Articles Summaries Web Design

8/7/2019 Articles Summaries Web Design

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Articles Summaries FRIT 7335 Web Design

Citation

Karlsson, M. (2007). Expressions, emotions, and website design.

CoDesign, 3, 75-89. DOI: 10.1080/15710880701376802

Summary

This article focused on two websites perceived usability and

expression as well as the emotional responses that their design

evoked. The article begins by defining and exploring the notion

of usability and how it can be measured followed by explanation

of the aim of the study and the frame of reference for the study.

The article then outlines the use of product semantics and four

components that make up the semantic function of a products

message: to identify, to exhort, to describe, to express. The two

websites used for the study were the site for Santa Maria Ltd., a

spice company, and Hansen and Partners, an event company. These

sites were viewed by 20 people and evaluated based on the

response metrics listed previously. The conclusion of the study

was discussed and the end of the article and the factorsaffecting semantic expression and emotional response were

detailed.

Critique

This article was very thorough in its development and explanation

of a topic that many of its readers were most likely not familiar

with, marketing. The link between the look of the web page and

emotion that it elicits for its viewers might be an aspect that

is overlooked especially in a field like education. An educator

might be too focused on the content of the site without regards

to how the site affects the viewers. The message can be lost if

the viewer cannot connect to the material due to poor design. I

liked reading about the design of commercial websites and

comparing them to the academic websites that I have viewed and


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created. I believe there are similar goals for both types of

websites because, ultimately, they are promoting something for a

consumer. The results of the study can really influence thought

that I put into the designs of future websites. I shall based

more of the design on the impact on the external viewer more thanmy personal preferences.

Citation

Weltzer-Ward, L. and Brown, A. (2008). Instructional design and

development utilizing technology: a student perspective.

PWASET, 34, 725-728.

Summary

This articles details the used of the ADDIE method for examining

computer-based educational material from the perspective of

design student. The article is written by a Ph.D student in an

online universitys Educational Technology program and is written

in a first person style and details the personal experience of a

student completing a project in design. The beginning of the

article outlines the pre-production and planning of the students

design project including a brief description of ADDIE. Next, a

description of the needs, task and learner analysis implemented

by the student is explained along with the subsequent design of

instruction. The author then explained the process for uploading

the content to a webpage using html and the usability and

formative testing. The article concludes with a discussion on the

impact of exploring the student perspective on design projects

and by providing some guidelines for future design projects.

Critique

The use of the students perspective in the implementation of

design was highly effective from the perspective of a fellow

student. Students are often given completed examples of the work

that is expected but rarely if even get glimpses of the process.


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This end-product driven instruction is exactly what should be

avoided in our own classrooms but seems fairly unavoidable in the

online classroom format. I personally found this article to be

very informative because one often focuses too much on the actual

design of the website and does not put the correct emphasis onthe content. The content of the site should be examined and

applied to the same process as a regular instructional unit

because the goals of the content are the same. I would have

enjoyed more details on the process of adapting the material

developed with the usability of the site. It was mentioned that

several aspects were modified but most of the information was

left out.

Citation

Park, Y. (2007). Empowering the user as the new media

participant. Digital Creativity, 18(3), 175-186

Summary

This articles examines web design not through established metrics

like graphic design and usability but by alternate

conceptualizations of the user experience. The beginning of the

article describes the limitation of traditional graphic design to

the visual experience where as the actual experience of the

website is made up of visual, tactile and auditory stimuli that

all have to work in harmony. The author stresses that a

divergence from traditional design must take place. The next

section of the article explores empowering the user as an active

participant in the process of design. The author describes how

the user is both active and interactive in the web environment

and that the design should reflect that. The last section

details the classification of the internet user into three

progressively more active and eventually interactive levels of

engagement: audience, user and new media participant. The author

explains that the designer must take into account the various


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expense of many of the innovations. The next section of the

article details the methodology of the review including the

development of the accessibility evaluation tool and the listing

of the self-described limitations of the review. The results of

the reviewed were listed in the next section and detailed thattwenty design guidelines were focused on and put into chart form.

The guidelines resulted in 187 separate design recommendations,

however, many of the recommendations overlapped resulting in the

identification of only 86 unique recommendations. The final

section of the article discusses the design implication on the

cognitive impaired users and the possible trends in accessibility

as reflected in the compiled list of guidelines.

