Importance of Good Design

Readers prefer well-organized websites with good design.

(Source: webtoaster.net)

As mentioned by Reep (2006, p. 135), 'the principles of design are qualities important to any visual presentation regardless of topic or audience'. The general principles that should be considered when applying to all documents are:

• Balance
• Proportion
• Sequence
• Consistency

Correspondingly, Bernhardt's (1986, p. 72) law of gestalt has also stressed on the importance in document design. The four laws of gestalt emphasized are:

• Equilibrium
• Good continuation
• Closure
• Similarity

Both principles place importance on good balancing and continuation for a screen design.

Let us have a look at the three screen shots from my presentation slides.

Slide 1

The slide above consists of a heading which acts as an extra point to the screen design as Reep (2006, p. 154) mentioned that headings can help readers find specific data and show them where changes in topics occur. Although the overall design is simple and brief, it is clear enough to notify the audience about the topics which the presenter is going to present. The points are short and straight to the point.

Slide 2

According to Nielson (1997), readers scan through and pick out individual words and sentences in the web pages rather than read them word by word. Therefore, I would say that Slide 2 shows a bad designed document. The points are too long. The improvement that I could make is to shorten the points and highlight the keywords to assist readers in focusing on important points in the slide.

Slide 3

In an effective document design, words and visuals support each other (Reep 2006, p. 134). Visual helps to stimulate readers' attention. Thus, Slide 3 could be considered a good design as it shows a balanced composition of both image and text. However, the flaw of this slide would be the size of the image. The size of the image should be reduced while the size of the text should be enlarged so that the words can be seen more clearly.

Effective design draws readers through the page from important point to important point (Reep 2006, p. 136). Therefore, a good design is crucial for any document. Apply the correct principles and readers will stay and read the document.

Reference

Bernhardt, SA 1986, 'Seeing the Text', College Composition and Communication, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 66 - 78.

Nielson, J 1997, 'How Users Read on the Web', useit.com, viewed 19 April 2010, < http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html >.

Reep, D 2006, 'Chapter 6: Document Design', Technical Writing, 6th edn, Pearson/ Longman, New York.

New Forms of Media Publishing

Countless forms of new media. Are you a fan of any of them? 

(Source: www.penn-olson.com)

Whenever we heard of the phrase "new media", the first idea that comes to our mind is media publishing through online methods. Internet has vastly altered the way we access and contribute information, as well as our mean of communication. New forms of media publishing are in the rise. A few latest trends include online journalism, vlogs, microblogs and social networking sites. 

Online Journalism

Journalism is evolving rapidly that it is now situated in a new media ecosystem where traditional newspapers and broadcast stations are combined with online journalism. Salcito (2009) refers it as "mixed media". Besides having traditional newspapers printed every day, newspapers nowadays do establish their own newspapers website, which serves as an extension of the paper itself. The same news we read from the printed newspapers can be easily found online. There is a new type of journalism, which is known as the citizen journalism. They are private individuals who report information that take various forms, from a podcast editorial to a report about a city council meeting on a blog (Rogers 2010). This has affected the traditional journalism as anybody can become a reporter at this instant. The credibility of sources found online would have to be questioned.

Video Blog (Vlog)

As the largest video site on the web, Youtube has almost 3.5 million visitors every day and 15 hours of video uploaded every minute (Clean Cut Media 2009). The way messages are being transmitted has changed due to its ability and speed to disseminate message to the masses. Many bloggers upload videos of themselves to share with online users. This including our very own Prime Minister, Dato' Sri Mohd Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak, who also has his own YouTube channel set up to deliver messages to his people.

Micro Blog and Social Networking Sites

Twitter is a collection of micro blogs where people post their minute-by-minute thoughts and actions (Bevan 2008). It can also be considered as a social networking site like Facebook. These two social media has greatly altered the way how people communicate. For instance, they have permitted people to communicate without having to go through a face-to-face communication process. They have allow people to connect and update each other regardless of geographical boundaries.

Lastly, here's a video that details out social media facts and figures which you should be aware of.

Are you ready? Go!

Reference

Bevan, K 2008, 'Why are there no spam or trolls on Twitter?', The Guardian, viewed 16th April 2010, < http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/06/socialnetworking.spam>.

Clean Cut Media 2009, Youtube Statistics: The Ultimate Time Suck, viewed 16 April 2010, < http://www.cleancutmedia.com/video/youtube-statistics-the-ultimate-time-suck >.

