Style Sheet Assignment

This assignment was actually more difficult than I thought it would be. I have never done anything like this before and had a hard time editing this due to not being familiar with the content and it caused me to be hesitant about changing certain things. I was able to make sure things were formatted correctly and spent the time to make sure the pictures had captions and were cited in text so people could easily reference them. This assignment showed me the importance of following the guidelines to make it as easy as possible for the readers. The guidelines are set in place to make it simple. There is an abundance of information and its hard to see through it for editing purposes. I was ok at organizing and making the headings different or the same based on what was needed but it was not easy by any stretch. I think this was a great introduction to style sheets and how they are used to help edit digital works.

Immersive Pedagogy: Developing a Decolonial and Collaborative Framework for Teaching and Learning in 3D/VR/AR

Lorena Gauthereau, Jessica Linker, Emma Slayton, and Alex Wermer-Colan

Abstract

In June 2019, a cohort of CLIR postdoctoral fellows convened Immersive Pedagogy: A Symposium on Teaching and Learning with 3D, Augmented and Virtual Reality at Carnegie Mellon University. The symposium sought to bring together a multidisciplinary group of collaborators to think through pedagogical issues related to using 3D/VR/AR technologies, as well as to produce and disseminate materials for teaching and learning. This essay presents the Immersive Pedagogy symposium as a model for interrogating and developing pedagogical practices and standards for 3D/VR/AR; we offer a decolonial, anti-ableist, and feminist pedagogical framework for collaboratively developing and curating humanities content for this emerging technology by summarizing the symposium’s keynotes, workshops, as well as its goals and outcomes. Workshops, keynotes, and participant conversations engaged with decolonial and feminist methodologies, practiced accessible design for universal learning, offered templates for humanistic teaching, and illustrated the possibilities of using 3D/VR/AR to extend critical thinking. While 3D/VR/AR technologies demonstrate real possibilities for collaborative, multidisciplinary learning, they are also fraught with broader concerns prevalent today about digital technologies, as well as complex issues specific to 3D/VR/AR. There is a clear need to assemble academic practitioners on a regular basis in order to facilitate an ongoing discussion about 3D/VR/AR technology and its responsible, meaningful use in teaching and learning.

Introduction

As access to three dimensional (3D) technologies has become increasingly available in academic venues, the desire to teach with these emerging technologies, particularly augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), has outpaced digital humanists’ abilities to provide meaningful support for immersive projects. There is a growing and ongoing need to produce shared and open pedagogical materials adaptable to the needs of teachers in various professions and disciplines and are accessible to students without significant coding experience. This need is partially driven by the contingencies of relatively new and rapidly updating technologies, as well as the fact that support for commercially available immersive tools are tailored for industry purposes. Game-driven tutorials, for example, do not always take into consideration the needs of humanities practitioners seeking to integrate critical thinking with technical mastery. Problematically, contemporary contexts for emerging technologies can structure our interactions with 3D/VR/AR. Though not always visible to users, these can have the effect of naturalizing problematic historical and political narratives through selective access to resources and functionality.

Nonetheless, game engines that offer free educational licenses have been repurposed for academic inquiry and teaching over the past decade. For example, Unity Technologies’ Unity 3D game engine is utilized by over 4.5 million users and has been at the forefront of historical and archaeological 3D visualizations in scholarly research. First available in 2005, the Unity 3D game engine has been used to make approximately 60% of all AR/VR applications and is used by 90% of AR/VR companies (“Public Relations” 2019, np). Educational licenses are available for students and educators seeking to use the engine for scholarly or creative use. Its main competitor, the Unreal Engine, while initially inaccessible beyond professional and academic moneyed institutions with licenses, dropped its paywall for educational use in September 2014. VR headsets, once a hypothetical fantasy or niche short-lived technology, are now commercially viable and relatively inexpensive for institutions to purchase, if not students. In a few years, the financial barrier for individuals may diminish, while Google Cardboards and other less expensive stereoscopic viewers with fewer interactive features currently provide alternatives for undergraduate students with access to smartphones. However, students are also increasingly able to make use of 3D/VR/AR technology within dedicated spaces in academic libraries, maker spaces, media studios, and community outreach centers. Yet we would be remiss not to point out that access is still mediated by other social hierarchies; the technology is still not accessible in much of the Global South, and in marginalized communities across the world. These aforementioned developments still privilege students at institutions that have dedicated staff or faculty to maintain and encourage use of 3D/VR/AR technologies and facilities.

