Cyber vs. Reality

Virilio's chapter on Cybersex was very interesting to me. I am not going to lie, I have had many a conversation with my apartment mates about what the "cyber" has done for sex. I am also currently in a human sexuality class and this has been something that we discussed in detail. 

Digital sex, whether that comes in the form of porn or actual cybersex, is a controversial thing. Having sex so available online can desensitize and turn people off from the real and actual.

This idea can also be tied into people preferring the digital over the actual in general. People choose to re connect with old flames rather then go out and meet new people in the workplace/bars/mutual friends. We are living in a world that can make it so easy to never need/want to have that "human interaction". 

Virilio has really sparked some mixed feelings in me. I don't know whether to love and agree with the man, or vehemently disagree with him. I think that he brings up some wonderful points that demand thought. My conclusion from Virilio's writings are this: Technology CAN BE a dangerous thing, and if used in certain ways can really damage people and the world that we live in. However, it is then our charge by Virilio to step up as communication majors, and to study digital media and to learn how to use it to enhance our world and not damage it. 

Technology should not be feared, but it should be valued and evaluated on an almost daily basis. It should be seen as a tool for good, and not for evil. This digital media is not going anywhere, so its our job to embrace it and make it the best for this world that it can be.

Video Project-Housing and Res. Life Staff Experience

User Experience!

In Garrett's "The Elements of User Experience", he discusses the importance of user experience and how greatly it impacts a good/bad day, and therefore, how much it impacts a company's or product's success. Everyone has had positive and negative experiences regarding user experience with a product. Garrett talks about the user experience disappointments with a coffee maker and alarm clock. Oh boy, if those two things don't work and don't have a good user experience, there are a lot of people having very bad mornings.

The first thing I thought of when I thought of products whose user experience had let me down was a pencil sharpener. Now, some people may not have had the same conundrum that I experienced with pencil sharpeners. You'd go and pick out a pencil sharpener from Staples, and you'd pick the sleek looking sharpener or the smallest sharpener. However, almost as soon as you got home, the disappointment might hit! The sharpener wouldn't sharpen evenly!!!! You'd have one facet of the pencil tip completely sharp, and the others would be that paper/wood covering.

User experience is also directly applied to the web. A website needs to have a fantastic user experience in order to keep people coming back to their website, and not leaving for "something thats easier to use." So, how do people combine good aesthetics, good function, and good user experience?? Garrett points out five elements (or layers) that allow people to start creating a good user experience:

1. The Surface Plane
2. The Skeleton Plane
3. The Structure Plane
4. The Scope Plane
5. The Strategy Plane

How To Make a Website Wonderful

There is so much that goes into making an effective, successful, and easy to navigate website. Anyone that has access to the World Wide Web has stumbled upon websites that have been wonderful to use, and that we therefore continue to go back to and visit, and we have found websites that are highly irritating and don't make any kind of sense. The website we like we visit again, and the ones that are lacking are ones we avoid by all costs. So, what makes an effective and enjoyable website??

A good place to start when designing or making a website would be to really know your audience. Know the people you are tying to target and tailor your website to what those people want. Redish essentially states that there are seven characteristics for each audience:

1. Key phrases or quotes
2. Experiences, expertise
3. Emotions
4. Values
5. Technology
6. Social and cultural environments
7. Demographics

All of these characteristic help a creator to better understand their audience, and therefore, create a website that users will respond positively towards.

Another very critical element of having a successful webpage is to have a very organized and efficient homepage. A website's homepage is the first thing that a viewer will see when going to the website, and if a homepage isn't easy to use and clearly laid out, people will leave the website and find somewhere else to get the information they are seeing. Here are two examples of home pages, one is good and one is bad:

Good Homepage

Bad Homepage

This J. Crew homepage is very clean, organized, and has a good use of color that enhances the webpage and does not detract from the material or aesthetic. This example of a bad homepage is for some sort of company where you can buy Hawaiian goods. The homepage is so cluttered that the viewer can barely find what exactly the website has to offer. Someone who is looking to buy something off the internet is much more likely to buy something from a company with a homepage like the J. Crew page, not the webpage like the Hawaiian goods page.