Jakob Nielsen on Usability

            Jakob Nielsen has been known for many impressive things throughout the world. Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., is a User Advocate and principal of the Nielsen Norman Group, which co-founded with Dr. Donald A. Norman, the former Vice President of research at Apple Computer.  Before starting NNG in 1998 he was a Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer.  Dr. Nielsen also founded the "discount usability engineering" movement for fast and cheap improvements of user interfaces and has invented several usability methods, including heuristic evaluation.  He holds 79 United States patents, mainly on ways of making the Internet easier to use.  Nielsen is basically well-known for internet usability, ways of making the internet easier for everyone to use, and provides good guidelines for good web practices.

The guidelines for a good website include the design process and evaluation, optimizing the user experience, accessibility, the hardware and software, the homepage, the page layout, navigation, scrolling and paging, headings, titles, and labels, links, the text appearance, lists, screen-based controls, graphics, images, and multimedia, how to write web content, content organization, search, and usability testing.

According to Nielsen, the top ten mistakes in web design include bad search, PDF files for online reading, not changing the color of visited links, non-scannable text, fixed font size, page titles with low search engine visibility, anything that looks like an advertisement, violating design conventions, opening new browser windows, and not answering users’ questions.

A site I found that I think is very hard to use and operate is the omniFEEDBACK site for Start the Change.  The link to this site is http://www.start-the-change.org/ .  In the light of Nielsen’s guidelines on good web practices and top ten usability mistakes, I came across this site and realized that it is an example of bad web design.  First off, it takes a very long time for the site to load the page and when it finally does I was very confused at what the purpose of the site was and it also completely sounded like an infomercial.  Another bad design of the site that I noticed was that the resolution size is too big for the screen and it does not adjust it to fit the screen so when it plays the opening video, the viewer has to scroll vertically and horizontally in order to see the entire video.  It is consistently too big throughout the entire rest of the website, not just the opening video scene.  There is also no option to skip the opening introduction video, which is dragged on way too long.  It not only took too long to load the site, but even the navigation is so slow to load.  The navigation also is very confusing to find.  The viewer has to scroll up and down to find the navigation and more places to click around on, and then once you’ve clicked on something, a man’s voice starts speaking and you cannot click around on other links until after the man is done explaining everything.  Each link and tab under the navigation is very repetitive and the man’s voice says a lot of the same things over and over again.  I would not have even noticed the other links to click around on if I had not tried to scroll up and down after looking around for a few minutes to find it.  Also, there is not even a search bar or section on this site, this entire site looks like an advertisement, and it does not answer the users’ questions.  Overall, this site is very confusing and I do not even understand the point of it.

Cyberdrama

            Cyberdrama is used to discuss a new type of storytelling and a new type of story that is emerging, as the computer is now an expressive medium.  The term emphasizes “the enactment of the story in the particular fictional space of the computer” (Cyberdrama).  Cyberdrama must give human participants an experience of agency, which basically means the participant’s actions must have an appropriate and understandable impact on the world the computer presents to them.  Many authors continue to work actively on the design and development of cyberdramatic experiences because “they and many others believe that a large number of new medias most successful creations incline toward cyberdrama” (Cyberdrama).  Cyberdrama exists as a powerful force of imagination.

            The digital medium is well-suited to gaming because it is procedural, which means generating behavior based on rules, and participatory, which allows the player as well as the creator to move things around.  Also, “it is a medium that includes still images, moving images, text, audio, three-dimensional, navigable space – more of the building blocks of storytelling than any single medium has ever offered us.  So gamemakers can include more of these elements in the game world” (Cyberdrama).  Games and stories also have two important structures in common, which are contest and puzzle.

“Game-story means the story-rich new gaming formats that are proliferating in digital formats: the hero-driven video game, the atmospheric first person shooter, the genre-focused role-playing game, the character-focused simulation” (Cyberdrama).  These examples are all very storylike and use cyberdrama.  Game are always stories.

An example of a game that I play all the time is The Sims, which I play on the computer or in a video game.  The Sims is a strategic life-simulation video game where the player creates and performs the daily activities of one or more virtual persons in a suburban household near SimCity.  The Sims game is a contest, which is “the meeting of opponents in pursuit of mutually exclusive aims.  It is a structure of human experience, of course, from parenting to courtship to war, and as a cognitive structure it may have evolves as a survival mechanism in the original struggle of predator and prey in the primeval world” (Cyberdrama).  It is a contest rather than a puzzle, which is the challenge to the mind, where the pacing is often one of open-ended rearranging rather than turn-based moves.  Most stories and most games, electronic or otherwise, include some contest elements and some puzzle elements.