This is all to say that in our current 3D/VR/AR moment, digital humanists have a lot to navigate. Current 3D/VR/AR pedagogy and projects can pose problems related to accessibility and long-term preservation of projects and assets, and often run afoul of minimal computing recommendations. Yet the technology offers rich possibilities for multidisciplinary research and collaboration; many virtual reality projects combine art production, computing, archival research, network theory, and data visualization, among other practices. Given its potential for scholarship and teaching, understanding how to use the technology responsibly seems to necessitate engaging with current or learning practitioners to get a sense of what is now possible and what still needs to be done to facilitate productive use of 3D/VR/AR. As many key problems are likely to persist through subsequent permutations of the technology and its use in educational settings, this conversation needs to be ongoing and open. What humanists within and beyond the academy have to say about 3D/VR/AR will probably not be unique to humanistic inquiry. This dialogue will provide crucial critical approaches to the emerging technologies’ advantages and limitations that will be of use to industry professionals as well as the casual, creative user. A vocal contingent of humanists seeking to think and learn with 3D/VR/AR may, in fact, fill a wider sociocultural need.

This is the context in which a small cohort of 2017-2019 Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Postdoctoral Fellows organized Immersive Pedagogy: A Symposium on Teaching and Learning with 3D, Augmented and Virtual Reality at Carnegie Mellon University on June 26 and 27, 2019. The CLIR cohort included Lorena Gauthereau (University of Houston), Jessica Linker (Bryn Mawr College), Eric Kaltman (Carnegie Mellon University), Emma Slayton (Carnegie Mellon University), Neil Weijer (Johns Hopkins University), Alex Wermer-Colan (Temple University), and Chris Young (University of Toronto). The goal of this symposium was to assemble a wide range of stakeholders to develop teaching materials and strategies that considered problems inherent and specific to immersive technologies, as well as to address problems that affect but are not unique to 3D/VR/AR. It is for this reason the symposium was so attentive to decolonial and feminist methodologies in thinking about appropriate pedagogical applications. Building on the previous work of scholars such as María Cotera, Elizabeth Losh, Tara McPherson, Angel Nieves, Roopika Risam, and Jacqueline Wernimont, we have advocated for an intersectional digital humanities that interrogates a wide range of technologies through the critical methods developed by the fields of ethnic and feminist studies. Such methods, we argue, can highlight the ways that technologies often leave out marginalized people by replicating colonial hierarchical structures including race, ethnicity, class, gender, and disability.

The Immersive Pedagogy symposium offered an early, if not first-of-its-kind opportunity to have productive conversations about what critical approaches to 3D/VR/AR could look like from a multidisciplinary and multi-professional perspective. Additionally, the symposium sought to seed collaborations within and beyond academic institutions and stand as a model for future conversations on these topics. In recounting our experiences with different applications of 3D/VR/AR technology in pedagogical spaces, the group tackled a number of thorny issues, while acknowledging that we would need to continue the dialogue by reconvening in person and in digital venues. We sought to develop teaching materials collaboratively with the long-term plan of sharing these resources through a variety of means, including open-access publications by organizations like the Digital Library Federation. In the remainder of this essay, the Immersive Pedagogy organizers describe the symposium’s theoretical foundation and methodological approaches as a model for structuring communities around 3D/VR/AR, summarize some of our group’s findings, and invite digital humanities practitioners to help us to continue this work.

