Reflections and comments

This weblog, if you recall, was created for the purpose of doing an assignment for a subject called Issues in Publication and Design. Writing a blog is of course not the most typical of assignments, but it does highlight the need and help hone my skill of knowing a variety of writing styles as well as knowing the design issues prevalent when writing for different forms of media.

Through the course of going through various theories and issues that have popped up, I realise that I almost always try to understand things from the point of the audience, be it document design, writing conventions or anything else really. I tend to side and favour the audience’s perspective, and am of the mind that no matter how great a document may be, if the audience does not understand it, it is ultimately a futile endeavour.

Knowledge of audience goes hand in hand with knowledge of the medium and how to write properly for the audience. With all three in mind, I hope to be able to produce documents of much higher quality in the near future.

For now though, I wish to end my contributions to Signall with this post. I promised in my first post that this will be a most interesting and meaningful ride. I hope I have fulfilled that by being both educational and at the same time entertaining. This has been the most time consuming blog I have ever written in, and has given me insight as to what I personally consider should be a standard for all bloggers.

I believe all bloggers should blog with a specified purpose and audience in mind, and write and design accordingly. Of course, other issues come to mind too, such as not getting on the bad side of the law, not letting errors pass by, maintaining online writing and designing conventions, they all play part and parcel to how good a blog can be. It is just that purpose and audience should be the frontmost concern for all bloggers, and everything should be written and designed with the two in mind.

With that said, it is time to properly wrap things up.

Signing out.

Proofreading helps

The act of proofreading involves looking for errors or mistakes within a document concerning the “spelling, punctuation, grammar and word choice,” (Writing Tutorial Services 2004). These are issues pertaining directly to the content of a document, and is important to ensure that a written document is cohesive and flows well. To that end, proofreading helps get rid of unwanted errors that may get in the way of a reader’s experience in reading a document (Mousseau 2006). Proofreading helps maintain a standard of quality for any piece of work. It also helps if you wish to write in a business environment; companies will expect professionalism and correctness out of any documents one might produce for a company (Putnis & Petelin 1996 p. 236).

One very interesting tidbit about spelling mistakes is that if you have made a mistake in terms of spelling words and proofreading did not catch it, this may be because your mind actually read the word properly, regardless of whether the word was actually spelled correctly or not. This is because people tend read words as a whole, so as long as the the first and last letters of a word are preserved, the rest can be jumbled up and still be readable (Sen n.d.). This is something to be aware of as it means that spelling errors can be easily overlooked.

Another issue that has to be highlighted is that the author of a document is less likely to spot mistakes within the document than other people are (Business in Berkshire n.d.). This is because the author, being familiar with the text, already has expectations and knowledge of what was meant to be written, rather than what was written. Thus, the author of a document should never proofread their own work by themselves.

There are of course numerous other kinds of errors that may appear within any document, which is why people proofread. Measures have to be taken to ensure that a document has as few errors as possible (preferably none). Martin (2005) has some tips to help the proofreading process:

- Have multiple people proofread the document.

- Do not be overly-reliant on spell-checker tools; they may miss some errors.

- Study proper grammar books to ensure proper grammar use.

- Read aloud or think of the words phonetically when reading a document.

- When proofreading, scan the document, so as not to miss out on any minor errors that may be present.

- After proofreading, set aside the document and read it again at a later time or day. Some errors might have been overlooked.

In addition to that, Martin also said that if possible, a printed, bound copy of the document should be read when proofreading, to ensure that the margins, spacing, and other design issues were also without error. Martin was talking about proofreading in the context of a book, but the point stands, that being that proofreading should ideally take place in what the end product of the document will look like. If it is a web page, use a web browser to view it. If it is a report, print it out and bind it appropriately. This is basically killing two birds with one stone, by checking both proofreading and document design at the same time.

To sum up, proofreading is a valuable tool to try ensure that a document is not jarring to the reader and meets professional standards of quality. If you wish to get started on proofreading and how to proofread, see the following link: Proofreading Symbols and Abbreviations (Webster). If you wish to see how a lack of proofreading can go horribly wrong though, please watch the video embedded below..

