Message Design and Content Creation
8 January 2008
Kathy E. Gill
Agenda
Introductions Syllabus, assignment review The Design Challenge WWW History/Culture Wordpress (blog setup)
Syllabus review
Syllabus Review Questions
Thinking about this course …
Please complete the following sentence: “In my opinion, message design means …”
You have one minute to “think and write”
Course Introduction (1/2)
Message design is the art of creating verbal and visual messages Both the words and how the words are
presented and perceived (connotation) affect the message
See The Elements of Text and Message Design and Their Impact on Message Legibility: A Literature Review
Course Introduction (2/2)
Premises:Our medium is “digital”Content creation rests on sound designSound design rests on planning and
articulated assumptions
Design
The use of higher thought and systematic process to achieve objectives
Seeks a balance between science and art, clarity and expression, truth and beauty, aesthetics and function, emotion and rationality …
Quote: designer
A designer is a visually literate person, just as an editor is expected by training and inclination to be versed in language and literature, but to call the former an artist by occupation is as absurd as to refer to the latter as a poet.
Douglas Martin, Book Design,
quoted in Designing Visual Interfaces (8)
The Challenge
Only 28 percent of IT projects are delivered on schedule and within budget
http://www.ciscoworldmagazine.com/opinionw/2001/08/23_itprojects.shtml
Only one-sixth software projects completed on time and within budget
http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/1998/jul/causes.asp
The Challenge, cont’d
One-third of complex software projects fail, costing U.S. companies $81 billion
Cost overruns add another $59 billion Of the challenged or cancelled projects, the
average was 189%over budget, 222% behind schedule and contained only 61% of the originally specified features
http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/1998/jul/causes.asp
Answering the Challenge
Projects fail because “the system did not meet user needs”
Enter: User-Centered DesignCentral tenet: who is the audience?Not a “step” but a “process”
Value for Investment
$1 invested in usable software = $10-100 in benefits
80% of maintenance costs are due to unforeseen user requirements; only 20% due to failures
Relevance and Impact
Productivity - People and SystemsCall-centers, e-commerce web sites
User PerceptionTivo v Replay, VCR Plus
Training CostLarge component of new implementation
Cost of ErrorsMedical errors, airplane crashes
An Engineering Approach (1/3)
ConceptDetermine objectives – clearly identify
audience(s) Basic Design
Functional specification (hardware, software, human); requirements; task analysis
An Engineering Approach (2/3)
Interface DesignApply empirical data, mathematical functions,
experience, principles, population measures, and design standards
Production Integrate production requirements, test, and
update
An Engineering Approach (3/3)
Deployment Investigate use, modify, evaluate
Follow upProcedures, product evolution
Now a Standard: ISO 13407
A clear understanding of the ‘context of use’: users, tasks and environment
Iteration of design solutions using prototypes
Active involvement of real users Multi-disciplinary design
Then Why Is It So Hard?
No accepted/agreed-upon structure for web/digital media design teams
No industry-wide standard for web project management
Cross-functional teams have disparate working/communicating styles
Summary
Good interface design enables increase in productivity, reduction in errors, and better user experience
The key to good design is customer-focus …. So, who is our customer?
WWW history and culture
Hypertext Platform, software independent Increasingly “social” (web 2.0)
Watch YouTube clips
Quote: cultural ethic
“Anyone who slaps a ‘This page is best viewed with browser X’ label on a web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network.”
Tim Berners-Lee in Technology Review, July 1996
Implications for design
No control!BrowserPlatformOutput device
Necessitates cross-functional teams
Who Are We?
Pair up “Interview” each other
Something you’re interested in learning this quarter A skill/area you have that you’re willing to try as a “stretch” to
help your team this quarter A skill/area you have that you feel is a strength (less of a
stretch) Introduce the other person
We are a group. Hopefully, at the end of the quarter, we will be a team!
Team-building
Definition Characteristics Skills Resources
Definition
A group of people working together to achieve a common purpose that cannot be achieved as effectively by individuals working alone
Characteristics (1/3)
How does a “group” become a “team”? IOW, what are the characteristics of an effective team?Small groups : characterize an ideal team
member
Characteristics (2/3)
Focus on developing and accomplishing common goals and purposes
Expect and exact participation of all: consciously inclusive
Focus on impact of behavior rather than intent
Allow and expect members to discuss differences that impede full participation
Characteristics (3/3)
Do not shoot messengers Establish agreed-upon boundaries Recognize that conflict which has been
suppressed, concealed, or avoided is likely to be destructive
Your Team Building Skills
Personal team player style:Collaborator, Communicator, Contributor,
Challenger Assessment tool:
http://www.onlinewbc.gov/docs/manage/team.html
See also http://www.mgmt.utoronto.ca/~baum/mgt2005/valuable.html
Resources
Seven keys to building great workteams, http://www.teambuildinginc.com/article_7keys_zoglio.htm
Planning a project, http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art8.html
Groups that work, http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art0.html
Teams as Networks:Using Network Analysis forTeam Development, http://www.humax.net/teams.html
Next Week:
Digital Design Team MembersRoles
User-Centered Design Our group project (don’t panic!)