In Episode 9 of Screen Space: Design 101b (Some Basic Vocabulary)

Welcome to Screen Space your podcast about creating usable, accessible, effective, and efficient web, blog, and new media design for the everyday (and non-expert) designer. It is September 7th, and this is Episode 9 of Screen Space: Design 101b (Some Basic Vocabulary). The episode focuses on a few key design vocabulary words and concepts you should know for good web, blog, and new media design.

In case you forgot or for any new listeners, I am Dr. Jennifer L. Bowie, a professor at Georgia State University. I teach and conduct research in areas related to new media, web, and blog design.

Sorry for the delay folks with this episode. As a professor the beginning of a new semester is particularly crazy. Plus, on top of normal beginning of semester craziness, I had a triathlon and then had 13 friends visiting from out of town for Dragon*Con (an awesome science fiction and fantasy convention). I’ve been busy. Now things are a bit more settled, and I should be back on track.

Today’s episode focuses on four design terms you should know and utilize, especially before I delve deeper into design with future podcasts. So, sit back and prepare those mental vocab flash cards.

Read the rest of this entry »

 

 Screen Space 9: Design 101b (Some Basic Vocabulary) [11:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Digtal media, Typography, Visual Design, Screen Space Podcast, podcast, Web design, Good Design, Screen Space, Design | 1 Comment »

Screen Space 9 will be further delayed. Expect it next weekend (September 7th).

Announcements, Screen Space | No Comments »

Various genres of websites have quickly developed, and this site shows the degree to which we understand and then can make fun of the genres. The dating site is a well established genre. In fact, due to commercials and basic cultural use and understanding, even someone who has never been to a dating site could probably outline what the main page would look. Those who have been could provide an even more detailed description. So then we get twists to the genre–such as this Zombie dating website. I find the play on genre almost as amusing as the actual content. I plan to use this as an example in classes when I next cover website genres. Plus, it is just a funny site.

Teaching Resources, Genre, Digtal media, Resources, Teaching, Design | No Comments »

Copyright issues are particularly important to consider when constructing websites, developing a blog, or creating new media. Copyright comes into play in interesting ways online and it is an issue I have been meaning to go into more in this blog. I’ll even do a podcast episode or two on it.

For many people copyright was not really a big concern, besides the scary copyright FBI warnings on VHS tapes, before the RIAA lawsuits. When the RIAA started suing teenagers for downloading music on file sharing software such as KaZaA, everyone started taking note. Information may want to be free, but we do need to respect copyright.

The RIAA cases changed how many people, especially younger internet users, listened to music. But, the lawsuits have also resulted in an interesting copyright argument. As this article by Paul Glazowski on Mashable shows, one “music stealing” person won something of a financial break by drawing on a interesting part of copyright law. Copyright damages, according to 17 U.S.C. § 504 of the Copyright Act, are set at a minimum of $750 per work. However, it the act also states:

“where the infringer . . . was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200.” 17 U.S.C. § 504

The defendant in Maverick v. Harper received this lesser charge, a savings of $550 per item. This is still rather costly, but the leeway this gives those who can show they “didn’t know better” is good. While copyright is an important part of our intellectual property and distribution, consideration needs to be made of the context of infringement. Paul Glazowski makes a good argument for the cost of infringements in this same article, which I will not get into now.

Without diving much deeper into this issue, I will say I am a strong supporter of the Creative Commons movement. The RIAA lawsuits and other copyright lawsuits and issues have created an even greater need for the everyday person to have access to media that they can use in various ways. Copyright should be honored, but so should the creative needs of our citizens. Creative Commons is a good way to do both.

Fair Use, Creative Commons, Digtal media, Copyright issues, Copyleft, Copyright | No Comments »

Screen Space 9 is delayed due to the start of the semester rush I am experiencing. Look for it Sunday 8/24.

Announcements, Screen Space | 1 Comment »

In episode 8 of Screen Space 8: Length, Contrast, Alignment, and Critique

Welcome to Screen Space your podcast about creating usable, accessible, effective, and efficient web, blog, and new media design for the everyday (and non-expert) designer. It is August 3, 2008, and this is Episode 8 of Screen Space: Length, Contrast, Alignment, and Critique. The episode includes a few listeners’ questions, a discussion of the Screen Space Star Rating System, and a rating.

For any new listeners (or in case you forgot), I am Dr. Jennifer L. Bowie, a professor at Georgia State University. I teach and conduct research in areas related to new media, web, and blog design.