Rogers, T 2010, 'What is Citizen Journalism?', About.com, viewed 16 April 2010, < http://journalism.about.com/od/citizenjournalism/a/whatiscitizen.htm >.

Salcito, K 2009, 'New Media Trends', Journalism Ethcis, viewed 16 April 2010, < http://www.journalismethics.ca/online_journalism_ethics/new_media_trends.htm >.

Socialnomics09's Channel 2009, YouTube, viewed 16 April 2010, < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8&feature=player_embedded >.

Blogging Communities in the Blogosphere

Every blog connects via blogging communities and formed the blogosphere.

(Source: eWriting, 2008)

What are blogging communities? According to Bock (as cited in White 2005), he stated that "Communities are characterized by three things: common interest, frequent interaction, and identification", and these three things must all present for an online space to form a community. Therefore, we can define blogging community as an online community where bloggers and readers who share the same interest connect and interact with each other via blogs as their platform.

Three forms of blogging communities.

(Source: The Knowledge Tree, 2006)

As blogging is constantly growing, White (2006) has identified three forms of blogging communities, with a wide variety of hybrid forms emerging the three.

A mind map showing how blogger centric community works.

(Source: The Knowledge Tree, 2006)

1.   Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community

• It is formed when the focus and power of the community is firmly control by the central identity, the blog owner. Readers return to the central blog, comment, and get to know blogger and the community of commentators. (eg: KennySia.com)

The diagram shows the relationship within

a central connecting topic community.

(Source: The Knowledge Tree, 2006)

2.   Central Connecting Topic Community

• It is formed when various blogs that share common interest or passion are linked together. Both power and identity are distributed across the community. As they expand, they form a network. (eg: Global Voices)

The formation of boundaried communities.

(Source: The Knowledge Tree, 2006)

3.   Boundaried Communities

• It is a collection of blogs and blog readers hosted on a single site or platform. This form of community often has other tools such as discussion board, social networking features, wikis and instant messaging built in. (eg: LiveJournal, MySpace)
  

It is relatively easy to create a blogging community. We can see its structure through the example of Global Voices community. All blogs are linked through hyperlinks, in the form of blogroll, links to other blogs within blog posts, tagging, aggregated feeds (using RSS), trackbacks and comments (White 2006). Readers are able to link from one blog to another to access more stories or information on a particular topic that they are interested in. They will be able to get hold of things happening in the blogospheres of every corner over the world.

All in all, a blogging community connects all bloggers and it can only exist with the active participation and contribution among bloggers and readers.

Reference

White, N 2005, 'How Some Folks Have Tried to Describe Community', Full Circle Association, viewed 11 April 2010, < http://www.fullcirc.com/community/definingcommunity.htm >.

White, N 2006, 'Blogs and Comunity: launching a new paradigm for online community?', The Knowledge Tree, viewed 11 April 2010, < http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-–-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community >.

Classification of Blogs

Different people blog for different reasons. In general, the three main reasons why people blog is to speak their mind, share expertise, share experiences with family and friends as well as make money or do business (Sussman 2009). Hence, bloggers create their blog based on the most effective method which they feel that it can communicate the intended message to the readers. In fact, the term "blog" itself carries different meanings and so far, there is no any standard reference to distinguish the types of blog. 

To my knowledge, blogs can be classified as below:

• Personal blog
• Politics blog
• Fashion blog
• Photography blog
• Moblog
• Vlog
• Linklog
• Sketchlog
• Tumblelog
• Microblog
• Business blog
• Corporate blog

On the other hand, Margaret Simons (2008) has come up with her own lists of blog classification:

• Pamphleteering Blog
• Digest Blog 
• Advocacy Blog
• Popular Mechanics Blog
• Exhibition Blog
• Gatewatcher Blog
• Diary Blog
• Advertisement Blog
• Newsblog

Many blogs are combinations of styles. Bloggers do not use merely one type of style to blog. They usually incorporate photos, videos, audios, and links related to their topics in order to enhance the readers' experience. This method of blogging has made identifying unique types difficult.

For instance, let us take a look at the famous Vietnamese-American makeup artist, Michelle Phan:

A blog entry consisting pictures, text and video.

Screenshots of Michelle Phan's how-to fashion blog.

In one of her blog entries, she is explaining on how to make a tomato scrub. Besides using text and photos, she also includes a self-made video in her blog for the readers to have a better understanding on the whole procedure. So basically, her blog can be referred as a combination of how-to, diary and fashion blog. 