Source: The Impotence of Proofreading (YouTube)

References

Putnis, P & Petelin, R 1996, Professional communication: principles and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney

Business in Berkshire n.d., The importance of proofreading, viewed 12 June 2008, <http://www.businessinberkshire.co.uk/businessinberkshire/features98.html>

Martin, K 2005, Costly mistakes, the importance of proofreading, Self-Pub.net, viewed 12 June 2008, <http://www.self-pub.net/guides/proofreading.html>

Mousseau, J 2006, The importance of proofreading one’s work, Associated Content, viewed 12 June 2008, <http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/89287/the_importance_of_proofreading_ones.html?cat=31>

Sen, R n.d., Importance of proofreading, Perfect Editing Solutions, viewed 12 June 2008, <http://www.perfectediting.com/proofreading-advice.htm>

Writing Tutorial Services n.d., Proofreading for common surface areas: spelling, punctuation, and grammar, viewed 12 June 2008, <http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/proofing_grammar.shtml>

Malaysian Laws - Online Publishing

We had just touched on Wikipedia and why it may not be useful in any sort of academic venture or publication. However, it is not just the source of information that needs to be considered when it comes into publishing; laws come into play too. For the sake of brevity, this will focus on a few Malaysian legal factors that may affect online publication decisions.

First, the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA). It prohibits illegal interception of communications, sets rules for computer searches, establishes rules for searches of computers, mandates encryption key access, and gives law enforcement the due ability to intercept communications without a warrant if it is believed to contain information relevant to an investigation (Privacy and Human Rights 2003). This is added to the Communications and Multimedia Commission Act (CMCA) which together with CMA regulates information technology and multimedia resources (OpenNet Initiative 2007). This commission (in conjunction with CMA) maintains that content published on the internet needs to be regulated in order to protect online content from being “indecent, obscene, false, menacing, or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person,” (OpenNet Initiative 2007). However, crimes pertaining to CMA have normally been either ignored or superseded by other laws, such as the Internal Security Act, also known as the ISA (Privacy and Human Rights 2003).

Use of the Internal Security Act can detain a person for 60 days, which can then be extended to two years, then extended again a couple more years, no trial necessary, so long as that person is seen as a detriment to the country’s security (South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre 2002). The government has already used it on four people who were said to have been instigating false reports of riots and violence against Chinese Malaysians online (Communications Law in Transition Newsletter 2000).

One other law that affects online publications is the Sedition Act. This act limits freedom of expression by making any speech judged to be seditious a crime; this includes anything that incites hatred or contempt of the government, incites hostility or ill-will to different races, questions the constitutional privileges given to Malays and Sabah/Sarawak natives (Human Rights Watch n.d.). This act has most recently been used to imprison Raja Petra, the first blogger to be charged by the Sedition Act in Malaysia (Mageswari & Kaur 2008), which shows that the act is applicable to online publications.

These laws all deal with the idea that information that needs to be regulated on the internet. Please take these laws into consideration when you publish something on the internet, if you’re Malaysian. If you’re not, please take your respective country’s laws on communications and online media publications into account.

References

Mageswari, M & Kaur, M 2008, Blogger Raja Petra taken to prison after declining bail on sedition charge, The Star Online, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/7/nation/21167472&sec=nation>

OpenNet Initiative 2007, Malaysia, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://opennet.net/research/profiles/malaysia>

Privacy and Human Rights 2003, Malaysia, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://www.privacyinternational.org/survey/phr2003/countries/malaysia.htm>

Human Rights Watch n.d., The Sedition Act: Repressive laws, viewed 11 June 2008, < http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/malaysia/2000/laws-sedition.htm>

South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre 2002, Malaysia’s ISA: No limits, viewed 12 June 2008, <http://www.hrdc.net/sahrdc/hrfeatures/HRF70.htm>

Communications Law in Transition Newsletter 2000, Malaysia, viewed 12 June 2008, <http://pcmlp.socleg.ox.ac.uk/transition/issue07/malaysia.htm>

Wikipedia - To use or not to use?

Ever been in this situation, at the beginning of the semesters, where lecturers take great pains to explain plagiarism and why Wikipedia is not really eligible to be quoted as a reference? I have.

The issues mainly stem from the nature of Wikipedia; it is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. This has caused issues of legibiltiy, since even anonymous users of Wikipedia are able to freely edit a page, though the edits will only be approved after it has been moderated by volunteers (What-is-what.com 2006). This brings up the issue of legibility, and content accuracy, which may not be reliable depending on what was submitted and what was moderated. This also brings up the issue of design, where articles have seemingly different standards of quality. Some are very in-depth (see: Thoroughbread) while others are very vague and almost devoid of information (see: Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam).

Surprisingly though, Wikipedia has proven to be a good resource for scientific articles. BBC News (2005) reported that a peer review of Wikipedia’s scientific articles have been conducted, which results in four major errors and a 162 other errors in Wikipedia, which is not too different from Britannica’s 4 major errors and 123 other errors.

