Reflections

I have been blogging for more than 10 years. So when I found out about this assignment, I thought it was going to be a piece of cake. But I was definately wrong! My years of blogging was not for the professional audience. It was just a journal of my daily routines, mindless rantings, and others. This blog was a challenge to me. Though time consuming, I'm glad that the class was asked to create this blog.

This assignment taught me the changes that the blogger community have gone through. It may not be a huge difference, but nonetheless, it was an enriching experience. A blog is no longer a place where you can just tell the world about your lives. It has become a tool for professionals to communicate with their intended audience.

I have also learnt that designs in online publications is important in order to gain readership, which I failed to recognize during the first few years of my blogging stint. Through research, I have come to term with this problem, and decided to start anew, and apply what I have learnt in this module for my blog.

Internet Website Gazetted

Yesterday, online political website The Online Citizen, was gazetted as a political association under the Political Donations Act. Under this act, the website is not allowed to received donations above SGD 5,000 from anonymous donor or foreigners.

Singapore is known to be a country where media were controlled by the government. Is the government trying to control the media with the gazetting of The Online Citizen? The website is well-known for its anti-PAP (People's Action Party) and showing support for opposition parties. With the election around the corner, it is likely that the ruling party is threatened by the online activists.

We have noticed how powerful the Internet can be. By the looks of it, Singapore politics are slowly getting the impact. But with the government trying to gazette close in on political websites, will the power of the Internet prevails? So far, they have not penalise the website for any improper postings, but we will never know what will happen in the future.

Channel News Asia 2011, "The Online Citizen" gazetted as political association, 17 February, viewed 18 February 2011, http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1111384/1/.html

Less is More

A few posts ago, I mentioned that print and online publication should not have too many visuals or images. The video I found below will tell how to create designs without using graphics. The example shown was pleasant to be looked at, and attractive too!

bamagazine 2010, How to design without graphics, [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAzvLU6b5lo, viewed 17 February 2011

Print and Online Publication: Designs Consideration

We already knew the difference between print and online publication. But I believe we missed out something, which is the difference between the two in terms of design and layout. Designs for each of the medium differs greatly. This is due to the fact that reading documents online increases eye fatigue, the texts are harder to read, and they have partial page views. Below are just a few suggestions on how to design the texts in print and online.

Multi-Columns Layout

Use multi-columns layouts for print publications. According to Parker (2003) They make use of available space and word counts are higher. Readers will have to from the top of the first column downward, before moving back to the top to read the next column. This design will not work with online publication, as readers will need to keep scrolling their mouse. So for online reading, it is best to restrict the text to single column.

Reduce Line Length

Fill the pages in print publication with texts, but this should be avoided with online publication. White space is needed for online reading so that it will not be hard for reading (Parker, 2003). Build margins on the right and left hand side of each documents in the web, so that readers won't have to make a lot of left-to-right eye movements.

Indicate New Paragraph

Print publication uses first-line indents, as they need to fill up the space. It won't be difficult for readers to read too. But that is not the case for online publication. Online needs extra space between paragraph for easy navigation.

Visuals

When it comes to visuals, it is best to keep it simple for both print and online publication. It may look attractive, but too much colour could distract the intended audience. Avoid placing texts over pictures or watermarks. This may work for some print publications, but usually, readers have to squint their eyes to read the text.

Parker, Roger C 2003, Looking good in print, Paraglyph Press, Scottsdale, Ariz

Photo Manipulation

Photo manipulation is not uncommon in the media industry. There might be reasons for this act of 'dishonesty'. The altered photos were probably used to gain readership, sympathy, patriotism, and others. Below are two examples of photo manipulation.

This two publications showed O.J. Simpson, who was convicted of murdering his ex-wife in 1994. Newsweek showed the original mugshot picture of Simpson, while TIME darkened the photo. The darkened photo showed Simpson in a bad light, making him look more evil than he already is.