I am engaged as an author in the story as I create what happens in the game and what each character does each day, what their friends and family look like, and even what the house that they live in looks like, as well as the outcome of the game.  I control the actions and moves of the player.  I am limited in a way by the creator of the game because I can only do so much in the game to make it my own story with my own outcome, based off of the guidelines that the creator did or did not put into the game.  The person of the narrative is the virtual character(s) that I create in the game that perform the daily activities and make the story what it is.  “Cyberdrama must give human participants an experience of agency.”  This means that “the participant’s actions have an appropriate and understandable impact on the world the computer presents to them” (Cyberdrama).  “Agency is the feeling of empowerment that comes from being able to take actions in the world whose effects relate to the player’s intention” (Cyberdrama).  Agency is incorporated within my example of The Sims game because the game does give the participants and players an understandable impact on the world that is presented to them within the computer game.  This is because the player completely impacts the world in the game, as they control everything that happens from what the characters in the game look like, do every day, wear every day, and even where they live.  The game also leaves the participant with the feeling of empowerment as they take actions in the world effecting the players in the game, which is what agency is.

Immersion and transformation are other goals that must be achieved “through a combination of experience design, computer graphics, and artificial intelligence” (Cyberdrama).  The player is immersed in the game because “for immersion to take place, the characters in the world need to seem real to the participant.  This means that they need to be believable enough that the participant cares about them” (Cyberdrama).  “Immersion is the feeling of being present in another place and engaged in the action therein” (Cyberdrama).  This is certainly relevant in The Sims game.  The player is transformed in the game as well.  “The game experience allows the player to transform themselves into someone else for the duration of the experience” (Cyberdrama).  The game experience also “offers a multitude of variations on a theme.  The player is able to exhaustively explore these variations and thus gain an understanding of the theme” (Cyberdrama).  The player creates action through the performance of the characters within the game, while completely impacts the outcome of the game.  The player creates all of the characters actions, what they will do every single day, creating a story, that the player has complete control over, ultimately effecting and choosing the outcome of the game that the player desires.

Theatrical Concepts in Human/Computer Activity

            Brenda Laurel states “technologies offer new opportunities for creative, interactive experiences, and in particular, for new forms of drama.  But these new opportunities will come to pass only if control of the technology is taken away from the technologist and given to those who understand human beings, human interaction, communication, pleasure, and pain” (Laurel).  Laurel also touches on the ‘Six Elements and the Casual Relations Among Them” in this article.  These six elements are elements of quantitative structure, and are action, character, thought, language, pattern, and enactment.  The model of these six elements “creates a disciplined way of thinking about the design of a play in both constructing and debugging activities” (Laurel).  The elements of qualitative structure are in hierarchical order.  “Each element is the formal cause of all those below it, and each element is the material cause of all those above it.  As you move up the list of elements from the bottom, you can see how much each level is a successive refinement – a shaping – of the materials offered by the previous level” (Laurel).

            In Human-Computer Activity, action is “the whole action, as it is collaboratively shaped by system and user.  The action may vary in each interactive session” (Laurel).  Character is bundles of predispositions and traits, inferred from agents’ of both human and computer origin patterns of choice.  Thought is an inferred internal process of both human and computer origin leading to the choice of cognition, emotion, and reason.  Language is “the selection and arrangement of signs, including verbal, visual, auditory, and other nonverbal phenomena when used semiotically” (Laurel).  Pattern is “the pleasurable perception of pattern in sensory phenomena” (Laurel).  Finally, enactment is “the sensory dimensions of the action being represented: visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile, and potentially all others” (Laurel).

            The Gears of War video game is an example of a digital game that uses the six qualitative elements of structure that Laurel defines.  It shows how there is a disciplined way of thinking about the design in both constructing and debugging activities.  It uses the six qualitative elements of structure because the characters in the game represent the action, running around on the war front and shooting oncoming opponents.  “An action is made up of incidents that are casually and structurally related to one another” (Laurel).  It includes character in that there are several different characters portrayed throughout the scenes of the video game and includes many personalities and identities to choose from interacted in the video game.  Thought is represented in this video game as well because there is an inferred internal process that had to occur in order to create the video game, which involved cognition, emotion of the characters, and reason.  Language is certainly present in the game as there are many different forms of language seen throughout the video game.  The different characters and viewers use verbal, visual, and auditory signs in order to play this game.  The form of this video game is manifest in the pattern created by the arrangement of incidents within the whole action.  Finally, enactment is present in this video game as it is everything that is seen, and includes sensory dimensions of the action being represented.  The surroundings and locations that the viewer is placed in when playing this video game are created to look 3-dimensional and realistic.  Not only do the visual aspects that go into this video game make it seem as realistic as it does, but also the auditory effects are what add significant value to the video game to make it seem as realistic as it does.  The six qualitative elements of structure are seen in many places in our world today, such as in almost every digital game that exists or in other digital stories as well.

