WWW Standards

In preparation for this task we were required to read through the following links.

http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~webteach/articles/text.html

My first perception of Jakob Nielsen's site was 'Oh here goes, more information overload', but each link offered really interesting information. I was particularly interested in the eye tracking study. Now every time I open a website I make a mental note on what my eyes are doing:)

EYE TRACKING STUDY



"The eye tracking study reveals that a viewer will scan a webpage in the shape of an F pattern". Nielsen, J (2006)

The above screenshot taken from usit.com, shows a heat map of eye tracking studies from 3 websites. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

• Red areas being hot spots (where viewers looked the most)


• Yellow areas holding less viewing


• Blue areas indicating very little interest


• Gray areas not attracting any fixations

I can see from the above study that the first website held a relative amount of interest in the first half of the page but little or nothing in the end. Considering there is quite a bit of written information, important aspects of what the website is offering the viewer is only half affective.

The middle website really highlights the F pattern. Very impressive stats. If you look at the hot spots the viewer has scanned just about all of the website. Not much information lost here.

The last website is a search page. Once again you can see the distinctive F but not many hot spots here. My thought on this would revert back to keywords with search engines. I myself I only look into the top few sites from a search, page 20 of 10,000 will never attract my attention. So thinking about keywords, make them count and aim for the amazing F.

Zoe's 5 Important rules for 'writing' online

• Think about your content. Viewers generally enter and leave a site quickly. If you want to hold their attention you need to make sure that what you are putting across isn't swallowed up in a monotonous page of unbroken text. Make use short paragraphs and highlight any keywords that link to what you are saying. Remember your page will be scanned rather than read.

• Utilise lists. A list of one liners is a great way to feed a viewer a package of information without them feeling they are reading the information. I am using a list here but not effectively. Because the content of this list is in long paragraphs, I doubt whether it is being fully read. I would hope that my highlighted points are hot spots. (I feel that I need to give more explanation of my views purely for my learning log).

• Images. I would regard images in the same context as written information. Keep them relevant and interesting to the viewer. Make sure the images load quickly, the last thing you want is a visitor leaving your page through impatience before it has even loaded.

• Links. Make sure they work and make them count. The viewer is leaving your site, have they absorbed what you wanted them to before they leave. Chances are they may not come back once they click out.

• Animation and sound. I don't mind a good slide show of what is relevant to what I am reading, but annoying little animations zipping around cause instant distraction. Sound affects me in the same way. 90% of the time my volume is muted.

I would feel that the advice in Nielsen's paper is still current/relevant even though it was written in 1997. To me, if a reader only scans over a page then you do need to be aware of your writing skills. I wouldn't think this advice need change, in fact as society/technology picks up pace, more so the awareness of information to maintain effectiveness with change.

'Validator' page

I was a little confused about the validation process and in my attempt to validate my page only incurred errors with the process. I hope this last step hasn't inhibited my upload. I am not sure now that I have already uploaded to the presentation area whether I can pursue this step.

Copyright

http://www.benedict.com/info/info.aspx

http://www.copyright.curtin.edu.au/

I don't think I have used words or images on my webpage that would contravene any copyright laws. I acquired a 'Taurus' image from a free clipart site. I used a screenshot of my blog title as a link to my blog. The Chef image was part of the Tutorial.

I did link to my workplace website, but as my husband and I are the managers then I would assume permission would be granted.

Wording used was from the tutorial (I hope we were to use it) and also my own.

In regards to using the Curtin logo, I would seek written permission from Curtin before doing this.

URL of my Webpage

http://webct.curtin.edu.au/305033_b/student_pres/Group75/index.html

Blogs

Before starting with my studies I didn't take any notice of blogs. I knew they existed but didn't take the time to see how they worked. I now think they are an effective information tool. I like the way blogs progress with updated content.

Following my fellow net11 buddies blogs has been quiet fulfilling. I can honestly say that I check our blogs more than I check my personal email now.

As a newbie blogger I also look for comments, in our situation I find the feedback a way of keeping on track.

I really like blogging !!

