Team Left

Here is the list produced on March 25 by Team Left, which consisted of:

• Lana
• Eduardo
• Jimmy
• Karolina
• Kin
• Oscar
• Kenson

1- URL - what's my url? is it remarkable? is it related to my content? is the URL the same as my Blog title?

2- Blog title - is it appropriate? does it define the blog purpose?

3- Colors scheme: What kind of feelings/impression are you trying to convey?

4- Fonts: is the content the right size? readable?

5- Layout / template: -which template should we pick?

6- background: - Is the background helping to convey the design mood?

7- Labels - Should I use labels? if yes, How should I label them?

8- images: Should I use images? are the appropriate to the content? Should I mention credits?

9- subtitles / headers: should they be different from the body style? Should they be consistent? Should I use the same title of the article?


10 links: Should I add links to the articles? should I mention the entire URL?

11- Banner Choices: Should I keep the same banner? Should I include a banner in my blog?

12- Usability: What do you mean by usability? is user friendly?

14-Interaction: Can people comments?

15- right Context: Is the context related to the theme?

16- right Content: is the information related to the theme?

17- source: Should I give credits to the

18- Define unknown terms

19- target audience

20- mission

21- Personal Information

22- Copy rights

23- Consistency

24- Credits

25- Index

26- Post dates

27- Meta-tag

28- How many post per page

Privacy and Persistence

It seems that the two issues we touched on last week are really alive in the press these days. Consider these three articles:

Should You Worry About Data Rot?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/technology/personaltech/26pogue-email.html

Storage: The bytes build up – but where can we put them?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b8d64e78-0d0d-11de-a555-0000779fd2ac.html

Brussels to investigate consumer profiling by online advertisers
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/16bcdf1c-1cc1-11de-977c-00144feabdc0.html

First, I hope you noticed the two different headline capitalization styles (the first clip is from the New York Times, the second two are from the Financial Times). Presentation aside, these are interesting in light of our discussion last week.

The first two articles address the question of backing up data. The "Data Rot" article looks at the question of storage alternatives from the individual consumer's point of view. It may not say much for the safety of CDs and DVDs as backup media, but read what the person interviewed thinks of online backups!

The second article considers the incredible rise in data volume produced by business. It also strongly questions the viability of any kind of cloud-based backup solution.

Finally, the third article speaks to our discussion of privacy when surfing the Web. European policy officials will be meeting to consider the problems posed by the way data is collected online.

The depth of what's available to interested commercial parties transcends anything as simple as cookie tracking or disingenuous data collection forms. Essentially, users are asked to waive fundamental rights to privacy when simply accessing the Web from home. Very interesting reading.

There may not be much that can be done to change persistent data trails left by the nature of the Web medium, but the article mentions transparency about that data trail as one goal of a more appropriate online environment. This sort of transparency is absolutely something that can be reinforced by choices in information and interaction design.

RealAge: Ethical Information Collection?

I came across this article tonight and it seemed especially interesting after our discussion about information collection, privacy, and information design in class earlier today.

Online Age Quiz Is a Window for Drug Makers
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/technology/internet/26privacy.html

The article explores the issues raised by the RealAge online test. This is a case in which information is being collected in a way that is currently legal, but may not be wholly ethical.

There are no criminals stealing credit card information, but instead large corporate interests using marketing data to sell products. The ethical design question lies in how the data collection process is represented to users.

The user experience emphasizes the potential benefit to end users of being more aware of the effect of life choices on their health and longevity. It minimizes the fact that the information users enter is being aggregated in a large marketing database. According to the article, there are also many opportunities to opt in for membership (which includes consent to be contacted concerning health-related products) that may not be apparent to typical users.

How would you assess a case like this in light of our earlier discussion? Are there opportunities to change the design of the user experience to be more transparent without losing the target audience? Comments are welcome.