Transmedia Blog

            Transmedia Storytelling is very similar to distributed narratives in that the narrative is distributed not through authorship, but across networks.  It differs in that transmedia storytelling can be portrayed though several networks rather than just one medium such as one website that is used to tell a specific distributive narrative story.  “Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story” (Jenkins, Transmedia Storytelling 101).  Some examples of the multiple delivery mediums that can be used to portray a certain story are through films, comics, by having viewers interact with characters on websites, video games, by following leads on Twitter or a Facebook page, or even through the display of action figures, which can encourage children to construct their own stories about the fictional characters or costumes and role playing games which invite us to immerse ourselves in the world of the fiction.

Examples of storylines that use transmedia can be the Matrix, where key bits of the story are unfolded through several different networks, such as live action films, a series of animated shorts, comic books, and video games.  Another example can be other movies such as Batman Begins or Superman Returns where there were comic books released in advance before the actual films that provided back-story and key bits of information of the stories, which hyped up the release of the films as well as enhanced the viewer’s experience of the story or film.

“Transmedia Storytelling engages consumers through different means, shifting from the traditional linear story, to a more complex, multi-dimensional “story world.”  These characters and “story worlds” can exist and develop outside of their initial film timeline, and this integration will allow consumers to enjoy the entertainment on a number of levels” (Vitter, Transmedia Storytelling).  Therefore, by using these several different platforms of deliveries, it allows the story to be unfolded in several different ways, allowing the audience to create a story of their own, get more involved with the characters personalities, use their imagination and fill in the gaps themselves.

Like distributed narratives, many stories are told perfectly well within a single medium, and the audience leaves satisfied, ready for something else.  “Transmedia represents a strategy for telling stories where there is a particularly diverse set of characters, where the world is richly realized, and where there is a strong back-story or mythology that can extend beyond the specific episodes being depicted in the film or television series.  Transmedia represents a creative opportunity, but it should never be a mandate for all entertainment” (Jenkins, Severn Myths About Transmedia Storytelling Debunked).

My example of a story that is told across various networks and medias is the classic story of Madeline.  The well-known story of Madeline uses plenty of forms of transmedia.  For example, the story of Madeline uses many different mediums to present the story to their audience through storybooks, dolls that children can play with that are made to be Madeline, several movies about the story of Madeline, as well as several Madeline board games, and even a Madeline Monopoly game, which even include Madeline figurines.  There are also puzzles that create out a scene from the story of Madeline as well as card games, computer games, and video games about the story.  I remember reading all of the books, watching the movies, playing several of these computer games, and even doing the Madeline puzzles when I was younger.  Even though the story of Madeline is old and the latest movie that was filmed was over thirteen years ago, it is still a classic story that every child learns and every adult remembers.  The story is still being kept up and extended onto currently in our world today.  “The extension may add a greater sense of realism to the fiction as a whole” (Jenkins, Transmedia Storytelling 101).  There are even Madeline fan clubs online as well as a Madeline Facebook page.  “Transmedia allows gifted storytellers to expand their canvas and share more of their vision with their most dedicated fans” (Jenkins, Seven Myths About Transmedia Storytelling Debunked).  Since Madeline uses transmedia, it has expanded their canvas of their story and allows the audience to engage more with the characters and use their imagination to continue adding on to the story of Madeline.

“In transmedia, elements of a story are dispersed systematically across multiple media platforms, each making their own unique contribution to the whole. Each medium does what it does best--comics might provide back-story, games might allow you to explore the world, and the television series offers unfolding episodes.” (Jenkins, Seven Myths About Transmedia Storytelling Debunked).  Transmedia storytelling is very effective because it allows the audience to drill deeper into the stories that they love.