Structuring a Symposium on Decolonial Models of Immersive Pedagogy

Because the initiative was organized by CLIR postdoctoral fellows, the symposium emphasized diverse ways that libraries participate in creating, curating, and preserving 3D/VR/AR pedagogical materials. We considered faculty, staff, and students as equal partners in 3D/VR/AR projects, and aimed to include early career researchers at the table. Overarching goals for the symposium included teaching faculty and librarians how to support and enable learning for students using 3D technologies, but also to help students to disseminate skills within their own communities. By bringing together scholars from a wide range of disciplines and professions, we addressed problems while identifying new ones. Participants had the opportunity to share links and descriptions to their projects (current and in progress) with each other prior to the symposium, via a Slack channel and Google Docs. They also shared information on their work during a lightning talk round as examples of the kinds of humanistic projects 3D/VR/AR could cultivate. The symposium began and ended with keynotes from experienced practitioners whose work modeled creative and responsible uses of the technologies.

Our opening keynote speaker, Angel Nieves, pictured in Figure 1 (Associate Professor of History and Digital Humanities at San Diego State University), presented “Developing a Social Justice Framework for Immersive Technologies in Digital Humanities” seen in Figure 2. Nieves’s talk outlined strategies for achieving social justice through digital-supported inquiry, highlighting his own work on Mapping Soweto, a 3D reconstruction of apartheid South Africa. Nieves emphasized the need to ground digital work in women of color theory and argued that fields such as ethnic studies have developed a foundational structure that would benefit the field of digital humanities as a whole:

If we brought the sorts of methodological and practice-based questions about power, privilege, and access from ethnic studies to our work in immersive technologies, we might begin to see new ways of harnessing these tools–that originated as part of the military industrial complex–to serve our social justice needs. (Nieves 2019)

Mapping Soweto draws from Belinda Robtnett’s (1997) work on social movement theory, revealing the often messy, multilayered narratives of social movements by visualizing a map of spatial liberation. This 3D representation shows what Nieves terms an “intersectional cartography,” or a network of social activists–especially networks of women and young girls–across townships “and how those activist networks were embedded into the physical geography and vernacular architecture of individual houses, streets, and neighborhoods” (Nieves 2019). Attention to intersectionality further reveals the ways multiple identities–township, gender, sexual orientation, class, and race–came together to form a cohesive activist movement, whose complexities are often lost in the official retelling of history. In particular, Nieves identified immersive technologies as one way to “re-establish coalition-building potential” (2019) with local communities and reminded us that the important work of recovering marginalized histories for social justice is often messy.

Figure 1. Angel Nieves as a keynote speaker at the symposium

Figure 2. Angel Nieves presents “Developing a Social Justice Framework for Immersive Technologies in Digital Humanities” at the Immersive Pedagogy symposium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsJQg69nB90&list=PLbkhiRA2P3qIPV5hrdVmIwWN3lcEiKzy8

Our closing keynote speaker, Juliette Levy (Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Riverside), presented “How Not to be a Replicant: Working Towards a Useful VR.” Working with a team of women programmers, Levy has developed VR simulations for teaching abstract concepts related to historical thinking, interpretation, and writing. Levy’s keynote presentation focused on the question of gaming and interactivity; she traced the origin of her experimentations in VR from teaching large lecture classes numbering in the hundreds in hybrid and online courses. Rather than approach VR in the mode of cultural heritage projects, reproducing a historical location, to deal with pedagogical problems commonly experienced in online learning, Levy’s team built Digital Zombies,^[i] an abstract simulation meant to introduce students through game-based learning to the hierarchy of library information and assessment of primary and secondary resources. Levy envisioned a VR environment for her historical research methods class that not only encouraged students to follow a written outline of research steps, but to extend their library experience in a more immersive, playful way by completing a series of game-like missions related to research that students would be more likely to remember. Levy argued that the cognitive effect of a VR experience has a lasting impact on users: “What matters about doing something in VR isn’t about what happens in VR, but what happens outside of VR, after the VR experience” (Levy 2019). Yet, despite the advantages of VR, Levy warned that a lack of critical conversation and pedagogy around digital literacy can have dire consequences, as increasingly ubiquitous immersive technologies become exploited to misrepresent historical events. The stakes for fomenting critical conversations between technology creators, consumers, and scholars, therefore, are quite high, as they could have lasting effects on how people choose to build and interpret virtual representations of historical events and people.