It should be noted that Wikipedia seeks to archive and collect articles and research that have been released elsewhere. What this means is that as far as legibility goes, Wikipedia aims to provide information concerning what other people have done, be it research, news or whatnot, that can be linked to, cited and in thus, verified (Willinsky 2007). Note that the truth may not necessarily be what’s cited in a Wikipedia page, only that it has been published elsewhere, and thus the actual claim to correct information has to be vetted and dealt with by that publication instead. Wikipedia only compiles them.

What does this mean? Well, since what Wikipedia does is mainly show other people’s published work, it’s hardly a befitting resource for an academic area of study. It is sure fun to surf through though, to keep up to date with the latest news. As far as academic research goes though, it is best to seek elsewhere.

Wikipedia is thus an editable online encyclopedia, but is not considered to be a credible or valid source of information, and the creator of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, agrees. He has been quoted to say, “For God’s sake, you’re in college; don’t cite the encyclopedia,” (Orlowski 2006).

Wise words indeed. If you do want to quote something from Wikipedia though, it might help if you’re using it for legal purposes. More than 100 judicial rulings have used information from Wikipedia in a court ruling since 2004 (Cohen 2007). Though not reliable for critical issues or academic ventures (since most do not recognise it as a legitimate resource), Wikipedia might help in gathering basic information. Otherwise, it might be in your best interests not to use it, except perhaps for checking out an article’s outgoing hyperlinks.

References

Cohen, N 2007, Courts turn to Wikipedia, but selectively, The New York Times, viewed 10 June 2008, <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/technology/29wikipedia.html?_r=1&ex=1186545600&en=4e6683fb4fac3044&ei=5070&oref=slogin>

Orlowski, A 2006, Avoid Wikipedia, warns Wikipedia chief, The Register, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/15/wikipedia_can_damage_your_grades/>

Willinsky, J 2007, What open access research can do for Wikipedia, firstmonday.org, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_3/willinsky/index.html>

BBC News 2005, Wikipedia survives research test, viewed 10 June 2008, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530930.stm>

What-is-What.com 2006, What is Wikipedia?, viewed 10 June 2008, <http://what-is-what.com/what_is/wikipedia.html>

Blog design

VanFossen (2007) states that the best blog design, the ideal one, downloads within 10 seconds, does not require horizontal scrolling, limits vertical scrolling, features easy navigation, does not deviate from common placing of design elements, and prints beautifully.

While most of those good design elements are self-explanatory, what does it mean by not deviating from common placing of design elements? To put it simply, if your site design it too unique, it it might hamper a web user’s experience of your website. Nielsen (1999) agrees, stating that web users are always on other websites. Web users learn to navigate websites from other websites, so if a more or less standard template is used, then the more comfortable the web user is in navigating them. This agrees with the concept of schemata, whereby readers of a text interact and get meaning from a text through their past experience, beliefs, values, opinions as well as the context of situation when they are interacting with the text (Putnis & Petelin 1996 p. 238). Stray too far from the schemata that a web user and you may risk alienating your audience.

Blogs are pretty standardised in design. Most blogs look like other blogs…if you use the preset templates. This blog itself uses one of the pre-set Blogger templates. Simple top banner, blog content on the left, navigation on the right. I did not change it from the preset template that I had chosen. This suits me and what I’m using this blog for.

However, others have been very adventurous with their blog design. Have a gander at Blogskins.com, where numerous fancy blog designs thrive there. While many are pretty and beautiful, they do not necessarily conform to the standards outlined by VanFossen earlier. One example from that site is that’s her ; upside down by topsy turvy.

Preview of that’s her ; upside down (Source: Blogskins.com)

The screen-cap I’ve chosen for the blog design is the main page that is on the preview for the blog skin. Note that it basically has no information, there is a “Her” placeholder text in the middle to show where the title of the blog goes. This means only the title of the blog is available at the beginning of going to a blog using this design. The navigation buttons are along the top. This is a common element of design, however, there is no explanatory text of where the links go, just pictures with no text. This is one of the big mistakes that Nielsen (2005) highlights, that the links are not descriptive of where they go. This design deviates heavily from standard blog design, where the contents are not immediately available, only the title is seen on the homepage, you have to click on the vague links to get around, and who knows where the archives have gone. Yes, it is pretty, but this design sacrifices a lot of usability for it.