Critique

I believe that the article is thorough in its process and gives a

lot of information that is readily accessible in chart form. I do

find several points of contention within the article that might

either reflect a lack of knowledge of the subject by the author

or may be a product of the time in which it was written. I

completely disagree with the assertion in the discussion section

of the article that the divide between the web and users with

cognitive impairment will widen over time. I believe that theauthor has completely overlooked the impact that interactivity

has had on the overall experience of the web. Now sites are

developed in a multi-sensory manner that greatly increases access

to those with cognitive impairments. I recently implemented a web

2.0 tool that is a talking avatar. For my students who cannot

read this tool allows me to electronically communicate to them as

clearly as if I were standing in front of them. Not only does

this particular tool allow for m to communicate with them, it

also allows the student to communicate back. There are many other

new tools out there that are free that have greatly improved

accessibility.

Citation


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Wisniewski, J. (2008). The new rules of web design. Online,

32(2), 55-57.

Summary

This article discusses the juxtaposition of the new wen2.0 tools

and social networking aspects with the solid foundations of web

design in the new web site for librarians. The first part of the

article details the use of Google as an exemplar of the

simplicity mantra to other web designers because of its scaled-

back look and ease of use. The author states that this is a

flawed exemplar because Google has one function whereas most

other sites aspire to have multiple functions and must reflect

that in their designs. Most of the web, the article argues, is

based on multiple experiences where richness, interactivity, and

personalization rule (55). The article suggests that designers

should focus on how they are engaging users with their content

and design. The next section discusses the antiquation of the old

rules of site design and how they need to be forgotten by the new

designer. The following section details the technically aspects

of updating sites such as check browser compatibility and flash

enabled features. The last section restates the importance of

incorporating aspects of new design that reflect the emergence ofWeb 2.0 and social networking into the overall design of the

site.

Critique

The article is written in a very basic and strictly informative

style that allows for quick access to the desired information but

does not allow for in depth analysis of the key points. Though

the article was meant for librarian webmasters, all of the points

easily transfer to the concerns that any education designer may

have. Educational sites such as the ones that I am trying to

develop seem to be a nice blend of a strictly academic site such

as those that would be the focus of this article and the strictly

commercial or entertainment sites that many of us visit daily.

Because of this hybrid nature I enjoy being able to read about


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the concerns on both poles of designing and take into account the

concerns and suggestions each have.

Citation

Pravettoni, G.; Leotta, N.; Lucchiari (2008). The eye caught in

the Net: a study on attention and motivation in virtual

environment exploration. European Journal of Cognitive

Psychology, 20(5), 955-966.

Summary

This article attempts to explain the dynamic relationship between

external and internal factors that affect users attention by

conducting two experiments that test various factors that

influence attention. The first part of the article describes the

basic of visual design as it relates to attention and lists six

features that draw users attention: motion, size, color, text-

style, presence of images and elemental positioning. The author

gives a brief explanation of the implications of these items on

design then discusses the design of banners and their uses of the

attention devices. The author purports that since banners utilize

these design elements yet fail to attract the full attention of

the user there must be more elements to the attraction of

attention. In the next section the article describes the first

experiment and states that it is a centered around the use of

advertising banners. The experiment had eighty participants that

viewed a series of web pages each with banners of varying designs

and were given a survey at the end of the allotted time. The

results showed that the banners proved to be only distracting

stimuli and did not attract genuine attention. The second

experiment mimicked the first experiment though replaced the

banner advertisements with pop-up advertisements. The pop-up

style had little impact but if the content was related to the

original content of the page it proved to attract more attention.

The conclusion of the experiments is that external stimuli alone


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do not completely control the attention of the user since the

style of the banner or pop-up had any direct relation to the

amount of attention paid to it.

Critique

Though the experiments were well designed and were reported

thoroughly in the article I did not see how the authors took the

results and derived their conclusions with any certainty. Pop-ups

and banners are inherently avoided by experienced web users and

therefore carry an inherent stigma which should corrupt the

experiment. I wished that the experiment were designed around

something that was more neutral which would lead to more solid

results. Beyond the flaws of the experiments, I believe that the

examination of attention and distracting stimuli has a lot of

implications on educational design of web sites because a well

design site needs to avoid distractions completely in order for

its content goal to be fully realized. I find this realization

quite helpful when applying it to my own thoughts about design. I

initially want to attract the attention of my user and maintain

that focus throughout my content. I also would like to avoid

distraction and now realize that I must limit distracting stimuli

from my site.

Citation

Knight, E.; Gunawardena, C.; Aydin, C. (2009). Cultural

interpretations of the visual meaning of icons and images used in

North American web design. Educational Media International,

46(1), 17-35.

Summary

The focus of this article was an international online study of

icons and images commonly used on American academic websites.