Here are images of various types of networks and medias that are used to tell the story Madeline to an audience:

Remediation, Immediacy and Hypermediacy Blog

            Remediation, immediacy, and hypermediacy are key concepts that can be found in our everyday lives.  Examples of these are present everywhere, including all over the Internet.  Remediation “refers to the idea that all new media relies on one or more preceding medium, which it refashions or repurposes.  As McLuhan put it in Understanding Media, “the ‘content’ of any medium is always another medium.  The content of writing is speech, just as the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph” (23-24).  Now, we can still see that many new media examples draw on preceding media.  For example, online video draws on (depending on its purpose) television, telephone, and face-to-face (FtF) communication” (Time Barrow).  The remediation media that is used anew in other media is “not mainly the content, but [just] part of the form is reused in a new media form” (Mediated Memories).  Immediacy is “a process in which the medium is ‘erased’ from the experience as much as possible, in order to achieve a more ‘real’ experience” (Mediated Memories).  Hypermediacy “refers to an explicit use of mediation; the medium is expressly present in the users experience.  Differently put, immediacy is looking through a medium, while hypermediacy is looking at a medium” (Mediated Memories).

            The difference between immediacy and hypermediacy still seemed very unclear to me but when I did more research, I realized that immediacy is where “the more realistic and one angled perception is taken.  It is a very straightforward take of the image for example, photographs that are just taken in the moment” (Immediacy vs. Hypermediacy).  Hypermediacy is “where the media highlights realism for more intense experience.  An example of this would be a person playing a video game that is set in World War Two where they know it’s not real, but provides on knowing many different angles of what happened in reality” (Immediacy vs. Hypermediacy).  Immediacy and Hypermediacy can go hand in hand, therefore, “immediacy and hypermediacy are not mutually exclusive, and their constituent elements reinforce each other” (Mediated Memories).

An example of immediacy is an online video chat with another person.  This example of immediacy can be seen as a transparent immediacy.  “In this sense, a transparent interface would be one that erases itself, so that the user is no longer aware of confronting a medium, but instead stands in an immediate relationship to the contents of that medium” (Time Barrow).  This screen shot of an online video chat is a good example of immediacy because it is being captured in the moment, and when looked at takes the viewer away from being aware of the confronting medium of the actual person who they are video chatting with, and instead forces them to look at the contents of that medium but on the computer screen, which is an immediate relationship to the contents of that medium, who the actual, real, and live person they are currently chatting with.  “By the use of the video, it places the user right in front of a human conversant, including the awareness of sound, appearance, gesture, facial expression, etc” (Time Barrow).  In other words, “users want an immediate connection with the medium.  The automatic or deferred quality of computer programming promotes in the viewer a sense of immediate contact with the image” (Time Barrow).  Therefore, when one is using video to communicate with another, he or she has an equal or greater sense of this immediate contact, yet with the individual on the screen.

An example of hypermediacy is a video game.  A video game can be seen as an example because the logic of hypermediacy acknowledges multiple acts of representation, such as the characterization of multiple images, moving images, or sometimes moving observers, and makes them visible.  The goal of hypermediacy is “to be very apparent so that the user may interact with the interface.  Its raw ingredients are images, sound, text, animation and video, which can be brought together in any combination.  In hypermedia settings, the user is continually brought back to and made aware of the interface” (Time Barrow).  This screen shot of the Call of Duty: World at War video game shows how the viewer is very interactive with the medium, as it shows the controls and options that the viewer may choose in order to perform the next move in the game, and involves multiple moving images as well as animation, sound, and a storyline.

An example of remediation is a virtual museum.  The virtual museum is a remediation of a physical museum, which is in itself a remediation of other media.  The virtual museum is media that has been used anew in other media, but not using mainly the content, but only part of the form is reused in a new media form.  The content would be the actual physical parts of the museum and other aspects of it, while the parts of the forms that are reused are the structure and surroundings and other aspects of the physical museum.  The virtual museum refashions and repurposes the preceding medium, which is the physical museum, and is made up of another preexisting medium of the museum.

Digital Narrative Blog

Digital and distributed narratives are becoming more and more popular as the web and ease of digital advancements continues.  Digital narratives are when diverse or ordinary peoples use digital tools to tell their “story.”  They often are presented in compelling and emotionally engaging formats, and can be interactive.  Digital narratives also cover a range of digital based techniques, such as web-based stories, interactive stories, hypertexts, and even narrative computer games.  Many people use elaborate non-traditional story forms, such as non-linear and interactive narratives.  Some ways to create a digital narrative or storytelling is by writing and telling stories using digital media that relate to narrative and structure.  Digital storytelling can also refer to a short form of digital filmmaking that allows everyday people to share aspects of their life story.  The website that was an example of digital and distributed narratives that I found very interesting was the Post Secret website, which is a very unique form of a distributed narrative.  This site is unique because it does not just tell one persons story, but numerous people’s stories.  In fact, it actually tells the people’s secrets rather than their stories.  This site is much more intriguing to me than the others because it especially catches my interest.  The “secrets” are sometimes very private or very personal, and sometimes are hilarious or very random.  The site allows people to send their secrets to them via mail, email, or now even through the new PostSecret App.  In Post Secrets there is not a lot of use of the traditional technique of using moving images and sound, which are often found incorporated into digital narratives, but more of a homemade and simple looking structure and framework.  The people’s secrets are in many cases homemade, composed of either a photo or a postcard or even a random assortment of pieces pasted together with their secrets hand-written on top of it, but lately a lot more of them have been made digitally.

