requirement, the fonts will be manipulated another way to fill the space.
Hierarchy is again addressed on page 12. - She points out that visual hierarchy does not always translate to value. As she says, a snark footnote can undercut the argument of a long, sustained text block.
Not sure what's happening on 13. The juxtaposition here is confusing. The visual and textual hierarchies comment on each other. Does she need the footnote at the bottom? What's the purpose of this? I find this strange.. Actually, the aside on page 10 was strange too. I feel like she's telling us what we already know, so is that on purpose? Is this that affirmation Krug says we need when reading? Are we supposed to read her notes and say, "Oh, good. I got that. I'm reading this the "right" way?"
The discussion on page 15 about the function of frames in a textual space - or embedding text is interesting. **Krug** talked some about whether or not to embed a video or something into a website and the difference between embedding and linking. Drucker's take on embedding is interesting. The frame as protector or captor. Her argument that the size of the font also determines the strength or authority of the text being framed is interesting. **Krug** discusses the volume of the web page, and I think page 15 kind of speaks to that. Is the framing necessary or is it adding clutter that is distracting and just adding noise.
page 16's discussion of hierarchy and the unfolding of arguments reminds me of **Krug's** discussion of hierarchies in the early chapter of his book...each level of heading showed a different level of authority, bullets demonstrated supporting details, smaller font size showed further details and it continues to descend until you begin a new topic of importance.
Entanglement... is this like hyperlinking? Is this like tag lines? On the web?
Page 19 also made me laugh because I've seen articles before where a portion of text was made much larger and asserts that portrayal of being very important, but the text that was chosen for this prominent visibility lacked any real substance or any real connection to the article at all. It left me feeling really confused and distracted. I think this ties to **Krug** because sometimes what the designer wants to emphasize might not make sense to the user. We saw this in class when we looked at specific websites. Many companies over-emphasized one aspect of the website that we thought missed the mark. (i.e. the ski resort spent too much time on promotions and sales rather than promoting the experience they offer, RCTC spent a lot of effort trying to reach too broad of an audience without addressing the critical tasks of their most frequent user. Devoting one whole slide of the slideshow on the mainpage to advertising the open call for applicants for the position of college president was an important process for the college, but this slide only applied to a tiny fraction of visitors to the site. How many visitors paid attention to that slide, thinking it must be important if it's one of the main five slides, only to find out it totally did not apply to them in any way?)
If we're not paying attention, we will fall into the trap of using the conventions to do the work for us rather than actively reading the text for ourselves.
Page 21 demonstrates that as a reader, we are more easily able to adapt and adjust to some changes in conventions more than others. What she does early on the page is unsettling and a little frustrating because it's hard to read linearly. The bottom half of the page is easier to figure out. As a reader, I like using conventions. Anything else is distracting... except when the distraction or the change in convention is really meant to further push the content as in "And by Islands, I mean Paragraphs."
**Krug** wrote chapter three using visual hierarchy to show what he was writing about. Drucker flips this to show how conventions can be manipulated and/or misused... I'm not sure if this is how I want to say this.
I notice a change in my own reading by 23. When the text is going all the way to the edge (into the "gutters" as she says), I am concerned that I might be missing something. If the text has bled out this far, how do I know some words are not floating out in space someplace?
*Is the footnote on page 23 her main argument? Placed in a tiny footnote at the bottom of a page, hidden, buried in the middle of this lengthy article? I mean, I know the argument is supported and unfolding through the spatial and semantic relationships she constructed, but this little footnote seems very telling.
I liked her argument on page 24, although, I hated reading it. But the concept that as a writer (or a designer... or whatever word we're using), you can support your text or be hostile to it- knowingly or most often, probably, unknowingly. It's an interesting idea.
Her final pages bring up the idea of texts being in dialogue and the myth of having an ending... the most distracting thing about reading this article was I couldn't stop wondering HOW she was able to get the text to break all the rules! What type of programming genius helped with this, or how many excruciating hours did it take her to achieve this layout?
Additions:
==Further Reflection about how layout matters==
I started to think about ways that text is converted or redesigned to fit different purposes. Print to digital or HTML to PDF. Or when a book is published one way and then undergoes a redesign for a new release, sometimes including illustrations or something else that will re-structure the original design.
THEN, I thought about the books to movie scene. It seems lately Hollywood has been focusing on turning classic children or YA literature into movies. This of course, has always been done, but it just seems like more lately. Many Roald Dahl books are now movies, Ferdinand just came out this winter, last month, Peter Rabbit and A Wrinkle in Time. I always have mixed emotions when I see that a book I love is hitting the silver screen. I have a rule that we have to read the book first if we know it was a book first. And almost always, we are disappointed with the movie. The more disappointing thing to me is when friends tell me they saw the movie that weekend, I'll ask, "Have you read the book?" and their response is almost always, "No." I'd like to think that by making these books into movies, more people are reading, but I worry they are just settling for the 2 hour Hollywood version.
While there are somethings cinema can do really well, it is a major restructuring of the layout and brings us back to the idea of how the medium impacts the message.