The article explains that students from Morocco, turkey Sri Lanka


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and the United States were used in the study. In the introduction

the authors explain the implications of an increasingly

interconnected world filled with multiple cultures on the use of

icons and imagery in academic websites. The article states that

there is an ongoing issue with implied and inferred meaning oficons across cultures and that instead of globalization of

messaging there is a shift toward Americanization. In the first

section of the article the authors give a brief background of how

icons are used as graphic representation of concepts and that the

icons can either have close or abstract association to what they

represent. The article further states that icons often use

culturally accepted representations that can lead to weak

associations outside the original culture. The design limitations

are detailed in the next few paragraphs of the article and then

it shifts to a discussion on the cultural impact of icons. The

next section describes the purpose, method, procedure and

instrumentation of the study of the icons. How the many students

interpreted various icons such as the under construction, search

and tech support icon were discussed in the next section. The

last section included the findings of the study as well as

listing tables that include the raw data with the images used in

the study.

Critique

This article was very complete and thorough and included a great

deal of background information on the matter so that an

uninformed reader would be able to fully comprehend the

implications of the study. Some of the results were not presented

in a way that allowed for easy understanding and therefore some

of the goals of the paper could be lost to the layperson. I

wondered why the countries included in the study, excluding the

U.S., were all primarily Muslim countries. I thought that this

probably skewed the results. A more diverse sampling would have

made the results more legitimate. Though my class rarely includes

international cultures it does contain a variety of age, ethnic

and socio-economic cultural differences common to American


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society. Also, my particular cultural background is not shared by

any of my students. I have not thought about the disconnect that

may be occurring in my web design due to these differences. I am

sure to keep in mind the differences in the visual literacy of my

students because of the ideas raised in this article.

Citation

Friedman, J. (2009). A note on the type. Technology Review,

112(6), 76-77.

Summary

This article focused on the use of fonts in the design of the

web. The beginning of the article states that the web was

initially populated with the 10 core fonts that were prepackaged

in the windows operating system in 1996 but as the complexities

of the web have increased the need for more legible and flexible

fonts have also risen. The article states that the average user

would not be aware of the deficiency because many advertisements

and logos are produced as images. 12 years ago Microsoft

developed the Embedded Open Type (EOT) to allow many different

fonts to be used on the web and to allow their code to be

encrypted but it was not supported by multiple browser types and

web designers ignored it. According to the article, Microsoft is

again attempting to establish EOT despite competition from open-

source browsers like Mozilla who have developed an unencrypted

form of font sharing. Alternatives have been developed that seek

a middle ground such as the Web Open Font Format and Typekit the

article states.

Critique

Though this article is clearly written for the industry insider

with IT jargon, Microsoft has open[ed] up the proprietary

components of EOT (76), it has some definite value for the

causal web designer. As a non-professional web designer, I would


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have loved to hear more about how web browsers encode font and

what some of the compatibility issues are with different

browsers. Other than that I thought the article was very

informative. Font usage lends a highly personalized touch to your

sight and allows for the designer to add their personality to aproject without adding too much distraction. I wondered why there

was such a limited font set available to me when I was working on

my wiki and it never occurred to me that there would be

formatting issues for such a simple and seemingly unimportant

characteristic of the site. I thought this article was extremely

valuable to me because it exposed me to some of the forgotten or

overlooked issues that are present in the world of web design.

Vandenbark, T. (2010). Tending a wild garden: library web design

for persons with disabilities.Information

Technology and Libraries, 3, 23-29.

Summary

This article is an attempt to describe some of the best practices

for librarians to open up accessibility of the web to people with

disabilities through a discussion of current challenges and

standards for web design and by including recommendations on best

practices. The first section of the article reviews the various

laws already in place for individuals with disabilities including

the ADA 1990 and 1973 and how they affect the implementation and

accessibility of technology. Because the acts predate most

current technology use, the article lists 16 interpretations by

the Peoples with Disability Access board of the various

components of the ADAs and how they affect technology. The next

section details the efforts of an organization, Web Accessibility

Initiative of the W3C, to set guidelines for compliance of ADA

which were organized into an acronym P.O.U.R.(Perceivable,

Operable, Understandable, Robust). The last section of the

article lists actual implementation recommendation for libraries

for the three types of web-based resources provided by these


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institutions: internet access, subscription databases and the

librarys home site. The article describes some specific

assistive technology software and hardware that may be purchased

by the libraries as well as some actual redesign that can take

place to increase accessibility.

Critique

The article was well written and included many specific

guidelines and recommendations for its reader to internalize. The

one problem with the raw listing of the 16 Access Board

recommendations is that I would have like the author to interpret

those recommendations and condense them into a more accessible

and practical format. I wanted to know what those recommendations

currently and potentially mean to the implementation of

technology. The article was written for librarians but most of

the issues translate well to the complications that may arise in

my own work. I teach a class of cognitive impairment students and

have a class website that I expect them to access so I will try

to implement the listed recommendations for my own site.

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