Web 2.0

This task required a visit to the following sites:

http://www.blinklist.com/InternetCommunications/

http://wievia.bay.livefilestore.com/y1p8GOFx-eIftrxl3h80up_xuZsctBHCKWcH_uCngHae_M_zdfG5A8mxh0wlgpFfx3g_ji273o8NyVIosEsl_PVp-Mvnffqji3I/net11.html

Now I can see definite differences in presentation between the two but felt that I needed to do a Google search on 'Blinklist' before I went any further. Being yet another thing I had not heard of before, I found the following explanation -

"BlinkList: The vision and goal of BlinkList is to be the leading “Personal Discovery Engine” where people come to discover, share, and organize the most recent and relevant information available online. Before BlinkList, saving and finding saved bookmarks was a frustrating user experience. In addition, sharing links and finding the top links that your friends or peers have been discovering was close to impossible. BlinkList is attempting to solve both problems." Chang, E (2005)

My perception of web2.0 is not so much a whole new www, but a new look of page presentation. A bit like itunes downloads I suppose. Each has a new look and maybe some extra features.

I liked the look of the Blinklist page, and even though I don't fully understand how it works, navigation seemed quite easy.

My first impression of the html written list was confusion, but when I took time to have a closer look, I found it quite user friendly. I actually found some interesting links that I didn't find first in the blinklist page. I probably spent more time with the html page because it seemed more familiar.

In retrospect of which format would be better, I vote for the blinklist page. The simplicity of the layout would enable quicker use as far a time was concerned and probably a better format thinking about vision implications, page spread out and having clear headings.

References:

Nielsen, J (2006) Usit.com, Jacob Nielsens Alert Box; Summary, F Shaped Pattern for reading Web Content, Retrieved 11 July 2008 from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

Chang, E (2005) ./emilychang eHub; eHub Interviews Blinklist, Retrieved 11 July 2008 from http://www.emilychang.com/go/ehub/interview/blinklist/

One last step before the concepts assignment.... next weeks goal is to complete fully mondule 4 :)

HTML tags

HTML is extremely new to me. I really enjoyed the task, the concept of laying out a single web page proved to be more involved that what I would have originally thought.

Page formatting in my eyes before this task was about simply clicking layout buttons. Text alignment, font colour and size, inserting images shed a whole new light with coding/tags. The amount of extra writing just to achieve a simple feature was amazing. The consistent saving and checking of layout labour some, but the way each tag manipulated what you were doing, truly amazing!

In reflection to the difference between html and blogging, from my experience comes down to time. It is easier for me to publish into my blog at this stage because I have those familiar buttons before me. But then on the other hand, in previous posts what I previewed wasn't always what I got. On a few occasions you may notice paragraphs where line breaking isn't there. This has really frustrated me, but now that I have learnt the basic tags, and I can see a 'Edit Html' tab before me, I might venture in and see if I can correct this myself:)

What do I like best? Well because it is still really new, publishing my blog is easier. I think once you could recall correct tags on your own, it would become second nature.

I really appreciated learning how to link, clicking on them and finding they actually worked was a milestone.

Areas that I was unable to achieve:

Loading jpegs (hmm) I tried and tried but couldn't work it out. A shame because I would have liked to tissy my page more. Why? I don't know. I don't have any experience with photoshop, I don't even have photoshop so maybe I need to learn more in that area. Everytime I tried all I got was the little red cross.

Here is a screenshot of my page, you can link to it through the HTML title for a closer look.

http://webct.curtin.edu.au/305033_b/student_pres/Group75/index.html

Chat

Signing up with Skype was an easy process. I followed a link from the Discussion Board and endeavoured to add all of my fellow students Skype addresses into my account.

From then I continued on with module 2 and was quite surprised when I was prompted into my first chat ever with Chris.

Somehow when I created my Skype account I had attached a music clip to my profile. Chris was interested in how I had done this, and to my disappointment, at my first opportunity, I couldn't remember for the life of me how I had created this.

Feeling nervous about the first chat and embarrassed because I couldn’t recall something that I had done, we continued our conversation. Chris in this time had worked out himself how to add a clip and then I in turn asked him how he had done it (Yes, a blonde moment).

