Blog Topic #7: Net Neutrality

The concept of an internet that one can only access through having some form of membership is frightening. Yes, we are already paying for our internet access. Much like everything in life there is a price to enjoy a privilege, however, the concept of an internet service provider deciding how much of the internet you are able to see and at what price is downright frightening.

The internet you view in a community in El Paso, Texas won't necessarily be the same internet you view in a community in San Francisco, California. The argument can be made that this is just like cable tv providers. Every provider offers different stations, and depending on what region you live in you only have one choice for your cable company (apart from satellite tv). The difference is that most people experience the internet through the World Wide Web (key word WORLD) in which they are able to read news, view pages, communicate, send email, or chat live with ANYONE, ANYWHERE that has internet access. The idea of the World Wide Web is that it is global, transcending physical borders and boundaries, along with ideologies, beliefs, morals, creeds, prejudices, etc. Net neutrality would prevent favoritism to be shown towards technologies. Data would be available at a first come first serve basis, for example someone with a dial-up modem wouldn't be disconnected from a download to make way for someone downloading with a cable modem. Without net neutrality, internet providers theoretically could control how up to date your hardware and or software is by allowing certain aspects to load and run faster based on your equipment. Only those who could afford the latest cutting edge technology would be getting the full internet experience.

When corporations are able to then decide for you what information is available to your community, this can have a huge impact on those living in the community and their perception of the world. In addition to the implications of what is moral and decent for the community, there is the unfair advantage the service provider can have by excluding advertisements and access to websites for competing providers or companies they do business with.

In the end the user is the main one who loses. When the user is experiencing a filtered version of the internet, especially if it is unbeknownst to him or her, that person no longer has access to all the information the internet has to offer that someone in another community may have access to. The person is basically being discriminated against because of their geographic location. The ability to choose what content you view is now done for you. In addtion, small business owners loose too. Those who are unable to basically pay internet service providers for more preferential treatment will be lost in the bottom of the pile.

Blog Topic #6: What is Experience Design?

There is a very careful balance that must be made between experience design and usability. In order to create a design that is something cutting edge, by that very nature one must be doing something that hasn't been done before. This is where the dilemna between usability and experience designs. One of the main cannons of usability is to use the tried and true when designing a site. This will certainly stifle any attempt of a designer of a site with experience design in mind, who wants to create something unique. The way around this is to still follow some of the rules of usability, such as simple navigation and consistent control throughout the site. The idea is to keep the learning curve small. For a better understanding of experience design, one could look at the following excerpt from the wikipedia entry for experience design:

Experience design is not driven by a single design discipline. Instead, it requires a cross-discipline perspective that considers multiple aspects of the brand/business/environment/experience from product, packaging and retail environment to the clothing and attitude of employees. Experience design seeks to develop the experience of a product, service, or event along any or all of the following dimensions:

• Duration (Initiation, Immersion, Conclusion, and Continuation)
• Intensity (Reflex, Habit, Engagement)
• Breadth (Products, Services, Brands, Nomenclatures, Channels/Environment/Promotion, and Price)
• Interaction (Passive < > Active < > Interactive)
• Triggers (All Human Senses, Concepts, and Symbols)
• Significance (Meaning, Status, Emotion, Price, and Function)

While it's unnecessary (or even inappropriate) for all experiences to be developed highly across all of these dimensions, the more in-depth and consistently a product or service is developed across them — the more responsive an offering is to a group's or individual's needs and desires (e.g., a customer) it's likely to be. Enhancing the affordance of a product or service, its interface with people, is key to commercial experience design.

Here is an example of experience design. It is an endless zooming picture. You hit your left mouse button and drag up to zoom in, and you hit the left mouse button and drag down to zoom out.

www.feanor.net

Blog Topic #5: Usability

The best way to sum up usability in regards to a website is this: KEEP IT SIMPLE! A user scans the page for any information that is relevant. The links should be clearly marked and organized so they are readily available. Long blocks of text without any italic or bold words will be skipped over in favor of blocks of text with fewer words. Same goes for the overall layout. Whitespace is not a bad thing. Not every corner of the site needs to be crammed with content. Whitespace allows for the user to quickly divide content into smaller pieces of information and organize it. Testing early, and testing often are essential for solving usability issues before too much time and money has been invested into the site. When it comes to web design, doing what has proven to work in the past is the most effective approach since it dramatically shortens the learning curve.

Blog Topic#4: Customize This

I decided to make very few changes to customize my blog. The default template turned out to be the one I like most. I adjusted the colors to more of my liking and didn't bother changing the fonts. I'm usually really bad at choosing fonts for a web page and have at times completely left out any coding to stylize the text. Blogger certainly allows for a lot more modifications and also gives you access to the html of the page for more drastic changes.