Figure 3. Juliette Levy presents “How Not to be a Replicant: Working Towards a Useful VR” at the Immersive Pedagogy symposium.

The symposium included five workshops that centered theory, methods, and practices significant to and capable of incubating pedagogy related to US Latinx, Latin American, and Caribbean studies, which we prioritized when considering applicants. The workshop topics were: 1) Decolonial Methodology and Theory, 2) Accessible Immersive Pedagogy, 3) Integrating Immersive Technology in the Classroom, 4) Critical Writing for Immersive Tech, and 5) Collaboratively Designing 3D/VR Experiences. The Immersive Pedagogy organizers, joined by Jasmine Clark (Temple University) and Juliette Levy, pictured in Figure 3, led the participants through these interactive workshops (“Program” 2019). Pedagogical content crafted by participants before, during, and after the symposium included a bibliography of 3D/VR/AR-related readings, an archive of workshop slides, video recordings of keynote presentations, adaptable templates for pedagogical activities, and working models of 3D/VR/AR pedagogical applications. For example, Kat Hayes and Samantha Porter submitted a video walkthrough of their IOS app Virtual MISLS that explores historic buildings at Fort Snelling, while Meaghan Moody and Carol Salmon submitted a description of their work with students using a virtual map of historic Paris to better understand life under German occupation during World War II.

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Libraries hosts the symposium’s materials on its institutional repository, KiltHub. KiltHub provides stable, long-term global open-access storage for 3D/VR/AR assets, and functional applications, as well as pedagogical and technical documentation. Materials in this repository are held for a minimum of ten years, ensuring that what is submitted will remain available past typical terms of software updates. The teaching materials produced during and following the symposium will also be published in the Digital Library Federation’s Pedagogy Working Groups open-access series, the DLF Teach Toolkit. The materials will be revised and tested, including during a pre-conference workshop at DLF’s Annual Forum 2020. Figure 4 shows a discussion at the event.

Figure 4. Immersive Pedagogy Symposium participants in discussion.

The following essay sections explore the key components of the symposium, which outlined the theoretical foundations to decolonizing development and curation of 3D/VR/AR tech, before guiding participants through workshops on decolonial critique and accessible design, on integrating immersive technology into the classroom and beyond, and on collaboratively designing 3D/VR projects.

GSR Submission

My time in Quarantine

By: Jacob Tatum

Quarantine was not my dream.

I should be at school, since it is the spring.

I know it’s the right thing to do, but it still feels wrong.

I can hear the birds singing outside, but they don’t know what’s wrong.

I hope and pray quarantine doesn’t last too long.

My house is where I have to be.

I have a glimpse of what it’s like to be in prison;

No end in sight and my thoughts race all night.

Waiting for the day things will be alright.

So I can go back to my old life.

Why do I keep waking up in the middle of the night?

I try to sleep right but my mind always fights:

This isn’t where I should be.

I should be back in MD,

Just my friends and me.

I’m bored.

They all say we are in the same boat,

That’s no way to quarantine.

We are all just trying to get through this thing,

By effective social distancing.

My dog loves it.

He seems so happy,

having a friend to hang with every day,

He trots and plays,

Probably wondering why I am home all day.

The media spits out content.

It’s never positive, but what else is on?

Sports are gone.

All we can do as society is hang on,

And wait for the day the coronavirus is gone.

