Hayley's Blog

Week 13 – Activity One

Hayley Mincham — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:05:49 +0000

EARNED

Make a wish website

The make-a-wish website is an example of an EARNED website as it is well known and has been for many years.

SURFACE

rovedaily website

An example of a SURFACE website, looks professionally designed.

REPUTED

ninemsn homepage

An example of a REPUTED website.

Week 13 – Q3

Hayley Mincham — Sun, 31 May 2009 10:52:59 +0000

List anticipated issues that may affect the users’ perceived Web credibility in future:

Blogs are usually seen as some body’s own personal view on an issue, however companies can and are beginning to set up blogs to promote their products. This could lead to readers of blogs becoming more sceptic about reliability.
Whether Wikipedia will be seen as a reliable source?
poorly designed
bad spelling/grammar
pop-up adds

Week 13 – Q2

Hayley Mincham — Sun, 31 May 2009 10:40:38 +0000

Wikipedia is a site on which anyone can post anything about anything. Anyone can create a page for any topic, and really write whatever they want on there. It is an online encyclopedia in which internet users are able to add, edit or create entries with information on a wealth of topics. As well as this people can also edit other peoples articles, hence changing what may have once been credible information. I’m not saying that every article on wikipedia is unreliable, it is just hard to tell as it can easily be vandalised with misinformation. The difficult part is determining what information is correct and what information is false.

Personally I don not so much as look at wikipedia when completing assignments, I don’t want to risk it. After all, how accurate is a site that allows anyone to add any type of information? Not very.

Week 13 – Q1

Hayley Mincham — Sun, 31 May 2009 10:23:28 +0000

This weeks article discusses credibility as a key attribute to evaluate online resources. By evaluating the credibility of websites, you are then giving your own research more credibility. Anyone in theory can, publish on the internet; therefore it is imperative for user to develop a critical eye to evaluate the credibility of websites and their information. The web can be both highly credible but also least credible in some cases. (Fogg, 2003)

As a student it is important that when researching for an assignment that my sites used are credible. However it is harder for me to tell as I am new to the information as well. I am more likely to presume things are credible based on general assumptions. It is important to evaluate the credibility of websites in order to filter out the obvious less credible sites, so that attention can be focused on the more credible sites. It is also important that when researching, compare your findings with a range of sites, that way the answers/theories that come up more often is more likely to be credible information. Fogg also suggests that, “If you spend a reasonable amount of time surfing the web, you’ll get a sense of the broad range of credibility online” (2003, pg. 149).

REFERENCE LIST

Retrieved on 31st May, 2009, from: http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm
Fogg, B. J. (2003). Persuasive technology: using computers to change what we think and do. Amsterdam: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers

Performance Load Examples

Hayley Mincham — Sun, 31 May 2009 09:30:18 +0000

Digital Alarm Clock

The digital alarm clock is one example of a product that satisfies the Performance load design principle. The simple LED lights give you time at a simple glance. Easy to read and find in the dark, there is little cognitive or kinematic load required in accomplishing this task.

Calculator

A calculator is my second example. Before calculators, the congnitive load of doing equations was larger. The calculator drastically minimises the congnitive load with its ability to calculate a sum at the push of a few buttons.

Remote Control

My final example is the remote control. There is no kinematic load associated with this product as no strenuous movement is needed to change the channel. There is also very little cognitive load as it just a matter of pressing right button.

Psychology in Design

Hayley Mincham — Sun, 31 May 2009 08:10:28 +0000

I believe that a study of psychology is necessary for design as you are presenting your designs to an audience, to people. People that can be influenced by things such as colour, text and images. By knowing how the brain works, and how people can be influenced by certain things, is a way to work towards creating the best possible designs.

A good example is colour psychology. There are ‘warm’ and ‘cool’ colours, colours that match and those that don’t. If used in the right way they can have a positive influence on the audience, however if used with no real thought behind the choices, they can create confusion and dislike towards the design. You can relate colours to themes, such as green for an environmental design. Green is also a relaxing colour, hence it relaxes the audience.

Overall while studying psychology may not be vital to producing good designs, it certainly does give an exta edge and doesn’t hurt if used the right way.

What is “Chunking”? -Q2

Hayley Mincham — Sun, 31 May 2009 07:43:15 +0000

Chunking is a way of minimising the cognitive performance load. It refers to the process of taking individual units of information (chunks) and grouping them into larger units. Hence the information is then presented in small digestible units. Chunking can be very successful when having to memorise and remember large amounts of information. When you separate the individual elements into larger blocks, the information becomes easier to retain and recall. By chunking information it improves the reader’s comprehension and ability to access and retrieve the information.