I started to think about ways that text is converted or redesigned to fit different purposes. Print to digital or HTML to PDF. Or when a book is published one way and then undergoes a redesign for a new release, sometimes including illustrations or something else that will re-structure the original design.
THEN, I thought about the books to movie scene. It seems lately Hollywood has been focusing on turning classic children or YA literature into movies. This of course, has always been done, but it just seems like more lately. Many Roald Dahl books are now movies, Ferdinand just came out this winter, last month, Peter Rabbit and A Wrinkle in Time. I always have mixed emotions when I see that a book I love is hitting the silver screen. I have a rule that we have to read the book first if we know it was a book first. And almost always, we are disappointed with the movie. The more disappointing thing to me is when friends tell me they saw the movie that weekend, I'll ask, "Have you read the book?" and their response is almost always, "No." I'd like to think that by making these books into movies, more people are reading, but I worry they are just settling for the 2 hour Hollywood version.
While there are somethings cinema can do really well, it is a major restructuring of the layout and brings us back to the idea of how the medium impacts the message.
Additions:
======Notes on Diagrammatic Writing by Johanna Drucker======
Deletions:
Additions:
I thought that Krug presented his argument to demonstrate how the hierarchy works - to reinforce his "don't make me think" philosophy. But Drucker flips all of these conventions on their heads, making us think even more about both the text and the conventions themselves. Her piece really makes the reader think... it could be read and re-read for deeper thinking and understanding.
Drucker's argument is "entangled" (to use her words) in her material presentation and would be sooooo different without the layout. I think Marshall's argument would have also been very different in a different presentation. I kept wondering while reading it, how it might have been different in a more electronic format (making use of Krug's ideas about hierarchies, navigation and then adding some hyptertext).
In Chapter 3, Krug discusses why it's important to minimize how much users have to think; Drucker, also indicates that the structural layouts and conventions cause the reader to make certain implications or associations with that text (i.e. if it's bold, it's super important).
I think what I am learning from all of the texts we're reading (and applying them to the practice of web content design) is that, in order to engage the reader/user, you might have to take some designing risks. It's important to know the conventions, but if you rely on using them too heavily, you risk having your reader/user mull through your material on autopilot, not really thinking about the content. But you have to be careful about a choice to be too non-traditional too because what you do, should make sense, and it should work to more deeply engage the reader/user, not just be different to be different.
Drucker's argument is "entangled" (to use her words) in her material presentation and would be sooooo different without the layout. I think Marshall's argument would have also been very different in a different presentation. I kept wondering while reading it, how it might have been different in a more electronic format (making use of Krug's ideas about hierarchies, navigation and then adding some hyptertext).
In Chapter 3, Krug discusses why it's important to minimize how much users have to think; Drucker, also indicates that the structural layouts and conventions cause the reader to make certain implications or associations with that text (i.e. if it's bold, it's super important).
I think what I am learning from all of the texts we're reading (and applying them to the practice of web content design) is that, in order to engage the reader/user, you might have to take some designing risks. It's important to know the conventions, but if you rely on using them too heavily, you risk having your reader/user mull through your material on autopilot, not really thinking about the content. But you have to be careful about a choice to be too non-traditional too because what you do, should make sense, and it should work to more deeply engage the reader/user, not just be different to be different.
Deletions:
Additions:
----
=====Post Reflection=====
Your notes might address:
- what the readings complicate about Krug's sense of reading
I thought that Krug presents his argument to demonstrate that h
- the effectiveness of the the argument in each - Drucker's visual argument and Marshall's scholarly argument - to the extent that those arguments can be isolated from their material presentation.
- what the readings complicate about the practice of web content design and presentation.
- what the articles mean in practice. How might what they argue be taken into web content writing and design?
=====Post Reflection=====
Your notes might address:
- what the readings complicate about Krug's sense of reading
I thought that Krug presents his argument to demonstrate that h
- the effectiveness of the the argument in each - Drucker's visual argument and Marshall's scholarly argument - to the extent that those arguments can be isolated from their material presentation.
- what the readings complicate about the practice of web content design and presentation.
- what the articles mean in practice. How might what they argue be taken into web content writing and design?
Additions:
The discussion on page 15 about the function of frames in a textual space - or embedding text is interesting. **Krug** talked some about whether or not to embed a video or something into a website and the difference between embedding and linking. Drucker's take on embedding is interesting. The frame as protector or captor. Her argument that the size of the font also determines the strength or authority of the text being framed is interesting. **Krug** discusses the volume of the web page, and I think page 15 kind of speaks to that. Is the framing necessary or is it adding clutter that is distracting and just adding noise.
page 16's discussion of hierarchy and the unfolding of arguments reminds me of **Krug's** discussion of hierarchies in the early chapter of his book...each level of heading showed a different level of authority, bullets demonstrated supporting details, smaller font size showed further details and it continues to descend until you begin a new topic of importance.
Entanglement... is this like hyperlinking? Is this like tag lines? On the web?