HTML Assignment

Most of my work was done within the last week with me doing 3 or 4 subjects each day. I did the try it yourself sections first and then the exercises. I learned the basics of HTML and it was not as bad as it seemed. I understand that I would need more practice but as for a basic understanding of HTML I enjoyed it. I can know use color, titles, headings, paragraphs, and images effectively within HTML. I completed the work by just practicing or rewriting what was given and trying to get it to make sense to me. I encountered problems in some areas with missing punctuation and it frustrated me because I couldn’t figure out how to get it to work right. I found the color and headings sections easier because it set the basis and became easier as I went along. The CSS and links section were the most difficult for me since I really had never seen anything like that before and there was a lot of stuff going on within each exercise to make it work. If something was input wrong it took a little while to find the problem.

I had never done coding before this I thought it was really hard to learn and do. I don’t like it but I understand it is necessary in order to make a website. I don’t like all the techy IT stuff so this was hard for me but I now know a little bit about it. I will not be putting it on my resume as I don’t trust myself to be able to keep up with it or even want to do it. It isn’t the area I want to go into so I don’t feel it is crucial for me to have listed as a skill on my resume. I want to do Sales of some kind so building a website is not in my job description but I am glad to have a better understanding of what HTML is and looks like.

In the basic section, I learned about headings, paragraphs, and links and how to create them and effectively put them into a document. The elements section helps me further understand what each symbol meant which really allowed me to understand why each symbol was used and the meaning behind it.

I also learned about attributes and how they add meaning to the HTML elements. Next, we learned about Headings and the different ways to use and change them to fit the needs of the site. Paragraphs were almost the same as headings in that I was just learning how to format and set them up in different ways.

The styles and formatting section gave me a glimpse of how really tie the site together with looks of Titles and paragraphs. Everything from color to text size helps a site give off an impression. Formatting is effective in fixing mistakes or making minuscule changes in the words or colors. I liked this the best because I enjoy editing work to make it sound the best it can.

Quotations and comments helped me figure out the right way to set up quotes within a site as well as comments. This allows the reader to write something on the site or see who said something. It is basic but very important. I learned about short and long quotes along with things like abbreviations.

The color section focused on how to use different colors within the site from background to actual text. The CSS section taught me about style sheets and how it can be added to HTML in inline, internal, or external. This is a great way to save time and hold information. I found this section the hardest because of how many little details were needed to make it work properly.

Lastly, the links and Images sections gave basic instructions on how to use both within a site. I included formatting and captions for images and gave pointers on how to set up links for easy usage.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yHSkaBYgjGTcZjQrYJN_LrBJy5e61CtK

Poster Assignment

Audience:

It is important to note that colorblind people can still see color. The colors just blend making it harder to differentiate them. Some cases are more severe than others but the majority of people are red/green colorblind. People who are red/green colorblind “generally have difficulty distinguishing between reds, greens, browns and oranges. They also commonly confuse different types of blue and purple hues” (“Types of Colour Blindness”) according to Colourblindawarness.org. This can make things problematic as websites try to be creative with the color scheme and layout but it can cause major problems for colorblind people. UX Collective states that “Statistically speaking most people with a moderate form of red/green color blindness will only be able to identify accurately 5 or so colored pencils from a standard box of 24 pencil crayons” (Tuchkov). Colorblind people can struggle navigating sites because of the wide range of colors and the failure of sites to differentiate links, error messages, and titles from normal information. The lack of accommodation for their condition can cause lots of frustration when trying to find information on a site efficiently.

Do’s:

Some things to help colorblind people navigate a specific website include using text labels for things with color. If a picture features a girl in a yellow dress then the label could explain that to help the viewer understand and not feel left out. Another thing to do is to use thicker lines. This allows the site to be separated into sections for the viewer. The use of colors and symbols together will allow colorblind people to understand what they mean. Red usually means something is wrong in a box or with the site but adding an exclamation point or the word “stop” will help colorblind users to know that something is wrong. Patterns and textures are also an effective method for accommodating colorblind users. Graphs, charts, and backgrounds with different patterns and textures are easy to differentiate from one another. Lastly, a tip is to underline links to other articles so these viewers can find it instead of scrolling over every word to see if it leads them to another page. It saves time and keeps mindless scrolling down.

