When I told myself that I needed to blog tonight (I mean I had already done the reading), I really did not (still do not) want to.  I'm tired, it has been a rough day, and, quite frankly, the reading I did for tonight's blog left me with nothing.  Not sure how I ended up with TWO readings that left me feeling nothing two nights in a row, but it has happened.

I read Dean Allen's "Reading Design" for tonight, and I highlighted all of three passages.  From what I can tell, Allen is ranting about web designers lack of consideration for the reader when they choose how to represent fonts. Allen argues that the education of many of the students he teaches "had plainly focused away from what I consider the primary goal of communication design: to make vital, engaging work intended above all to be read.  To use design to communicate" ("Reading Design"). 

The one thing that I did find useful about the article was Allen's "An Entirely Incomplete List of Things a Non-Illiterate Designer Should Know Before Being a Designer" at the very end of that article.  That is worth printing and putting in a place where you'll always see it if you have plans to be or are a designer.

That is all I have to say about this article.  It ain't much, but I at least I read and blogged.

At this point in time, I would have to say that even the lack of a reaction to something we read is, in itself, a reaction.  Does that make sense?  I keep reading it, and it feels right.  So here is an example.  I read Sharon Lee's "Human-to-Human Design."  and even though I understood the content, I didn't have a strong reaction one way or another to her comments. 

I've learned (and I think that I've mentioned this before) that if I underline or mark up something I read a LOT, then I'm definitely connecting to the piece.  Oooooo, so is there a difference between connecting and reacting?  Hmmm, I don't think I want to go there tonight.  At any rate, there is very little marked in Lee's article.  First, she begins her piece by writing "it's not new to say that we now live in an age in which survival in business depends on your ability to communicate effectively through the internet" ("Human-to-Human").  Wow, I'm sorry, but for me, that simply is not much of a hook. 

Everyone knows that it is the beginning that sets the tone.  In a book, it's those first few pages or maybe the first chapter, but in an article as short as Lee's, it's gotta happen in that first paragraph.  It didn't happen, therefore, I've lost interest from the beginning.  Now this does not mean that I don't believe Lee's article gets across some important information.  It just doesn't do it in a very effective way for me. 

So when she writes about audience and how we, as web designers need to have a more narrow focus of exactly who that audience is so that we can design better websites, it's not that I don't agree with her.  It's just that the way she has written it has bored me.  However, when she later argues that "storytelling is a rich and compelling way to involve the user in a design, evoke an emotional response, or enhance a user's learning experience", my "ears" perked up immediately.  I understand these words, and more importantly, the adjectives she uses: "rich", "compelling", "emotional".  This sentence was under the heading of "Tell me a story" and I got it. 

When I arrived at the section sub-titled "Enchant me", I expected the same kind or similar language, but it left me dry.  For instance, "design can create order and instill a feeling of peace and serenity" just left me feeling nothing.  Lee fails to get across this idea of "Human-to-Human Design" that the title indicates I should understand by the end.  I either failed as a reader to connect to her ideas through her writing (which is entirely possible), or she failed to communicate them effectively with her choice of language.  Go on over to the site, read it, and let me know your thoughts!!  http://www.alistapart.com/articles/humantohuman/

When I began graduate school, which seems like eons ago, I was the epitome of a lost puppy.  I had been out of school for six years, and it had taken me 17 years to earn that ever elusive bachelors degree. 

I know that I spent the first two years floundering.  I ended up doing my masters thesis on three of Charles Dickens Christmas tales: a dream come true for me.  I had always loved the works of Dickens and it was his humor in A Christmas Carol that had hooked me.

When I began my PhD though, it didn't feel right to continue down the path of Victorian literature.  Don't get me wrong, it is my favorite literature, but it left me feeling partially empty.  I knew what the problem was, and I worried that I had taken the wrong path by going back to school.  There is no doubt that I love writing and that I thoroughly enjoy teaching writing to freshman, but I need more.  I need to somehow also be immersed in technology. 

Luckily for me, two of my mentors in grad school steered me in a good direction when they suggested I look into doing a dissertation that combined writing and technology.  That, in my book, was a win-win situation and a totally Lost Puppy finally found a home in writing and computers.

So fast-forward to now, and I find myself faced with the challenge of teaching web authoring, and I'm loving the things I am reading that deal with the importance of the WRITING in web design.  As Derek Powazek argues in his article "Calling All Designers: Learn to Write!", "it's time we designers stop thinking of ourselves as merely pixel people, and start thinking of ourselves as the creators of experiences" ("Calling All Designers").  This is exactly what I'm talking about.  There is a place for those of us who are nerds, geeks, techno bobble-heads AND love writing.

Powazek goes so far as to advise would be employers that "if your designer says, 'I'm not a writer.' it may be time to find one who is" ("Calling All Designers").  I couldn't agree with him more.  Sites do not have to be impersonal places with stiff and unfriendly language.  They can be places that are inviting and that have personality (see yesterday's post).  If you are a techno Bobble-head who loves designing websites, take it to the next level and let your personality influence your text.  It's a brave new world out there for those willing to embark on the journey.  Are you up for the challenge?

When I read Jason Whittaker's book, what seems like months ago, I was a little, well really a lot, disappointed on how he handled the writing aspect of web design.  If you read back, he commented more than I thought necessary on grammar issues.  While these things are certainly important in the final output, they cleraly should not be the first thing or the most important thing.  In fact, a minor mention would be more than enough to get the point across.