On a second occasion, once again while I was working on module 2, Skype flashed at me again, this time a call from Fiona. Second time around I entered the chat with a bit more confidence and thoroughly enjoyed meeting Fiona. We reflected on the net11 unit so far and how we were coping with studies and family.

Our group chat was scheduled for Thursday night, July 3.

At 8pm I turned on my laptop and sat eagerly waiting to see Skype flash yet again. 8:05 it all happened. A third of my contacts were online and all were testing the water, hi’s here and there.

The conversation took of rather quickly and I found myself sitting in awe watching all the flicking pens and comments rolling one after another.

I attempted to jump in occasionally but found the subjects, gaming and flaming, were not areas that I felt could input. I was happy to observe and quickly noticed the difference in conversations compared to one on one.

There were approximately 15 people participating in the group chat.

The conversation tended to jump around. Obviously by the time a reply came in there were others in between. So the conversation was quite broken. Some people managed this with obvious experience and a few, like me, tried to keep up enjoying the moment all the same.

The following day I was fortunate enough to be available when Stefan and Kylie came online. I thoroughly enjoyed this particular chat experience. Our conversation was more controlled and I gained valuable confidence regarding chatting and our net11 studies from my two friends.

Thank you Stefan and Kylie:)

In reflection to module 2, it felt slow to start, considerable signing up to prepare for the tasks. I don’t think I would use newsgroups again but gained a lot of understanding in regards to chat. I understand that the need to be quick is an area to work on, but to be able to freely interact with a person/s with so much ease is definitely worth exploring more. I would be apprehensive though if I didn’t know the person on the other end. This task felt safe, even though we don’t know each other, we are a connected group.

Newsgroups

“One source of both information and communication is newsgroups. A newsgroup is a continuous public discussion about a particular topic. You can join a newsgroup at any time to become part of a huge conversation between hundreds or even thousands of people". Howstuffworks (1998-2008)

So thinking about the problems with setting aside a physical time to attend a community group, an online group gives you the flexibility to participate in a discussion at a time that suits you, without having to leave home. Information shared in this way has the capacity to expand a topic because your audience is not restricted to a particular area or number of people. Also you can decide whether you want to participate in a discussion or just read what people are posting to that topic at any time.

Sounds like a lot of benefits to sharing an interest in your own time but what could pose as a disadvantage with communication of this kind?

The participation within our internetstudies group was quite rewarding but then this group was specifically formed to aid the net11 students module 2 task.

On the other hand, my experience within the mylifeismine group was quite dull. I feel that this group is more of an advertising board rather than a place of personal communications in interest of the group topic. My message posted fine but my question has not been answered to this day. Not a personal group in my eyes.

I also joined a Google newsgroup, Smile-junkies, but I am unable to post a message within. I am informed that ‘This group is announcement only, I cannot post messages because I am not a manager’.

Reflecting my personal preference to what I have discovered so far, I feel more in touch with our Webct Discussion Board, the ease of searching topics and reply to individual people appears more user friendly.

Reference:

How Stuff Works (1998-2008) How Newsgroups Work, Retrieved 5 July from

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/newsgroup.htm

Email Lists

People that are passionate about a certain interest, enjoy sharing that interest with others.
Without the internet, Philip the Photographer, Gary the Gardener or Betty the Bookworm would pursue their interests by maybe joining a community group. Photography clubs, Bookclubs and more are all available to enrich people’s interests.

In busy times, this kind of interaction may not be available if say the local bookclub only meets on Thursday evenings at 7pm, and you can’t attend.

What about the internet?

Yes a user can find a wealth of information with a google search on a particular subject, but finding a website on a particular subject is limited to providing the user with information. Online communication on the other hand enables you to interact with other people who share a common interest?

EMAIL LISTS (List Server).

An Email List is a communication tool, used for distributing messages to a list of suscribers who have a shared interest in a particular subject.

For this task, I created and email account with Yahoo.

I then searched for our net11 internetstudies’ group and another group outside of our studies called ‘mylifeismine’.

