In class on Wednesday, I talked with my students about the importance of writing in web authoring.  One of the articles they were to read, which of course they didn't (partly my fault), was Amber Simmons "Reviving Anorexic Web Writing."  My students seem to believe that it is just common sense that you'd need the content of a web site before you could create or author an effective design.  What they don't seem to realize is that prospective clients may not always see it this way.

Simmons tells a story of one difficult client who wanted her to drop everything and create a quick and dirty website for his latest and greatest project.  Her reply . . . was to smile "at him, nodding in all the right places, and when he stopped talking for just long enough I said, 'All that sounds great.  When you're ready to give me the content you want to use so I can see what I'm dealing with, let's talk. '" The clients response . . . "'Can't we just add that later, once the design is finished'" ("Reviving"). 

This brings up two really good points: 1) writing and design have to go hand-in-hand, and 2) it really does help if the designer is the author of the content as well.  The fact is that it really does help if the designer of the web site can also be the author of the written content.  If the site is intended to be somewhat playful, and you design it that way, it's likely that you can capture that essence as well in the text.  An outside author may not have that ability.  It's obvious that attempting to design something without content would likely equal failure. 

Bottom line: never design without content, and attempt to always be the author of that content.

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/