So I was pleased, well really happy, when I read Bronwyn Jones' article on the Web entitled "Better Writing Through Design."  To be honest, I didn't know what to expect from the title, but I feared that there would be mentions of close editing and grammar checking.  In reality, Jones discusses the fact that everything on a web page communicates: the navigation, the colors, the images, everything, and that includes the written text.  Jones argues that if you "apply a design process to your words as well as your images . . . you just may fine your voice" ("Better Writing"). 

Even though the article is short, Jones makes clear, concise points about the importance of content in web design.  He also points out repeatedly the importance of audience, listing 5 questions that you should keep in mind when both designing and writing.  As Jones points out, you need to give your readers an identity they can connect with, not some artificial voice to which no one can relate.

Bottom line: you need to be more concerned with content rather than mechanics, and you gotta keep it real!!

Well, to get straight to the answer of the above question, Kevin Moberly argues that his article "advocates a critical, social-constructivist pedagogy that uses computer games to not only help students understand how reading and writing 'play out' in the academic discourse communities in which they are involved but to help them come to terms with how reading and writing 'plays out' in the larger discourses of consumer culture" (285).  Wow, just reading that again makes me wonder how he manages to get all of that into a simple article ("Composition, Computer Games, and the Absence of Writing"). 

To be fair, I will have to read Moberly's article again to see if he actually succeeds in making this argument.  There were several points with which I certainly agree.  Moberly spends a great deal of time discussing the history of graphics and writing in computer games, beginning with the earliest where there were no graphics and the only interaction was to write your way through the game, so to speak, to the ever present graphic intense games and the use of VOIP (voice over internet provider) in most popular MMORPGs (massively multiuser online role playing games), which virtually eliminates the need to type anything anymore or image a scene.  Moberly believes that "contemporary computer games do not simply deny the book.  In privileging the cinematic, they deny the mode of production through which the book is produced" (289).

I also agree with the fact that all of these bells and whistles basically hide the fact that the game itself if WRITTEN (292).  Programmers spend hours writing the code to make these games come together.  I believe it is bit of an understatement when Moberly writes that "computer games . . . are highly grammatical structures" (291).  The fact is, if I misplace a comma or forget a punctuation mark here, it's not a big deal (at least not to me), but if a programmer gets one mark incorrect, something will not run properly in the program, if it runs at all.  I would call that some serious grammar work.

This is where you lose me for the night.  The final points that Moberly make are the ones I would have to read a few more times to know whether or not I think his argument is sound.  Section 4 gets into the whole idea of identity formation (which I do believe happens in games and virtual worlds) and popular culture consumerism, etc, etc, etc.  I hope the reader will forgive me here, but it's been a long day of unpacking a uHaul and I'm too tired to think any further .

So the 8th chapter of Whittaker's Producing for Web 2.0: A Student Guide is entitled "Writing, ethics, and regulation."  Even though Whittaker states that "the fact remains that the vast majority of content online consists of text" (196), he spends very little time actually discussing the writing aspects of it.  He does, however, briefly mention style, audience, crafting a story, and storytelling techniques.  Maybe I'm being over critical, but when I read "demonstrating programming skills and multimedia proficiency may count for very little if public perception of your pages is based on an inability to spell" (196), it makes me question why he didn't instead say something about how how public perception of your pages is based on incorrect information, or too confusing to understanding.

We preach that content and organization, or higher order concerns, are the things that are really important, yet we worriy that misspelled words will turn our audience against us.  Is that perception true?  If my website offers the solution to world peace, will my audience care if I've misspelled a couple of words or placed a comma where it shouldn't be?  Are our readers that shallow?  Maybe they are, but I would rather think not.

Ok, here is something I have never heard of before.  Whittaker says that "the Sapmhaus Project estimates that up to 80 per cent of spam generated in the US and Europe is generated by around 200 professional spam gangs, mostly based in the Russian Federation . . . (204).  Really, the Russians?  Has anyone else ever heard of such a thing?

Ok, I'm tired, sleepy, and just plain worn out, so I'm done for tonight.

Still trying to decide how to go about doing this project.  I believe it will begin on May 1.  I have been considering where to start with the readings.  There are so many things I want to read that are on my bookshelf staring at me right NOW.

But, for now, I'm going to discuss something I am reading for a Mentoring Meeting tomorrow.  The article is called "An Essay We're Learning to Read Responding to Alt.Style" by Michael Spooner in AltDis: Alternative Discourses and the Academy.  For me, the shaded blocks are examples of how someone attempting to edit an alt.style might try to force the writer back into a more conventional or accepted discourse style.  This Meta-commentary or meta-narrative really drives home for me the importance of understanding a piece of writing written in this style.  This type of discourse finally places some of the responsibility of making meaning on the reader.  I like that.

There were times that I asked myself if this could be considered a queering of the text, but I'm not certain.  Is it a queering of academic discourse, forcing the reader to interact with the text, ?  I don't know.

My favorite "bubble joke?"  "How many copyeditors does it take to screw in a light bulb?"  Response: "Not sure whether you mean 'change a light bulb' or 'have sex in a light bulb.' Consider revising for clarity?"  Hardee har har

Favorite word: essayistic.  God I love writers who are not afraid to make up new and innovative words.

And, I've just figured out where to start my project.  This article quotes a book I started a while back, but did not get to finish.  I will pick up and finish Janet Murray's Hamlet on the Holodeck.  A seminal piece for one of my main areas of interest.