Signing up for the internet studies group was quick and easy. I posted a reply message to 'Cherna' and then in a matter of 10 minutes 'Joel' came back with an uplifting reply to my message:) Thanks Joel.

I was interacting within the messages page and found out later when leaving the area that the posts were also received in my Yahoo inbox. This observation will present itself in my task question I am sure. But before then, I would like to reflect on my experience with the other group I joined.

I chose 'mylifeismine' because I am very interested in anything based around the Law of Attraction.

I prompted to sign in, but unlike our internetstudies group I had to wait until I was accepted before I could participate. This process didn’t happen for a couple of hours, that was OK, I would look into this group more the next day.

(Next day) I posted a message (#480) but nobody has responded yet. It seems more of a group where the messages are just general topic entries, not personal communication on a topic. Oh well, I much prefer our own group, you feel like a real person there.

Question time…..

1: What are the pros and cons of email lists versus discussion boards? (Allen n.d)

I would think that an advantage of email lists could be because the communications are email based. Therefore, rather than having to visit multiple websites to participate in group topics, all messages are sent to your inbox. You can receive communications from different topics but view them in the one area. We are all accustomed to checking emails, this type of discussion process can therefore be time efficient.

On the other hand, our inbox at the best of times can take some managing. My inbox after just a couple of days indicates that if not viewed regularly, could become overwhelming, posing as a disadvantage.

The pros of a Discussion Board would seem evident that the organization of Threads enables the reader to readily select which topics they would be interested in reading and which to ignore. You don’t need to manage the Board, no need to delete messages as you would an inbox. You can follow or search for discussion topics quite easily and don’t need to access an email account to view a Discussion Board.

The flipside of these pros could regard the users limit to topics in one area. A Discussion Board may be about a core subject and have many internal topics based on that core, but if you wish to pursue a totally different topic then you would need to find another Discussion Board.

2: Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than the other? (Allen n.d)

Being new to both forms of communications my thoughts would be with the idea that communication based around study, is best suited to Discussion Boards. Managed topics and search capabilities simplifying what each user is looking for and points of interest typical to access in organized areas.

Curriculum Reference:

Dr Matthew Allen (n.d) Curtin University of Technology; Net11 The Internet Communications, Module Two. Email Lists, Retreived 2 July 2008 from http://webct.curtin.edu.au/SCRIPT/305033_b/scripts/serve_home

EMAIL TASK continued......

2: In what cases would you find it useful to use the cc, bc and reply all functions of email? (Allen n.d)

If you are sending an email message and would like to send the same message to another recipient, then you would use the cc field. CC is an abbreviation meaning Carbon Copy.

I use this function everyday at work when I send daily reports to the owner of the business. I cc the report to the person who handles our business Admin. The recipient of my message can see that I have included Admin with a carbon copy of the report.

If I was communicating with a client who had an outstanding account, I could bc those emails to the owner or Admin. BC meaning blind carbon copy would provide me with a discreet way of keeping the owner informed of a situation without the clients knowledge of the double communication.

I also use the reply function when I am responding to a customer enquiry or quote.

Responding with the Reply All feature will include all recipients of cc or bc messages and the original sender.

As we deal with a lot of Designers (I work in Picture Framing), if I sent an independent email with a quote for a job say two days after the enquiry, my response could be overlooked if I didn’t include clear information of the original email.

By using the reply function, the recipient can see my response above their original message to me. It also saves me time when replying because I can refer to the original message easily while I respond. Sometimes a message might go back and forth quite a few times also, the convenience of all communications being available in the one email is invaluable when you are dealing with emails of similarity each day.

When you elect to reply to a message, the recipients address is automatically entered in the To field and the subject displays Re: to subject you are replying. Another time saving automatic feature of the reply function.

3: In what ways can you ensure that an attachment you send will be easily opened by the receiver? (Allen n.d)

Attachments to an email need to be of compatible applications to the recipient you are sending them to.

Up until recently (at work), the main PC that we use in a network of 5 unfortunately was old, and obviously for this reason ran such programs as Word 97 etc. For years we put up with this with the hope that one day it would die on us, prompting the owner to upgrade:) Until that wonderful day arrived one of the frustrations of trying to work on this thing was the countless email attachments that I was unable to open.