This photo appeared in the brochure of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The published picture, which is on the left, showed a black man among the crowds. But in the original picture, the man was nowhere to be seen. This was done to show diversity in the university, and to gain more students to its school

In my opinion, photo manipulation is fine, as long as it was done for good intentions. But sometimes we have to wonder, where do we draw the line?

Ravyn 2007, Top 15 Manipulated Photographs, Listverse, 19 October, viewed 11 February 2011, http://listverse.com/2007/10/19/top-15-manipulated-photographs/

YPAP Leader Involved in Online Vulgarities War

Last month, a Young People's Action Party (YPAP) leader, Cheo Ming Shen, was the talk of the byte highway when he engaged in a vulgarity war with a blogger via Twitter, who criticise him over his opinion on Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew. He apologised later, saying that the remarks made by blogger Rockson Tan, who is known for his vulgar language in his blog.

Cheo, who is also the co-founder of blogging advertising company Nuffnang, made a remark saying that MM Lee is the equivalent of Nelson Mandela. This prompted Tan to spurts vulgarities at Cheo. Cheo later retaliate, and even made a threat to "hurt" Tan, saying that he knew where Tan lives.

This issue shows how immature a member of a political party can be. Have he not heard about how organizations and individuals went downhill due to their remarks or actions made online? For example, the Domino's fiasco, when two employees made disgusting videos while preparing food for the customers. It was a public relation disaster for the company, and raised the questions on how Domino's employed people who have criminal records. The two employees was fired eventually, and they had to attend trials.

Cheo should have known the consequences of his actions, considering that he is the co-founder of a blogging advertising company. If he cannot be rational in tackling this issue, then he sure don't deserve to be a politician.

AsiaOne 2011, YPAP leader regrets behaviour in 'vulgarity war', Friday 21 January, viewed 12 February 2011, http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Story/A1Story20110121-259507.html

Clifford, S 2009, Video prank at Domino's taints brand, The New York Times, Wednesday 15 April, viewed 12 February 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/business/media/16dominos.html

The Temasek Review 2011, YPAP leader engaged netizens in vulgarity war, Tuesday 18 January, viewed 12 February 2011, http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/01/18/ypap-leader-engaging-in-vulgar-twitter-war-with-netizen/

Website Usability

Ever went to a website that is difficult to use? You tried clicking on any hyperlinks that you can find, but still could not find what you are looking for? This is where usability comes in.

Usability, as defined by Jakob Nielsen, is a "quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use". it is defined by five quality components. But before we get into it, let's take a random website HERE, scrutinise it, and evaluate whether it follows the five components.

The "lucky" website to be picked is CompleteCase.com, which specialize in (yikes!) divorce cases. Now let's look at the five components:

• Learnability: It is defined as how easy it is for users to use. It is a user-friendly website. I could easily navigate through different pages as the hyperlinks are on the top of the page

• Efficiency: This means how fast they can perform task in the website upon learning the design. I say very fast. Like I said in the previous point, the hyperlinks made navigating easy

• Memorability: Which means whether users will be able to remember how to use the website. This is a user-friendly website, so users will have no issues in navigating this site, even if they did not visit the page for a long time

• Errors: This refers to the amount of errors users made when they visit the site. The only errors that users can made in this site is when they made a mistake in filling up the online forms to engage in their service. Other than that, they could not make an error

• Satisfaction: I'm not a married man, neither am I filing a divorce (even if I am, this website is based in the United States), so I could not say if I am satisfied with using this site. But I do find important information that could ease the potential divorcee's worries. So I believe the intended audience will be satisfied with this site

It is important that users are able to find the site useful and easy to navigate. There are times when I feel frustrated because the website was not user-friendly. Users like me will usually leave the page after a few minutes, and I believe you would too.

Nielsen, J 2003, Usability 101: Introduction to Usability, useit.com, viewed 9 February 2011, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html