Design principles...

For blogs it is important to design for onscreen reading.

Parker (2003, p.270) states that “onscreen reading is far more difficult than reading a printed document because of the different way your readers’ eyes encounter the message”. To lessen eye fatigue (as a result of reflected light from the screens projected light) contrast and color are important choices to make.

Space is important as it “opens up” an onscreen page, making the “message easier to read” (Parker 2003, p.275).

Subheads and sidebars are likewise important.

Other things Parker (2003) advises to keep in mind are:

• put white space to work
• add text hyperlinks
• avoid thin, ornate typefaces
• put color to work
• keep readers informed
• use lists to make information visual
• keep design simple (background and visuals)
• be mindful of display size

Kress (1997) discusses the shift from text to resource, a shift from the inward to the outward. The hypertext is an example that “signals the shift from inwardly focused, contemplative activity of ‘reading’, to outwardly focused, physical and cognitive action” (Kress 1997, p. 66).

So, hypertext and links are important to include when designing blogs.

Visual display and arrangement are also important as “writing is a visual mode” (Kress 1997, p. 71). After all, design shapes the future and is a textual principle for change.

Layout is a vital and fundamental aspect in design as “layout places the various meaningful elements into a whole with order and coherence” (Kress & van Leeuwen 1998, p.200).

Salience and balance are complex processes but are also important factors. Salience can create a hierarchy of importance amongst the elements of a blog page (where the greater the weight of an element, the greater its salience) (Kress & van Leeuwen 1998, p.200).

Elements create “a balancing centre” and “without balance coordination in space is not possible. Salience, therefore, does not simply serve aesthetic purposes, rather, it “plays a vital role in structuring the message” (Kress & van Leeuwen 1998, p.201).

Reep (2006) provides further insight into document design. Reep says that readers ‘read’ both the printed words and the visual presentation of a text. It is the writers goal “to provide readers with the information they need in a form they can use” (Reep 2006, p.134).

Reep bases design principles on the following:

1) BALANCE: weight of a page
2) PROPORTION: size and placement of text, graphic aids and format elements on a page
3) SEQUENCE: arrangement and ‘best order’ of a document
4) COSISTENCY: present similar features in similar styles
(Reep 2006, pp.135-136)

Reep also offers four types of format elements:

1) WRITTEN CUES: headings, placement, style, headers and footers, jump lines, logs and icons
2) WHITE SPACE: areas without text or graphics such as margins, heading areas, columns and indentations
3) COLOR: color, style and usability
4) TYPOGRAPHIC DEVICES: to highlight specific details or sections through the use of typefaces, boldface, lists, bullets, squares and boxes
(Reep 2006, pp.154-163)

White space is perhaps the most important format element. Without white space text would be daunting, bulky and readers would easily give up. Reep says that “many web pages are overloaded” in this way. So, an “uncluttered web page can have great appeal to readers”. After all, “white space creates a path” for readers to easily follow (Reep 2006, p.158).

Quick thought on blogging versus diary keeping...

According to an article published in Reuters News on 5th march 2007 titled, “blogging sounds death knell for diarists – survey”, the art of diary keeping is dying due to the power of internet blogging.

A survey of 1,000 British teenagers shows that fewer than 10 took the time to keep a traditional diary where as 47 per cent shared their “innermost thoughts” by blogging online.

It also found that the average teenager spends 4.5 hours a week blogging or visiting sites such as MySpace and YouTube, with 22 per cent blogging 5 times a day.

Put in these terms I guess I fall into the first category. I have become obsessed (or entrapped) with MySpace. It really is a fantastic way to keep in touch with interstate and overseas friends (and it has even taken the place of text messages with my local friends). Furthermore, it is a great space to post new poems and new artwork to show my friends. MySpace is a great blog space where my friends and I review each others poetry.

However, I use my own MySpace as a place for friends and for networking rather than as a place to post and record my “innermost secrets”. I have a library of journals at home for that. I guess I’m still a bit old school in that sense as I’m definitely not ready to reveal all to the world just yet.