Checking with your recipient what applications they are running will save a lot of frustration.

Consider:
· If it is a Microsoft Office file, is your version newer than the recipients. If so, then when you save the file, elect to change the version to one that suits.

· PDF files are read with Adobe Reader, if the recipient doesn’t have Adobe, it can be downloaded free.

· Make sure files are not too big or the message you are sending may be returned as undelivered.

I like to inform my recipients in the body of my emails, briefly, the content of what I have attached. ie ‘Please find photo’s attached’ or ‘Please find pricelist attached’.

4: What sort of filters or rules do you have set up, and for what purpose? (Allen n.d)

I have never used filters in my personal email up until now. For this exercise, I found in my Options menu the above Filter Options. I have nominated that my Filter Rule deletes any messages I receive from Avanquest Software

Other options available are highlighting messages from nominated recipients or moving certain messages to an elected folder rather than your inbox.

Filters are a tool you can use to keep your Inbox ship-shape and tidy and place importance on messages you wish to keep an eye on.

What a nifty little application, I like it:) Once again, another detail I haven’t explored before, I can proudly say that I am learning something new every day!

5: How have you organised the folder structure of your email and why? (Allen n.d)

I like to create folders for my emails. It keeps messages filed where I can find them easily if I wish to keep them. I like all my messages to come to my Inbox first hand, but when I have read them I usually file them away.

A few Folders I use in my personal Email:

· Ebay (generally I store any invoices from items I have won here)
· Personal (I use this one for general information)
· Studies (obviously a newbie)

Some other example of Folders I use at work:

· Customer quotes
· Supplier Pricelists
· Special Clients (the folder is titled under their name)

I find Folders extremely efficient for keeping emails at hands reach. Could you imagine a filing cabinet if you didn’t tag the files - Wouldn’t be good hey.

Curriculum Reference:

Dr Matthew Allen (n.d) Curtin University of Technology; Net11 The Internet Communications, Module Two, Email Task, Retrieved 26 June 2008 from http://webct.curtin.edu.au/SCRIPT/305033_b/scripts/serve_home

EMAIL TASK

1: What information about a user’s email, the origin of a message, and the path it took, can you glean from an email message? (Allen, n.d)

When first opening an email the user can identify at a glance, when the message was sent, who the message is from and what information may be in the message.

From the above email I can see the following:

· The message was received on Thur, 29 May 2008 14:08:08
· The message was from * OpenCurtin@curtin.edu.au

* The first part of the address is the user name (eg. homer@ or homer241@)

*The second part of the address is the domain. This address is .edu.au (education domain in Australia), you may also come across free domains (eg. Yahoo and Hotmail) or Government domains (.gov.au).

· The To field is the receiver of the email. If it is your inbox then it would be you.

The above message says To: Undisclosed recipients ( because this is an email regarding studies, I would imagine that it would be sent to all the Net11 students. Undisclosed hides the other students details)

· The Subject field gives a brief inclination of what the message is about.

If a message is urgent, you may see a subject as eg URGENT : school interview cancelled

· In the field labelled Path(s) I can see that the message has 4 attachments

The above attachments are documents outlining my course.

· The body of the email contains the whole message and as this one, the signature of who sent it.

In reflection of the Email Task question, when I gleaned this message for more information, I found the following screenshot within ‘Message Source’. I perceive from this information that the message passed through 4 servers from Curtin to my Inbox.

Not showing in the email used here, you are also able to see whether the message has been forwarded to you from the sender (eg the subject will show Fw: bla bla bla)

Also whether the message has been CC to another host. (eg a copy of the email is sent to another recipient other than you) This feature will be covered in more depth in question 2:)

Curriculum Reference:

Dr Matthew Allen (n.d) Curtin University of Technology; Net 11 The Internet Communications,Module two, Email Task, Retrieved 25 June 2008 from http://webct.curtin.edu.au/SCRIPT/305033_b/scripts/serve_home.

Email Task to be continued.......