In my opinion, the line between each category is so near to each other that it is hard to define a clear fine line to separate the types of blog. It is difficult for us to classify blogs into a certain category as the content of a blog is always a combination of different elements. 

Reference

Simons, M 2008, 'Towards a Taxonomy of Blogs', Australian Policy Online, viewed 10 April 2010, < http://www.apo.org.au/commentary/towards-taxonomy-blogs-0 >.

Sussman, M 2009, 'Day 2: The What and Why of Blogging - SOTB 2009', Technorati, viewed 9 April 2010,  < http://technorati.com/blogging/article/day-2-the-what-and-why2/page-2 >.

Getting to know the Blogosphere

(Source: Daily Blog Tips, 2008)

The term "blog" generates from the word "weblog" which is described as an online daily journal or a website with dated entries (McDougall 2007). From my personal perspective, a typical blog consists of the combination of text, photos and links to other blogs and sites related to its topic. According to Scocco (2008) , we can differentiate blogs from other websites based on a few features stated below:

1. The content of a blog is published in a chronological fashion.
2. The content of a blog is updated regularly by the blog author.
3. The readers have the possibilities to leave comments.
4. The content of a blog is syndicated via RSS feeds.

Undeniable, blogging as the current phenomenon is steadfastly a part of the mainstream and it is still growing. Based on the statistics report analyzed by Technorati (2007), there are over 120,000 new blogs and over 1.4 million new blog posts created every day! These are really shocking figures to learn.

Statistic shows a vast amount of blogs being created each day.

(Source: Technorati, 2007)

So, what are the current trends and types of blogs prevalent in Europe, Asia and Malaysia? State of the Blogosphere 2009 states that the use of Twitter and the impact that bloggers had on political events around the world are two obvious leading trends for 2009 in the blogosphere. In Malaysian context, online media (blogs) have increased citizens' access to alternative news and information sources (CIMA 2009). Many people have turned to the blogosphere to update themselves on information and events, especially topics related to political issues, that are usually given minimal coverage in other forms of media. Here an interesting fact: Research shows that 70% of the election results were influenced by the information in the blogs (The Star 2008). This shows that bloggers have the power to influence people's decision.


I personally think that the rising number of political blogs is beneficial to Malaysians as they have offered citizens an alternative platform to discuss their views on Malaysian political situations. They have gained more freedom of speech for citizen commentary and we can say that the government's monopoly on coverage is challenged indirectly. 

For instance, Jeff Ooi's blog is one of the political blogs that have deep influence to the Malaysian community. Readers can obtain information which are 'over-looked' by mainstream media freely.

Jeff Ooi's blog had a great impact on politics in Malaysia.

On the other hand, even our current Prime Minister, Dato' Sri Mohd. Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak has also created his own website, which works the same as blogs to update the nation on his views and thoughts.

Najib Tun Razak's blog that connects him to his people of Malaysia.

References:

Blogsphere of Inflence: Internet Press Freedom in Malaysia 2009, Center for International Media Assistance, viewed 9 April 2010, < http://cima.ned.org/events/malysia-event.html >.

McDougall, JS 2007, Start Your Own Blogging Business, Entrepreneur Media Inc., Canada.

Sifry, D 2007, The Sate of the Live Web, Sifry's Alert, viewed 9 April 2010,
< http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html >.

Sussman, M 2009, 'Day 5: Twitter, Global Impact and Future of Blogging - SOTB 2009', Technorati, viewed 9 April 2010, < http://technorati.com/blogging/article/day-5-twitter-global-impact-and/ >.

The Star 2008, 'Blogging in Malaysia ranks among highest in the world', viewed 9 April 2010, < http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/4/3/nation/20827588&sec=nation >.

Welcome to the Blogosphere

 * WELCOME! *

A very warm welcome to all readers!

As online media is gaining more importance in the present age of technology, many issues associated with publishing and document designing have been brought into our society at the same time. Thus, targeted at my fellow classmates, students majoring in the filed of mass communication, media experts, document designers and the masses who are interested in this topic, this blog is created to serve as a platform for discussing a variety of media issues as well as creating awareness among all readers in relation to issues in publication and design. 

In upcoming blog entries, I will be posting in-depth discussions on media issues. Constructive arguments and views will also be provided in hopes that all readers will achieve a better understanding on the topics. So, please stay tuned and feel free to leave a comment concerning any of the blog entries!