I agree with the statement that there are two distinct phases of this type of authorship: the author or creative that frames the story telling and the participants that form the different perspectives and create the story episode.  The author or creative that frames the story telling and creates the actual look and feel of the website contribute to the framework and structure of the site.  This also contributes to the effectiveness of the story telling and how it is overall portrayed to the viewers in the end.  In this case, the Post Secret website’s framework is a simple black background with each image of the person’s secrets placed one below the other all the way down.  This simple black background really adds to the effectiveness of the story telling site because it makes the posts pop out and make it so the viewer’s attention is all focused in on the posts and secrets, which is the main focus of the site.  The participants that form the different perspectives and create the story episode are the people who actually send in their secrets.  They are very important to the creation of a digital narrative because they are the only reason that this site is what it is.  Because of their storytelling, they have created different perspectives, points of views, and shared their story and creative imaginings with others.

My overall reaction to this Post Secret digital narrative website is that I am very intrigued by it, more so than by the other examples provided.  Aesthetically, the appearance and beauty of this site is not very complex or beautiful, but it is still pleasing to the eye because of its simplicity and straightforward structure which makes it easier to focus on the main point of the site, which are the secret posts, the actual digital narrative.  Emotionally, this site makes me feel open at the same time as it makes me feel closed.  It reminds me that I have plenty of secrets of my own, but it also makes me feel like others are accepting me into their lives by sharing their secrets with me and to the public.  Intellectually, I think that it is very easy to understand the reasoning and purpose of the site.  It is straightforward and interesting to the viewer.  I think that digital narratives, thanks to new media and digital technologies, allow individuals to approach storytelling from unique perspectives.

Interactive Narrative Blog

Interactive Narratives are designed to capture the best of online visual storytelling.  The goal of interactive narratives is to highlight rich-media content, engaging storytelling, and eye-popping design in an environment that fosters interaction, discussion, and learning.  The Born Magazine is an experimental venue site that combines literary arts and interactive media.  Original projects are brought to life through creative collaboration between writers and artists.  It includes several motion and moving images and sound within its pieces.  It is especially interactive with the viewers, as many parts of the site such as the “Shirtless Others” portion of the site, require the viewer to “click the Mako shark and drag the butcher knife to read the story.”  Once the viewer does so, a story about people who are near the ocean and catch one of the biggest sharks in the competition is displayed.  It is a very cool piece, which uses a lot of artistic and creative factors.  It is very original, and it displays the words of the story sentence by sentence, so as the viewer keeps dragging the butcher knife up the shark’s belly, more blood leaks out and more of the story is released and presented to the viewer as well.  It is an interesting tactic and technique, as it keeps the viewer interested and engaged in the site.  Therefore I find this technique to be an artistic merit, which deserves praise and reward, because it is highly successful in that it makes the viewer impatient and want to keep reading on by following the interactive do-it-yourself steps that the site incorporated into its stories.  It is very creative and makes it fun for the viewer to read the story.  It also provides a visual and sound for a better understanding of the story that is being told.  This interactive narrative site consists of several types of rich-media content and includes images of people, animals, places, objects, etc.  It also includes music in the background.  For example, in the “Shirtless Others” story on The Born Magazine, there are seagulls and waves crashing in the background to correspond with the visual beach scene that describes the story.  The software that was mainly used in this interactive narrative site was flash.  The narrative form that is used is extremely interactive with its viewers and readers.  As technology has advanced, digital and distributed interactive narratives are becoming more and more popular.  I think that digital interactive narratives, thanks to new media and digital technologies, allow individuals to approach storytelling from very unique perspectives.  I would say that this piece, “Shirtless Others,” absolutely pushes the limits of traditional narrative and media, as it is very different from any other piece I have seen.  It is very creative and interactive, and uses new technologies and advanced media that traditional narrative and media does not use.  I hope to eventually be using some of these techniques in class, such as creating digital narratives that are interactive pieces with the viewer, which tell a story using flash player.

Here is an upload of an image that illustrates the unities and use of distributed media.  It displays the story about the shark at the competition with the people around as it shows them all standing there by the water with the shark.  It also shows how when you slide the butcher knife up the shark’s belly, more of the story is presented.