Don’t:

Some things that should be avoided include colors that are problematic like red/green and blue/purple. Another thing that should be avoided is the use of thin lines. It is hard to distinguish and might not be effective in separating sections from one another. Do not use optional fields when asking for information as colorblind people can’t distinguish the color of the required vs. optional fields. Just have boxes for the required information so they know what is needed without any confusion. Another aspect to avoid color-wise is low contrast colors like red/orange and green/yellow. Close color combinations make it especially hard to decipher what color the background of words are in. Lastly, don’t link articles or the next page without adding a symbol or line to it. Viewers will lose their patience if they are looking for a specific link or next page button and can’t find it because it blends in with the rest of the site.

Aesthetic:

The aesthetic-usability effect is a component of designing a site to accommodate colorblind users. This effect refers to the user’s tendencies to perceive attractive products as more useable. One site described that “Users are more likely to want to try a visually appealing site, and they’re more patient with minor issues” (The Aesthetic-Usability Effect). For colorblind people, the use of symbols, thick lines, and quality color combinations help them perceive the site better because they can use it and it makes sense to them. If they instantly can navigate and understand the site they are more likely to put up with some issues since it is aesthetically pleasing to them. Another component of the aesthetic when designing for colorblind people is to make clickable links recognizable. An article that focused on this stated that designers need to “test [their] color choice for hyperlinks to make sure that people who have colorblindness can spot them easily” (Beyond Blue Links). The site also explains how the site needs to make clickable text universal throughout the site so colorblind viewers can easily recognize it. Whether it be the design around it, underline, or symbol next to it, it needs to be consistent around the site so people know where to click when they want more information or want to change pages.

References

Tuchkov, Ivan. “Color Blindness: How to Design an Accessible User Interface.” Medium, UX Collective, 1 Mar. 2019, uxdesign.cc/color-blindness-in-user-interfaces-66c27331b858.

“Types of Colour Blindness.” Colour Blind Awareness, www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/types-of-colour-blindness/.

World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience. “The Aesthetic-Usability Effect.” Nielsen Norman Group, www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/.

World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience. “Beyond Blue Links: Making Clickable Elements Recognizable.” Nielsen Norman Group, www.nngroup.com/articles/clickable-elements/.

Usability Summary

Preventing User Errors: Avoiding Unconscious Slips

User errors are commonly referred to as being the user’s fault but the real blame falls on the designer for making the mistake too easy for the user to commit. Slips usually occur by people who usually know how to navigate the site but don’t devote their full attention and end up coasting. The design of the site should gently guide users on the right path so there are fewer chances for slips to happen. One way to do this is to add helpful constraints. If people need to input some type of personal information or card number you want to make sure the site helps them know when something isn’t right. It allows the user to fix it before it becomes an error that can’t be fixed. This is helpful in situations where clear rules are required. Another helpful site characteristic is offering suggestions. Having suggestions for what the user is typing in the search bar can help with mistakes like typo errors. The next point is about setting good defaults. Providing good defaults gives the user a starting point for them to adjust from without them having to make it up. It lessens the chance that it gets screwed up and creates an opportunity for the user to change the default to fit their needs. It is also important to use forgiving formatting. Splitting up sections so that users can discern information is a key step in creating a site easier for users. People can’t comprehend lots of information at one time and they will also make mistakes. Making it easy for those slips to be fixed will allow their site visit to be a more positive experience.

Slips happen when people are not fully engaged in the task and hand but it is still up to the designers of the site to guide people with precision and reduce burdens for the user.

World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience. “Preventing User Errors: Avoiding Unconscious Slips.” Nielsen Norman Group, www.nngroup.com/articles/slips/.

Accessibility Article Summary

I chose the article titled “#OpenAPS, Nightscout, and User-Driven Design for Type 1 Diabetes Technology”

Designers try to help those who are disabled by designing assistive technology to help the disabled better function in everyday life. These designers fail to consider a major aspect of creating their designs which are the end-user. They try to correct the impairment making it seem as if the disabled are wrong and not normal. Designers need to be asking for feedback from the end-user to better make a product that fits their specific disability needs.

