Reading the Screen and the Book, Notes
DAKOTA
lots of white spacelarge font size
text appearance synched to music rhythm
adult themes
have to be fast to catch all the words, music helps
sound helps with remembering text, could also be distracting
variety of transitions between text
- speed
- flashes
- changing letters to make different words
- one word at a time, multiple words, or sometimes just ellipses
impressions
- hard to catch all the info due to speed, catching fragments
- music can help but also distract
- catching new things with each subsequent viewing
- two points of attention = the beat and the words
- forced to pay attention due to speed, bring about intense feelings, adrenaline, lack of control
- there's a lot going on, frustrating, anxiety
- unique format that denies you the whole story due to speed, hard to keep up
- pace adds to the story, cannot be done in plain unmoving text, no frenzy then
- no time to think, just read, lack of focus and sense
Krug's "don't make me think" message
role as viewer
- user, reader, spectator?
- I think we're more of a spectator and reader, not really using it
- designer is in complete control
- rhythm creates a voice, puts us in the role of a listener almost, like a performance
- countdown at start lets you know something is going to happen, intense explosion, prepares you, like a shuttle takeoff
- requires more focus, longer attention span, high retention, different format from reading a book
- no stopping and reflecting, pausing vid isn't the same, cannot go back
- attention being split between drumming and words, speed shifts attention
mindset, value, interest
- intense, anxiety, lots of adrenaline
- puts you in a frenzy, trying to grab all the info to understand what's happening
- don't want to miss anything, attention and anxiety, no time to stop and think
- hard to understand or comprehend, maybe not the point?
- this format was chosen for a reason, one continuous piece of art, telling you how to read it
- go with it, don't try to figure it out, reshaping how to comprehend it
- supposed to miss things, mysterious even if you can crack the code
originally released in Flash format, could not stop it
rereleased in another format due to memory-hog issues
content
- content seems a bit different
- text not written out online anywhere obvious, grad student did write it out once
- font is big, bold, and black
- the "o" actually resembles a "0", slash through it, could be a "not" symbol too, eye-catching
- words are larger on screen if alone than if multiple words are present
- 60s-70s jazz drumming, drummer is referenced
- poetic references, writing references, Richard Elman bibliographic reference
- shifts between who is speaking to who, Ellie and Elvis
source is Canto 1 and 2 from Ezra Pound
- rhythm matches
- poetic illusion
- Cantos = about Oddyseus and his men when they visit Hell, they see the dead, see mom
- Dakota = seeing their moms, Elvis, road trip home, eating ramen with unknown substance
- you're consuming the content by the end, you don't know what it is but you're doing it
- Ezra's critic was Richard Elman, circle
- cannot stop this, no thinking
Elman = close reading = take things apart line by line
- cannot do that with Dakota
- in order to study, you must know what it all says
- confounds reading, cannot be read the way you want to read it, must read it its way
- rereading, reviewing, takes multiple times to catch what you miss
and by islands, I mean paragraphs
lots of white space hereeach island changes on its own
easy to get frustrated
no comprehension really
clicking will keep the text the same until you click again
inconsistency, toggling change on and off
almost no instructions, must discover, only instruction is for zooming in or out
impressions
- wanted a full world view
- enjoyable to get lost, simulating sea travel
- less anxiety compared to Dakota
- easy to get lost
- no inherently valuable info, all equally good, no rush to grab it all because you can't grab what's already gone
- not as much of a loss when it changes passages
- no linearity, not a story, nothing solid
- some have specific genre or info contained in the passages, such as population or items
sources
- excerpts from sea voyage texts
- contrast between real features of a map and made-up portions, fact versus fantasy
- some islands are real, England and Ireland
- some island are made up, most of the smaller ones
- almost entirely recombined sources, Carpenter wrote nothing for this
reader role
- requires discipline
- curiosity and survival need, refreshing the page took away desperation
- did not need info to survive like a castaway
- no need to put pieces together or do exploration work
- cast as a frustrated explorer, no aim or end
- being thrown facts that constantly change
- not cast as a game but as a map to be explored on your own time, explore at leisure
- stretches brain in a different way
- need to be a responsible reader, not a lot of choices, click and read or leave
Krug's "provide affirmation that user has arrived where they wanted to be" message
outcome, being made to think
- no push for anxiety
- very different from Dakota
- does not do things as Krug outlines, no obvious buttons or hierarchies, no pointers
- infinity, boundlessness, supposed to be lost beyond directions
- no sense of mission
- lots of negative white space, grid pattern, a map of the ocean, functions to create distance, isolation of context
- stamp on it, very little color, lots of numbers for tiny islands
The Function of White Space
Dakota- not just a readability thing
- bigger and bolder = louder
- gives a sense of volume, register
- brought visual relief, pause
Islands
- separating, isolating
- more gridded than negative space
- only see it due to grid, makes the grid necessary
- anxiety-inducing, space thing
Diagrammatic Writing
- interesting read due to changing font size- some pages are text walls, others hold only a sentence
- intentional spelling errors? noticeable in text, missing or added vowels
- lots of visual text usage, use of white space
- use of distraction with errors, look up mistyped words, pulls you away from the reading
- established relationship with user directly on the copyright page, like giving an inside scoop, brings us closer
- continues to establish the relationship by the text's design
- semantics
- most important info appeared in unexpected spots on the page, footers or small text
- headers define the page, unique set of things, pages beside each other relate, back-to-back pages do not
- very eloquent, sophisticated writing that constantly addresses the reader, like a voiceover of the experience
- inverting a lot of conventions, calls them into question
- no use of double-spacing here, type setting, use of inter-linear spacing on page 17
- not supposed to read all the text at once, follow the font size and then go back to read what was missed, must read inter-linearly, shuffle two text together, can be frustrating for linear readers
- Krug versus Drucker over ways of thinking, conventions, visual connection between text, navigation
- text enacts what it asserts
- no way to really summarize or quote this text, define what is important, must show visually, not semantically, page 23
- Drucker slips into teacher mode, page 23 footnote
conventions
- constructions
- not self-evident
- perceived visually
- absence of ellipses, no navigation help, page 17
appendix
- long
- rather funny with definitions, example is overlay
- not dictionary definitions
- appendix could work as a summary, page 29
important
- primary actions are between text elements
- secondary moves are between text and user
index
- significant words
- generated by used software?
- a few typos here, missing commas, added letters to numbers
- messy, sloppy work
Reading and Writing the Electronic Book
- just one chapter from it- scholarly assessment of the issue, analysis of the debate
- pulls apart reading from the physical act, material doesn't change as much as one would think
- use of evidence
- tradeoffs with lighting and reading, need brighter screen in brighter environments, e-ink writing
- legibility issues are being addressed
- waterproof device, books aren't waterproof
- reading is a portable, mobile activity; empirical issue
- reading is a social activity, not a solitary thing, classrooms are all about this, texting and sharing links is social reading
- highlighting, collab reading, can be obnoxious
what we read
- read a book differently than a newspaper
- relaxation, diversion
- different for an assignment
- starts to change things too
things to take away, highlight
- academic piece
- educator perspective = how students SHOULD read versus how they ARE reading
- benefits to teaching certain reading ways, what you're measuring, pendulum
- how to approach for the better of the individual, rethinking
- knowing this can make you reactive, not proactive
- Marshall missed reading across multiple venues, more developed over the last 8 years, hypertext, not much in e-readers back then