Net (or pet) cemetery...

I stumbled across an article in The Australian on 26th March titled, "Ghosts of blogging haunt net cemetery". The title is what caught my attention. I thought, hmmm, this will be great for my web log assignment. But, the idea of a net cemetery actually appealed to me as well. For some reason I associated it with a pet cemetery. I guess this is because my friends who are regular bloggers treat their blogging space as on would a pet.

This concept of a graveyard of words really intrigued me. After all, one of my favorite books, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, deals with the idea of a cemetery of forgotten books. The idea of a graveyard of words is delicious to me. Imagine the thoughts from these dead blogs one might stumble across in 100 years time. Who knows, it might be a great way for the future to discover what living now is like.

The abandonment of words appeals to my poetical insights (I see the world through strange eyes at the best of times). I love being surrounded with words. I have a wall of words in my bedroom, literally. I scrawl thought, poems, quotes, definitions and anything inspirational to me at a particular moment in time on my bedroom wall. I love how they look (visually), how they sound, taste, and what they mean, in a multitude of contexts and situations.

So, imagine if we could live inside the internet with words and the lives of people written in blogs floating around beside us. Definitely a concept for a story of some sort…

Back to the article… it reports “the extraordinary failure rate of online diaries” and claims that interest in blogging will soon begin a “precipitous slide”. Are blogs to become a “footnote in the history of computing”?

As much of an anti-blogger I deceive myself to be, I rather think this is an extreme prediction. After all, print journalism faced a dooms day ending with the ever increasing expansion of globalisation. Yet I am a young Australian and I read the newspaper every day (with my cappuccino of course). I even listen to ABC radio on my way to university. So, I guess that is something for the future of traditional journalism.

The expression “ghost blogs” actually appeals to me more than the positive reporting on the culture of blogging. Maybe this has something to do with my melancholy outlook but something about the abandonment of blogs as being a “suicide of your virtual self” makes me want to investigate this online culture further.

There are many "ghost blogs" circulating in the blogosphere and they can be ghosts in the sense this article and others suggest, or blogs about actual ghosts (there's a lot of strange things out there).

I did have a quiet chuckle to myself reading that blogging culture is turning the internet into a “dictatorship of idiots”. Although, I don’t totally agree with that. After all, the internet is a highly useful source of information and is useful in more ways than just as an outlet for teenage angst in the form of blogs.

The article concludes that “ghost blogs are abandoned simply because authors run out of things to say” or that other online trends become more exciting. This is the way of everyday life too I would think. If writing down thoughts or feelings is now becoming a bore, more than blogs would be under threat. A whole range of artistic expressions and even the whole discipline of literature would be under threat. No, I doubt that is the reason.

The second point makes more sense to me. There is just so much on the net. New blogging spaces to join and other internet trends become more appealing. So, the idea behind blogging isn’t dying it is actually spreading out.

Perhaps it is not quite a catastrophic at the article’s headline suggest.

A blogging race for a bloggers face

The Advertiser published an article on 27th March 2007 by Alexandra Tredrea called "Blogging gives a human face to Black Sheep". In it, Black Sheep Advertising agency owner, Andrew Miller saw "blogging as a new way to attract business".

It hasn't taken long for the advertising world to catch on and target this hot new online audience. And can we really blame them?

The interactivity and trendy popularity of blogging sites such as My Space allows "blogging" to give websites such as Millers' a "human face".

So, is this the next thing in face to face communication (well virtually anyway)?

Traditional advertising slogans are posted such as "March Maddness" and even online we are targeted as a consumeristic society, where blogging has opened doors and no longer limits the company to "newspapers, television and radio".

Well, why the hell not! It's all a race in the advertising game and if MySpace gives you a face that sells, well, flaunt it baby!

It's a blogging great market

On 5th April, 2007, Claire Heaney's article "Blogging taps market" was published in the Herald Sun. The article addresses blogging as the new 'it' tool small and medium businesses are going crazy about.

"Blogging can provide a quick way to keep in contact with customers and build their customer base."