Page 19 also made me laugh because I've seen articles before where a portion of text was made much larger and asserts that portrayal of being very important, but the text that was chosen for this prominent visibility lacked any real substance or any real connection to the article at all. It left me feeling really confused and distracted. I think this ties to **Krug** because sometimes what the designer wants to emphasize might not make sense to the user. We saw this in class when we looked at specific websites. Many companies over-emphasized one aspect of the website that we thought missed the mark. (i.e. the ski resort spent too much time on promotions and sales rather than promoting the experience they offer, RCTC spent a lot of effort trying to reach too broad of an audience without addressing the critical tasks of their most frequent user. Devoting one whole slide of the slideshow on the mainpage to advertising the open call for applicants for the position of college president was an important process for the college, but this slide only applied to a tiny fraction of visitors to the site. How many visitors paid attention to that slide, thinking it must be important if it's one of the main five slides, only to find out it totally did not apply to them in any way?)
If we're not paying attention, we will fall into the trap of using the conventions to do the work for us rather than actively reading the text for ourselves.
Page 21 demonstrates that as a reader, we are more easily able to adapt and adjust to some changes in conventions more than others. What she does early on the page is unsettling and a little frustrating because it's hard to read linearly. The bottom half of the page is easier to figure out. As a reader, I like using conventions. Anything else is distracting... except when the distraction or the change in convention is really meant to further push the content as in "And by Islands, I mean Paragraphs."
**Krug** wrote chapter three using visual hierarchy to show what he was writing about. Drucker flips this to show how conventions can be manipulated and/or misused... I'm not sure if this is how I want to say this.
I notice a change in my own reading by 23. When the text is going all the way to the edge (into the "gutters" as she says), I am concerned that I might be missing something. If the text has bled out this far, how do I know some words are not floating out in space someplace?
*Is the footnote on page 23 her main argument? Placed in a tiny footnote at the bottom of a page, hidden, buried in the middle of this lengthy article? I mean, I know the argument is supported and unfolding through the spatial and semantic relationships she constructed, but this little footnote seems very telling.
I liked her argument on page 24, although, I hated reading it. But the concept that as a writer (or a designer... or whatever word we're using), you can support your text or be hostile to it- knowingly or most often, probably, unknowingly. It's an interesting idea.
Her final pages bring up the idea of texts being in dialogue and the myth of having an ending... the most distracting thing about reading this article was I couldn't stop wondering HOW she was able to get the text to break all the rules! What type of programming genius helped with this, or how many excruciating hours did it take her to achieve this layout?
page 16's discussion of hierarchy and the unfolding of arguments reminds me of **Krug's** discussion of hierarchies in the early chapter of his book...each level of heading showed a different level of authority, bullets demonstrated supporting details, smaller font size showed further details and it continues to descend until you begin a new topic of importance.
Entanglement... is this like hyperlinking? Is this like tag lines? On the web?
Page 19 also made me laugh because I've seen articles before where a portion of text was made much larger and asserts that portrayal of being very important, but the text that was chosen for this prominent visibility lacked any real substance or any real connection to the article at all. It left me feeling really confused and distracted. I think this ties to **Krug** because sometimes what the designer wants to emphasize might not make sense to the user. We saw this in class when we looked at specific websites. Many companies over-emphasized one aspect of the website that we thought missed the mark. (i.e. the ski resort spent too much time on promotions and sales rather than promoting the experience they offer, RCTC spent a lot of effort trying to reach too broad of an audience without addressing the critical tasks of their most frequent user. Devoting one whole slide of the slideshow on the mainpage to advertising the open call for applicants for the position of college president was an important process for the college, but this slide only applied to a tiny fraction of visitors to the site. How many visitors paid attention to that slide, thinking it must be important if it's one of the main five slides, only to find out it totally did not apply to them in any way?)
If we're not paying attention, we will fall into the trap of using the conventions to do the work for us rather than actively reading the text for ourselves.
Page 21 demonstrates that as a reader, we are more easily able to adapt and adjust to some changes in conventions more than others. What she does early on the page is unsettling and a little frustrating because it's hard to read linearly. The bottom half of the page is easier to figure out. As a reader, I like using conventions. Anything else is distracting... except when the distraction or the change in convention is really meant to further push the content as in "And by Islands, I mean Paragraphs."
**Krug** wrote chapter three using visual hierarchy to show what he was writing about. Drucker flips this to show how conventions can be manipulated and/or misused... I'm not sure if this is how I want to say this.
I notice a change in my own reading by 23. When the text is going all the way to the edge (into the "gutters" as she says), I am concerned that I might be missing something. If the text has bled out this far, how do I know some words are not floating out in space someplace?
*Is the footnote on page 23 her main argument? Placed in a tiny footnote at the bottom of a page, hidden, buried in the middle of this lengthy article? I mean, I know the argument is supported and unfolding through the spatial and semantic relationships she constructed, but this little footnote seems very telling.
I liked her argument on page 24, although, I hated reading it. But the concept that as a writer (or a designer... or whatever word we're using), you can support your text or be hostile to it- knowingly or most often, probably, unknowingly. It's an interesting idea.
Her final pages bring up the idea of texts being in dialogue and the myth of having an ending... the most distracting thing about reading this article was I couldn't stop wondering HOW she was able to get the text to break all the rules! What type of programming genius helped with this, or how many excruciating hours did it take her to achieve this layout?