However, at the time of posting, the design has a pretty high score, 4.60 out of 5.00. This means that a number of the site visitors liked the design enough to rate it highly, which is also reflected by the 482 people that listed it as a favourite design. Does this mean that the blog design rules listed earlier are useless, as people like the design? Not necessarily. We do not know what factors are being considered when web users are rating the blog design, so we do not know whether they are taking usability into account when rating. Even if they were basing it on usability, this does not make the design problems found in the blog design disappear or are irrelevant, it just means that the users that think the design is usable found no problems with it, which is not the same thing.

I am all for fancy and pretty. However, I also advocate functionality. That is why the right side of this blog features many easy to understand text links. Of course, that’s my own prerogative. Whether you choose to follow what has been outlined is up to your own discretion, and you should choose a blog template that fits your purposes. Particularly if your blog is being marked.

References

Putnis, P & Petelin, R 1996, Professional communication: principles and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydeney

Nielsen, J 1999, Top ten mistakes in web design, useit.com, viewed 8 June 2008, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html>

Nielsen, J 2005, Top ten web design mistakes of 2005, useit.com, viewed 8 June 2008, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html>

VanFossen, L 2007, Blogging tips book: The best blog design elements, Lorelle on Wordpress, viewed 9 June 2008, <http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/blogging-tips-book-best-blog-design-elements/>

New Media - Podcasts

The emergence of new technology brings about new media, as more possibilities to further communication become available. One such media that has come about through the rise of technology are podcasts. I would like to use this post to try and explain what a podcast is and after that I will namedrop a couple of podcasts that I recommend, to give them free advertising.

Podcasts are a relatively new media. They are online distributed audio files that can be downloaded that uses an RSS feed to keep its audience up to date with the latest podcasts (Morris, 2006). Morris continues on to say that originally, podcasts were used as radio shows, but the uses for a podcast has blossomed to interviews and even lessons. The term itself is a portmanteau referring to Apple’s iPod, a popular portable media player, and broadcast (Oxford University Press, n.d.). In short, it is an online distributed show that you can download onto your computer, subscribe to be constantly updated with new podcasts, and put it on your portable media player if you want to listen to it on the go. It should be noted that there are also now video podcasts, which came about when iPods that feature video playback were introduced (Bowers, 2006). Same deal as podcasts, just with video added to it.

Now that we’ve got the technicalities out of the way, I’d like to recommend some podcasts to you. If vulgarity, wild ideas, and the inane conversations of a British comedian with his collaborator and uniquely logical producer is up your alley, please check out Ricky Gervais’ site for access to his podcast “The Ricky Gervais Show” and his occasional free podcasts (and some video podcasts too) available here. If you like comedy, particularly British comedy, you owe it yourself to check out Ricky Gervais’ work.

Ricky Gervais podcast promotional picture (Source: rickygervais.com)

Also, if you’re into chess, I’d recommend listening to Alexandra Kosteniuk’s Chess is Cool podcast. Alexandra offers many tips and explanations to the intricacies of chess and if you want to learn by yourself, this would be a good place to start. It should be noted that all the podcasts are audio only though, which I feel has the ability to hurt the quality and strength of the explanations somewhat. Nevertheless, if you are familiar with the chess board notation terminology, then this podcast is an absolute wealth of chess information.

References

Bowers, A 2006, “Textcasting,” anyone?, Slate, viewed 2 May 2008, <http://www.slate.com/id/2136959/>

Morris, T 2006, Podcasts increasing in popularity, Map Interesting, viewed 2 May 2008, <http://www.map100.com/mapinteresting.php/podcasts-increasing-in-popularity/>

Oxford University Press n.d., Word of the month: Podcast, viewed 2 May 2008, <http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teachersites/oald7/wotm/wotm_archive/podcast?cc=global>

Print Media vs Online Media

You may be wondering why a self proclaimed blog based on publication design has successfully talked about blogs for three whole posts straight. Well, the idea is that, know your medium, know your tools in those mediums, and you shall be able to create wonderful affects with them. That said, it is time to look at the differences between print and online media.

We’ll start with what constitutes good design.

For print design, Walsh (2006 p. 24) states that the reader decodes the message found within a printed document. This means that the context, the style, the tone, the format of the message contained within a printed document are all understood by a reader. If the reader is familiar with the context of the printed document well enough to decode it, then the message can be understood and meaning can be made out of it (Walsh 2006 p. 28). Any text on a printed document must be coherently placed, with proper use of framing, colour scheme, textual mood, one could use print media to effectively bring its intended message to the audience clearly (Walsh 2006 p. 34).