I can see the logic in that statement. Admittedly, I probably check my My Space account more frequently than my Hotmail one.

The article discusses how local governements use blogs to "canvas changes". And why not? As a marketing tool, blogging appears to be working!

It is a fast way to update customers and "blogs are used as forums where people can share ideas and concepts". Furthermore, in fiscal terms, blogs provide "services at no cost".

There are a number of no cost blogs available. These include blogger.com, typepad.com and movabletype.org.

And lets not forget My Space, where I can be updated on information and merchandise from my favourite magazines, labels, musicians etc.

The market is having a blogging great time, that's for sure!

Blogging headache!

Jacob Nielson, in his article, "Weblog Usability: the top ten design mistakes", believes that a weblog "frees you from Web design". But I'm still trying to navigate my old school mind around the very words weblog, let along trying to figure out what that word signifies.

If a weblog is about usability then I'm at a disadvantage. I've never really read a weblog before. So how am I meant to construct my own?

Actually, that's not really totally true. I suppose I have read some blogs before, on MySpace of course, like DER!!! lol. omg. OK, so deliberately added the lol in.... to emphasize the language one needs to know in this crazy new cyber world of which I am no citizen.

No, I am the mayor of struggle town instead. AND I use that lame cliché that I normally fondly use to describe a hangover because this whole concept is one massive hangover.

I should just hit up the local and neck some gobble gobble moo moo smack downs, or better still, yaga bombs. Do you know what they are? Drinks of course.

Well I know what they are but I have no idea what HTML means or what hyperlinks are. Hope fully by the end of this assignment I will because currently I'm supposing that my head would feel better after a grueling session popping brain cells with unknown substances brewed in a back yard wannabe winery than actually figure out what it is I'm meant to be doing.

Surely, this can't be it! Can it?

I've read the article and know what not to do, but what do I actually, well, DO?

blogs versus websites... the difference is more than a Dr Seuss comic!

A blogville accountant was heard to say, "Should I blog or not blog? Should I blog today? It is true they are tools with much to convey?”
(Lang 2005, p.36)

Blogs may be comic sounding like above but Lang argues that they aren’t a Dr Seuss invention.

Blogs have been around for a few years but gained credibility in the US in 2004 when three attorneys created a blog “Power Line”, in which they disproved CBS news reports about George W Bush’s military service and received 'Blog of the Year' in 2004 by Time Magazine.

So, blogs are much more than an online diary for teenage-angst poetry it would seem (or perhaps they began as much more anyway).

According to Lang, blogs are “an information-sharing tool with many business possibilities” (Lang 2005, p.36).

In 2003, the Oxford English Dictionary added the word blog, defining it as: “a frequently updated website consisting of personal observations, excerpts from other sources etc., typically run by a single person and usually with hyperlinks to other sites; an online journal or diary”.

Another definition is supplied by Denise Howell, a Californian attorney, who defines a blog as “a web page so simple that its basic functions are well within the grasp of those who may have only basic technical ability” (Lang 2005, p.36).

Both of these definitions categorize a blog within the context of a web page. Yet, they are not the same thing.

So how does a blog differ from a webpage? Lang argues it is to do with accessibility. Blogs are about access because of “low entry costs” Furthermore, blogs are “accessible to small firms and a basic blog is easy to establish and to update, requiring no special skills” (Lang 2005, p. 37).

In other words, “once you’ve created a blog you can add new postings as easily as you compose and send an email” (Lang 2005, p.37).

Blogs are more popular and therefore have the advantage over websites. Lang offers three reasons as to why blogs attract more links than websites:

CULTURE: a culture exists in the “blogosphere” that encourages bloggers to link to each other.
RANKING: blogs rank higher in search engines due to their frequent updates and their structure which is easier for search engines to index than a conventional web site.

READABILITY: blogs are more fun to read with crisp and quirky writing.

So blogs really have taken priority over web sites it seems, due largely to their culture, ranking and readability as defined above. Blogs are the popular future of the internet, accessible and almost as fun as a Dr Seuss comic (and definitely more informative and even more intimate).