One main design process involves input from disabled individuals at every stage in the process. It does have flaws in the fact that not all users will get to contribute as much as others. One project that allows a wider range of individual influence is the Nightscout project for type 1 diabetes. People who know language programming have a larger influence on this assistive technology but anyone with web access can make suggestions for the devices. It allows the technology to develop in direct response to those actually living with the disease. It widens the communication to take into account the multiple roles of those assistive devices. It makes sense to involve the end-user as much as possible as they will be the ones buying and using the product. This is very much easier said than done but the Nightscout project provides a basis to get more people involved and invested in the process and create an open environment that encourages all ideas. This is applicable to all new creations but there is never going to be a perfect process of getting user feedback. It takes time, patience, and focus to meet the needs of those wanting something specific from a project.

“#OpenAPS, Nightscout, and User-Driven Design for Type 1 Diabetes Technology.” The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/openaps-nightscout-and-user-driven-design-for-type-1-diabetes-technology/.

Greenspring Review Redesign

Site 1- https://greenspringreview.art.blog/

Effective

The what’s new category is a great way to show off events about to happen and get people involved.

The submissions tab is very well organized and the site explains exactly what they are looking for

The tabs are split into good sections and are easily accessible at any time since they do not leave the screen even if click you click one of them

I like the art that is displayed at the top of the home page. It is a great way to get a feel for the site and sets the tone for things that people will read on this site

I like the aspect of being able to share something from the site using the share buttons towards the bottom of the pages. It is easy to do as the buttons are easy to find.

Could use improvement

The color scheme doesn’t match and is very desaturated. For an art blog, I was expecting some bright colors and there are lots of grey and subtle colors to display titles.

The placing of the advertisements made the site seem tacky. There were 3 ads right next to each other all with different size boxes and it did not help the look of the site

The Facebook page and all the videos I think should be moved towards the bottom of the page or all be in one area together. It stays on every page and gets annoying to see every time you change to a new page

The background pattern is distracting. It isn’t adding anything to the site and takes away from the actual content.

There is a lot of white space around the site especially towards the bottom of the page. I feel like it could be better used and display more content.

Site 2- https://jennaaye.wordpress.com/

Effective

The title and logo are easy to read and provide a great overview of what the site is about. It explains all anyone needs to know about the site

I enjoy all the pictures around the site. They add color to pages and all fit within the theme of the site. It creates some good visuals to work with the content.

I like the transition from the top of the home page to the rest of the information on the site. It flows very well and is smooth.

I think the font is effective at being playful enough while not being distracting. It gets away from the fonts that are used over and over again which is a nice change of pace

The issues tab has a drop-down menu that lets you easily pick the category of literature or art an individual wants to look at or read.

Could use improvement

There is way too much white space. The pictures should be bigger and the stories should be centered if there isn’t going to be anything on the sides of the page

The advertisements were getting in the way of content and distracting me which should not happen. There is so much extra space for the advertisements to go so that they don’t interfere with the content.

I don’t like how when you click on a page the header at the top shows half the logo and almost all of the word review. Each of those things needs to fit within the header space or it needs to be changed

There really isn’t a color scheme. I thought that with green from the logo that some titles would also be green to match and that isn’t the case. It would provide more site unity if the same colors flowed throughout the site

The issue titles need to be larger. They are so close in size to the titles of the pieces and there is no reason for that. They should be larger to help me know the type of pieces in the section

Site 3- https://thegreenspringreview.art.blog/

Effective

I think the logo does a great job of portraying what the site is about in addition to the title. They work very well together and give some visual to what is on this site.

The color scheme is effective. It is not too flashy but creates a unity of the site by using the green, black, and gray together.

The organization is effective. Everything on the submission page was bulleted properly and all in the same row which made it easy to follow as you scroll down.

The navigation bar is bolded which makes it easy to find at all times. It stays in the same spot so people can return or change pages with ease.