When presenting information to other people, or designing a presentation, it is important to use the chunking method. For example by having no more than about nine bullet points on a slide, the audience can read them without getting confused or bored with the information being presented. If you have more than nine points to present under a heading, than sub-headings will help with the chunking of the information. This means there is a greater possibility that the audience will come away from the presentation being able to remember more.

Chunking is an important skill in the process of design and visual communication as it can be applied to the creation of maps and models which are used in presentations. It creates the opportunity for the audience to remember more about the topic and the information presented.

REFERENCE LIST

Retrieved on 31st May, 2009, from: http://www.chambers.com.au/glossary/chunk.htm
Retrieved on 31st May, 2009, from: http://www.it-director.com/blogs/Mark_McGregor/2009/4/_chunking_as_a_tool_for_effective__.html
Lidwell, W., Holden, K., & Butler, J. (2003). Universal principles of design. Massachusetts: Rockport

Performance Load – Q1

Hayley Mincham — Sun, 31 May 2009 07:05:45 +0000

“Performance load is the degree of mental and physical activity required to achieve a goal” (Lidwell, Holde, Butler, 2003, p.148).

This weeks article is on performance load. Lidwell et al. explain that overall performance and errors will increase if the performance level is high, but performance and errors will decrease if performance level is low.

There are two types of performance load’s, cognitive and kinematic.

Cognitive load is the amount of mental activity it takes to accomplish a certain goal. Perception, problem solving and memory are all included as elements of the cognitive load. (Lidwell et al. 2003) The cognitive load can have negative implications on the design or overall finished goalif techniques for reducing working memory are not implied. Some general strategies for reducing cognitive load include:

chunking
minimising noise and unnecessary images/media/information
memory aids

Kinematic loadis the physical activity required to complete the goal. If you reduce the amount of time and/or energy required to completethe task than fewer mistakes can be made. Some general strategies for reducing cognitive load include:

reduce unnecessary steps in tasks
reduce overall energy used in completing task
automating repetitive tasks

REFERENCE LIST

Retrieved on 31st May, 2009, from: http://tip.psychology.org/sweller.html
Lidwell, W., Holden., K., & Butler, J. (2003). Universal principles of design. Massachusetts: Rockport.

http://tip.psychology.org/sweller.html

New PowerPoint Presentation Design

Hayley Mincham — Sun, 31 May 2009 06:24:19 +0000

Here is my re-designed PowerPoint. Created by applying my newly acquired knowledge of presentation design.

Slide 1

Slide 2

: Slide 3

Slide 4

Slide 5

Slide 6

Slide 7

I have changed the theme of my power point to display the Western Australian colours, gold and black. I believe that these strong colours accentuate the pictures and text a little more. I believe that my previous presentation already displayed the six aptitudes quite well so I felt i didn’t need to change much. The colour and couple of new pictures just aids in the overall design, hopefully creating a positive and interesting mood for the audience.

Analysis of my PowerPoint Presentation

Hayley Mincham — Sun, 31 May 2009 05:46:00 +0000

First Slide

In my second assignment, the powerpoint presentation, my topic was “Tourism in Western Australia”. I focused mainly on using colour and pictures to empahsise my points as I believe it related to the topic. I kept my first slide minimal and to the point, simply a title and picture, introducing my slideshow.

DESIGN

I believe that the design of my slide was very clean and simple. I tried to limit the amount of text on each slide to avoid bordem, and instead used bigger pictures to capture attention and hold the veiwers intrest. I created unity by making the middle, main slides have the same slide layout, but with different text and pictures. This allowed the presentation to flow on nicely from one slide to another.

Slide 3

Slide 4

Slide 5

Slide 6

STORY

All of the places that were featured in my presentation, I chose because I have been to them all. It believe it allowed me to write about them a little more personally and less like a ‘travel agent’.

SYMPATHY

I think that when creating my slides I was able to cut down the amount of text as I just wrote small points about the places. I allowed the pictures to do the talking and just supported them with a few words to make my point.

EMPATHY

I felt like it was easy to connect to this subject as I personally have lived in WA my whole life and travelled extensivly throughout it. I was able to realte to the places featured and was able to write about them easily.

PLAY

I gave a little life to the presentation by giving some animation to the slides, without going overboard. I think it made a little more interesting, as well as the bright pictures.

MEANING

I believe that my material can be seen as thrustworthy and helpful. I have tried to chare my knowledge on the subject with the audience in the hope that they will feel interested about exploring their own home state.

Final Slide