interrogate an interface

So Many Options!

The tool I was most interested in today was Katharina’s presentation of PearlTree. It seemed like a really cool way to connect with friends and to organize all of your interests easily. I thought it was exciting how you could include photos as well and organize them into your different interests.

Peer Review for Project 3

What I Heard in Peer Review

Krista liked how I set up my introduction to the project which was good. I found out I need to include my PowerPoint somewhere on the site so I need to determine that.

What I Need To Do

  • Finish web essay
  • Work on PowerPoint presentation & write notecards
  • Fix the navigation between the Interrogate and Interface & Overview
  • Incorporate PowerPoint
  • Edit for grammar/punctuation

Progress

What I Did

Today, I added navigation tools to each of my pages. I also started working on my web essay by starting my text for the main project 3 page.

Why I Did It

I incorporated navigation tools because my theme doesn’t support three levels of sub-menus. Thus, you will not find my sub-headings for the project in the main drop down menu for the projects. Instead, I hyperlinked each page so that the reader can navigate through the interrogation easily. I also started working on my essay so that I can have something ready to go on Friday and it’s an important aspect to include as an introduction to the interrogation.

Outlining the Interrogation Essay

What I Did

For today’s class I added pages to my projects menu and wrote a short snippet about what will go on each page. However, it isn’t showing up as a drop-down menu item when you scroll over the projects tab “Interrogate an Interface” so I’m going to have to work on that and figure out why it isn’t showing up.

Why I Did It

I wanted to start working on and writing my interrogation of Masher and laying everything out will make composing the essay easier. I wanted to write about what will go where so that it is organized and has a solid flow.

Teleworking!

What I Did

For Friday 3/6’s class, I worked on my following goals:

You can see my completed Writer/Designer Analysis document by clicking on the hyperlink above in the bulleted list. I created my login tool, took screenshots, filled in the analysis questions and discovered how the site worked.

Why I Did It

I created a login because it required me to and I wanted to have an account since I’ll be working on the tool a lot in the upcoming weeks. I took screenshots along the way because I knew I’d have to do it all over again if I didn’t seize the opportunity. It was a lot easier to just take the screenshots as I worked because it shows exactly what I did step-by-step so it will now be easier to complete my analysis. I filled in the analysis questions along the way as well because it was more helpful to do so as I was witnessing it for the first time and it was fresh in my mind as I tried to navigate the new site.

Below, you can see my proof that I worked on this project for 50+ minutes:

Before: https://docs.google.com/a/vt.edu/document/d/1_QE9nCyrK7ZHvOOIKe-XgoXLoL2j3xxd1iVqGMN6NO0/edit?usp=sharing

After: https://docs.google.com/a/vt.edu/document/d/1ojuxSCPqyRPEk8Zvx1V7tQNuYPSYOuUCnj4OMxyWc00/edit?usp=sharing

**I took a Jing video screenshot of these initially but WordPress doesn’t allow for them to be embedded.**

Critique of Web Essays

While looking at the four websites that interrogated an interface, I learned many things that I did and did not want to do for my own creation. Below, you can see what I’ve decided:

Yay

On my interrogation, I want to include navigation tools to help my audience read through my essay easily. I want to include hyperlinks so that there are multiple ways to figure out what I’m talking about and to provide extra assistance. I also really want to include my own experience with Masher on the page so the audience can see what I did with it and refer to it as they’re trying to figure out the application as well. It’s also important to include some contrast so the essay isn’t completely boring and deters my audience from reading my essay. I can do so through the use of color, headings & subheadings, bullet points and images.

Nay

I really don’t want to write huge blocks of text because it’s not easy to read. I also want to avoid overusing pages and images so that the whole document becomes confusing and distracting.

Auto-correct Fail

I’ve encountered many auto-correct problems since 2006 when I had T-9 text to the auto-correct of Blackberry and the iPhone 5 & 6. While it makes texting easier, auto-correct can have some downfalls.

For example, now that smartphones are very prominent in society today, many people are using auto-correct and auto-complete based on the app they’re using at the time. When I’m texting, it can be infuriating to have to type something six times in order for my phone to understand that the auto-correct way isn’t the way I want to type. Auto-complete can also have its complications when I’m ordering food or clothes online and it auto-fills my information that is no longer correct so then I have to go back and fix it all. But then it catches on and fills in the incorrect information again if I press the enter button.

I see this problem in texting all of the time. My boyfriend and I send multiple texts back-to-back because we don’t take the time to complete our thoughts in just one text message. So he could be sending me up to eight messages at a time because he’s trying to fix a word but auto-correct keeps changing it to the wrong word by the time he presses send again and thinks he has it right. (I do this a lot, too).

The problem is, we still use our auto-correct because it’s better than having a bunch of mistakes that you made on your own. If we’re being honest, we would rather blame a technology than ourselves. Really think about it: the reason we keep auto-correct is because it’s easier and there are less problems to fix than if we just typed on our own. It could be because our thumbs are too big for the keyboard or we type too quickly and miss the right letters or we’re simply too lazy to write it all out.

So I guess I’ll settle for the constraints that come with auto-correct because it’s a pretty convenient tool that I definitely would love to keep around than get rid of.