This site gets to the point quickly and clearly. When you click on a topic it provides the most relevant information in an organized fashion

Could use improvement

The book background is very distracting and I think the site has enough as it is to not have to use the books as a background.
The navigation bar could use a bar underneath the words to separate it from the next title or picture. It would just be a divider that would break up the site more clearly.
The contact information for the site should be moved to the bottom of the page. I was looking for it and expected it to be at the bottom. It seems out of place being on the side of a page.
The event countdown portion needs to stand out more. It just blended into the site for me and it should stand out because you want everyone to see it and know what it is.
The site could use a few more pictures to make it flow better. It doesn’t have to be every page but some pictures of featured work or just of the school could add some quality life to the site.

UX Summary

Tyrkiel , Kalina. “7 Psychological Principles for Better UX.” LiveSession, 11 Dec. 2019, livesession.io/blog/7-psychological-principles-for-better-ux/.

The information came from the site livesession, whose goal is to help people understand consumer’s digital experiences. They provided great examples of not only the 7 psychological theories or ideas but gave examples related to UX and the design of websites for users.

UX designers need to understand how users think in order to answer problems people are facing and fix them efficiently and effectively. UX designers can use psychology to spot the areas that could use large or small amounts of improvement. There is no list of rules as to what users want but these psychological principles can be helpful. Understanding these basic principles can help reinvent a site to match the patterns of the user. Users expect some commonality with things like the x button being in the top left corner or the contact us button being somewhere near the bottom of the page. A designer has to understand the standards that users expect while also being creative. Users want to find things on sites with ease. Making everything on a site easy to find such as navigation bars to the placement of photos and content. Categorizing things that go together so the user can decide from the list and not have to figure out how to get to the list is another important aspect.

A website’s goal is appeal to the users’ needs and not what the designer thinks would be best. These principles can be applied to the Greenspring review as users want to put forth the least amount of effort possible in finding what they are looking for. Making things easier to find for them could attract more users and allow them to have a more favorable site experience.

TinHouse Rhetorical Analysis

Script for Voice Over

Introduction: The TinHouse literary magazine was created in 1999 to be a literary magazine for the every day or leisurely reader. It shares works of well-known and unknown authors as well as works produced by its own staff. The TinHouse literary magazine focuses more on producing and displaying well written and underappreciated pieces of literature than obtaining recognition for the site itself.

The first thing you notice when coming to the site is the blocky black text. The logo is subtle and practical which sets the basic theme of the site. The TinHouse centered title is on every page and allows an individual to return to the home screen at any time by just clicking on it. The next thing you notice is the rotating content portion featuring new information or pieces that were just released on the site. It rotates every seven seconds allowing the viewer to read the information and not have to wait a long period of time until the next one. The navigation bar underneath the TinHouse title has the three main subcategories listed. Once a subcategory is clicked there become more options on the navigation bar to further help someone find what they are looking for. It allows the individual to pick a specific genre or look at featured work. The next element of the site you will notice is a great balance of white space to content. It strikes a large enough space between works or pictures so the viewer knows where one ends and the next one begins. A visitor to the site would have no problem tracking from one box to another.

The works are categorized by rows with each row contains 4 literary pieces with the titles underneath and is easily organized for the visitor to look or browse a particular literary work. The font is very simple, easy to read, and is not intimidating. It is a basic font that does not distract the reader from the words. When looking at the books, they all have a different font than the title. The font is universal for all the titles of books and they have capitalized all the letters of the author’s name to make it easy to see who the work was created by. The site also provides descriptions of books that are coming soon to allow viewers to get a feel for what the book is about. It provides an in-depth look at unreleased books for readers to find the one that piques their interest. After the description of a book, the site provides reviews from other people or literary sources to give more perspective on the piece of literature. Color plays a part in the site because each book cover or magazine cover features its own unique identity and color scheme. Since the works are all written by different people with different styles the scheme is not going to be the same from piece to piece. The plain black and white scheme of the site allows the reader to be drawn to particular works without distractions.