INLS 180 Day 17 Notes
Main Points
Vicarious blurs to real with
new media
Media affects us more than we
know or admit—physiology effects
Flattery works
Reference jobs will persist
Questions
Is all media (usage) evil and
manipulative?
How often are we out of
reality?
How does technology
desensitize us to messages?
Can we overcome mammalian
brain limits? [we
learned how to fly]
Is media literacy the answer?
Will we ever get to the point
where we can’t tell the difference between real and vicarious? Are not media
real too?
Ethical
implications? Reeves and Nass
stance [none]
Audio-visual
tradeoffs?
2. Information architecture
and midterm assignment
PP slides
Some general observations
a) The bottom up approach to learning (reverse
engineering).
b) Distinguish classification (creating bins)and
cataloging (using bins)
c) Semantic versus syntactic markup (most did syntactic
for books, semantic for TV)
d) The role of hierarchy in structure
e) The role of expectations in how we do these tasks
(perhaps indicated by the variance in approaches for the different assignments)
Websites
What draws your eye? (motion,
size, color, shape)
The ‘sectors’ could be ‘wireframes’
for the underlying information architecture on a page
Should visual links (either text or icon) be repeated
on page?
If there are lots of links, how are they ordered or
clustered?
Are genre-specific styles emerging (e.g., university
sites all give audience options)?
Did you try reloads, alt resolution settings,
different browsers, did controlled queries, greped
for HTTP to count links, etc. to get more in-depth views of the pages?
Portal versus search, directory
versus analytical search, ads, special services/personalizations. Advertising and business model
What is the purpose of a website? Generate
interest? Provide information? Sell products? Entertain?
Do you want to be entertained by your bank?
What is good design?
What is good architecture?
Comparisons across media
Design from user vs content/system view
Message
design?
User styles/preferences (text
vs graphic; browse/drill vs
search; simple vs complex;)
User platform
settings/constraints
3. One-minute paper
What was the big point you learned in class today?
What is the main, unanswered question you leave class
with today?