CUNY Online Security Course

Thanks to Wen's sharp eye, we have access to a course in online security. As I mentioned, the "Security Awareness Training" is described as "approximately 30 minutes in length, covering the basics of why information security is important and best practices."

I'll be very curious to hear how this connects to our discussion of security on the Internet and the Web. To take the course, just go to the URL below and "enter [your] full name, City Tech email address and CUNY School."

Good luck to any takers.

http://www.enterprisetraining.com/cunycourse.htm

Sources for Articles

I heard some feedback after class last week about people wondering where to find good articles. I have a few suggestions that I'm offering in this post.

I also want to remind everyone that you should be writing about why the article you've selected is relevant to class. What's interesting about it? What connects it to information design, or some part of the future direction of the Web or Internet that makes you choose it?

You don't really need to include an article summary, per se. You can just refer to the piece as you discuss its relevance.

With no further ado, here are some sources that you may find interesting, or may already use:

Financial Times Digital Business Section
http://www.ft.com/technology/digitalbusiness

InfoDesign: Understanding by Design
http://www.informationdesign.org/

mediabistro
http://www.mediabistro.com/

New York Times Technology Section
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/technology/index.html

O'Reilly
http://oreilly.com/

slashdot
http://slashdot.org/

Wired
http://www.wired.com/

ZDNet
http://news.zdnet.com/


If you have a special interest in issues about privacy, intellectual property, and ethical uses of technology, then the following sites might lead you good places:

Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/

Electronic Frontier Foundation
http://www.eff.org/

Electronic Privacy Information Center
http://epic.org/

Editing Blog Posts

I've received a few questions about problems formatting text using Blogger's WYSIWYG editor. I want to offer a couple of tips.

First, you may want to cut and paste and text that you intend to use on your blog into a text-only editor before pasting it into Blogger's editor. This will strip out any residual formatting that may be carried from programs like Microsoft Word. You can then apply formatting in Blogger.

If you're a Windows user, then using Notepad should do the trick. On the Mac side, you may want to consider a free program like Textwrangler (http://www.barebones.com/products/TextWrangler/). Although TextEdit can also be used the same way, it defaults to retain some formatting from other contexts.

Second, if your WYSIWYG options seem to disappear (e.g., you can't find the dropdown menu for changing the font), make sure you are in the right editing mode. There are three separate modes in Blogger's editor and you can switch between them using the buttons at the top right. See the illustration below.

Midterm (Terms Due March 10; Exam on March 11)

Midterm

As we discussed last Wednesday, your midterm will have two parts.

Part 1
The first part will require you to define eight terms without using the computer for reference (no Google!). You choose the terms from those you've been collecting for your blog.

Please send the eight terms you select with their definitions in the body of an email by 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 10 (the day before class). I do not want this list sent as an attachment (if you've already sent it by the time you receive these instructions, I'll make an exception).

After giving this some thought, I've decided to distribute the terms to you as an exam on paper. On Wednesday, you'll each receive a final exam specifically created for you. I'll ask you to write the definitions out by hand, so please bring a pen and a sheet or two of paper to class.

Part 2
For the second part of your exam, I'd like you to write about the blog that you've created. I'd like you to begin with a general statement about the mission of the blog and the audiences (users) that you expect it to serve. I then want you to discuss every decision that you made, from selecting a title to choosing font sizes.

Tell me how and why each decision you've made fits with your understanding of how your target users will interact with the content on your blog. You should pay particular attention to the way you've labeled information on your site and think about how this enables users to find what they're looking for.

Remember that there is more than one way to be right -- you don't have to make the site fit one particular idea of what it should be. You do have to explain how your choices are consistent with what you expect the site to accomplish.

You may begin writing this part of your midterm now. If you'd like to complete Part 2 before entering class, you are welcome to do that. You will be given time in class, however, to complete this part of the midterm.

You are also free to make changes to your blog between now and Wednesday, but after Wednesday, you'll be expected to leave the formatting intact until your midterms have been returned. Good luck!