I would like to highlight one sterling example of this, seen in an Absolut ad. Absolut is known for making ads using their bottle shape as a constant presence in all of their print ads. This one I would like to point out is no different, as it is one they did based on the Bangkok lifestyle. They used the boats to frame the shape of the ever popular Absolut bottle, and at the bottom it says Absolut Bangkok. Pretty self explanatory, and everything in the design reflects this.

Absolut Bangkok ad (Source: Absolutads.com)

Moving on to web design, Nielsen (1997) said that people do not read websites, they scan them, seeing single words or sentences. This is because reading things on a computer screen is tiring, web browsing is a fast moving activity where stopping to read could be seen as detrimental, there are so many other web pages to see, and of course, time is a factor where not everyone has the luxury to surf. Due to those factors, online pages have to be designed with scanning in mind, perhaps utilising and employing techniques such as highlighted keywords, relevant headings, bulleted lists, an idea per paragraphs, beginning with the most important idea first and a much lower word count compared to writing on print. These would help contribute to a user’s understanding of a web page when they scan it, though good design does not stop there.

Since web pages are in abundance with little tells as to its authenticity, credibility is an issue and to get that credibility a website needs to establish trust towards its audience. Nielsen (1999) states that design quality, up-front disclosure of information, a lack of server downtime, and outgoing hyperlinks all contribute to a site’s trustworthiness.

Let me illustrate this. I love getting my hands on free MP3s, and I am a gamer. Therefore, I frequent two game music remixing sites, Overclocked Remix and VGMix. Overclocked Remix is a professionally designed website, with music indexed by composer, remixer, remix name, game name, and more. It also features a latest remixes column on the right side of the page, some of the latest forum posts on the front, their latest communal remixing project, all that on just their homepage. Also, their server is hardly ever (practically never) down.

Overclocked Remix homepage (Source: Overclocked Remix)

VGMix on the other hand, has been…less than stellar the past couple of years. Bogged down with an unintuitive interface a few years back, they took time to reconstruct the site from the ground up and replaced it with very simplistic forums in the meantime while they worked on recoding the whole site. The managed to gain create a much better, faster and intuitive site at the end of their endeavour, roughly a whole year later than their projected and promised date. While the interface is much better now, it still lacks many of the features of Overclocked Remix, such as a latest remixes column for instance. This bogs down usability and frankly, having to wait a few years for a proper upgrade from a below average site layout to a more workable but still flawed site design for its purposes hardly helps matters. Thus, I am a regular visitor of Overclocked Remix and only a rare, sporadic visitor of VGMix. It is much easier to find what I want in Overclocked Remix, and to me, ease of use is an exceedingly important factor in any online document, and VGMix could well do with some improvements.

VGMix homepage (Source: VGMix)

Now, assuming something was published both on print and online with identical content, which would be better?

Spyridakis, Schultz, Bartell (2005) have found that as far as reading comprehension goes, understanding printed text is easier than understanding online text, regardless of text design. They surmised that it could be that since online reading comprehension is in its infancy as opposed to printed text comprehension, the user’s familiarity with the medium may be a contributing factor, as well as other factors outlined by Nielsen earlier. Regardless of cause, this brings up the issue where at this stage in time, putting up lots of information or text online may not be a very good idea, as user understanding for heavy texts is easier when it is printed. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why e-books have not really taken off that well and that bookstores like MPH and Popular still thrive on selling actual books with paper in them. Compare this to the music industry, which is currently experiencing a shift in power from hard copy CDs to online MP3 purchases from sites such as the iTunes Music Store and Audiogalaxy. Thus, the amount of text is an important consideration, especially if you were to design it for the web.

Here is the tl;dr version (or too long, didn’t read for those not used to that acronym):

- Good design for print involves great use of all design elements to bring a message to the reader
- Good design for web involves building ease of use and credibility and trust to the user
- Printed text is easier to comprehend and is more suited for longer text
- Online text is better for quick and easy information across a variety of sources.

And that’s that.

References

Walsh, M 2006, The ‘textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24-37

Nielsen, J 1997, How users read on the web, useit.com, viewed 2 May 2008, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html>

Nielsen, J 1999, Trust or bust: Communicating trustworthiness in web design, useit.com, viewed 2 May 2008, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990307.html>

Spyridakis, JH, Schultz, LD, Bartell, AL 2005, Heading frequency and comprehension: Studies of print versus online media, viewed 1 May 2008, <http://tc.eserver.org/out/29651/http://www.stc.org/ConfProceed/2005/PDFs/0032.pdf>