Now, let’s dive into the show. I have three listener questions today. The first is from Kristin Schierer in New York State. Kristin, who is redesigning the website I am rating today, asked “how much text would you recommend for 1 page?” This is a great question, so I though I’d answer it here. Ideally, text should be kept to under a screen per webpage. People don’t like to scroll, and any more than a screenfull makes them scroll. However, this may be difficult to work on some sites, and making the users click a zillion times to keep reading a single screen of text in a long document may also annoy them.

Read the rest of this entry »

 

 Screen Space 8: Length, Contrast, Alignment, and Critique [9:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Digtal media, Screen Space Podcast, Teaching Resources, Visual Design, Colorblind Issues, Color Design, Resources, Screen Space, Writing Issues, Fact of the Day, Web design, Good Design, Usability, Design | 6 Comments »

Cosmo apparently supports music piracy! Or it is fair use? Thanks to Podcasting News for posting about this Cosmos suggestion of asking friends to burn you a CD of music you’ll like (and returning the favor) because “Having new tunes is ideal, but shelling out the cash to buy said music hurts.” The Podcasting News blog post does an interesting job of discussing this. I’m rather surprised that Cosmo would suggest this, when we all know the music industry has come down recently on people sharing music. However, we do have some fair use to our purchased music.

Of course where music sharing comes in under fair use is an interesting matter. A quick evaluation (+ means falls under fair use, - means it does not)
+ Your sharing does not involve you making money off of it. But trading one mix CD for another could be argued to be “commercial” so do be careful with this.
- Your use is not for comment (not really), criticism, scholarship, education, news reporting, or parody.
+/- The amount of work used is a hard question. While you may only be copying one song off an album, it is still a whole song. Does music count as songs or as albums? Copying a chapter from a book is generally okay, but a song?
+ The work has been published and is in commercial form.
+/- The market value effect is also hard to evaluated. This one can depend. In Cosmo’s case you are clearly copying the work to not pay for it–as it is a “Shameless Money-Saving Trick.” However, often if people like a song off a mix tape they may buy it or the whole album. Thus your use could create additional market for the song. Copying a whole album would more of a “-” in this case, as it is doubtful that someone would buy a whole album they already have. But they may buy additional albums. So it is still a hard call.

However, it looks like overall sharing a CD of songs (from various artists and albums) with a friend arguably falls under fair use. You may want to follow the CD with an offer to buy them the CD of whichever song they like best or something along that line. More “fair use” would be sharing a CD from a single artist, but requesting it back when they have listened enough to see they like it. Other options include using music you have permission to share, such as Creative Commons licensed music and much of the podsafe music. Also, many artists that have not be “found” by huge record labels want you to share their music, as it is the best way to get fans. I know I frequently share my favorite smaller artists with others and know I have developed quite a few fans for these bands, and, as a result, earning them more money then they would have if I had not shared. I also do often buy friend CDs of these bands to support the bands too.

I am a firm supporter of utilizing our fair use when we have it. So, while I do not agree with how Cosmo presented this, and certainly doing it to save money is less “fair” of a use, in general the idea of a mix CD for a friend does seem to fall under fair use.

Of course, I could discuss this forever, as there are so many ins and outs of fair use.

Fair Use, Copyright issues, Copyleft, Copyright | No Comments »

As part of Screen Space (the podcast) #6 I created a nice table with text color and background color contrasts, to illustrate good and bad contrasts. Since this is so helpful I made it a permanent page. However, the link is hidden in my long podcast transcript. So, let me point to it now. Do check it out, the table is very helpful and nicely demonstrates the blurring and vibrating bad color selections can cause.

Resources, Teaching Resources, Screen Space, Good Design, texts, Design | No Comments »

Screen Space (the podcast) #8 will include some listener questions. And I would like more. So, do you have any questions about web, blog, and/or new media design? Perhaps some burning question you had had for years? Or maybe a tiny little one that has come to mind lately? Post your questions here or drop me an email. Then, listen for the answers in Screen Space #8!

Digtal media, Screen Space, Good Design, Web design, Design | No Comments »

In Screen Space (the podcast) #6, I covered tips for designing for colorblind users. In case some of you are not listening to the podcast and not reading the very long transcripts, I wanted to pull out some of the cool tools and repost them in a shorter (and easier to skim and find) blog entry. But, you really should listen to the podcast! It rocks (and I am not biased at all).

There are two particularly cool and helpful tools I have found for checking or choosing the color of your websites for colorblind users. Tools like these can help you to improve the accessibility of your sites. Plus, they are fun to play with.

• See what your page looks like to colorblind users: Vischeck offers two tools for web site designers concerned with making their sites usable to those who are color blind. The Vischeck tool stimulates how websites look to people with various types of color blindness and the Daltonize tool is a color blind image correction algorithm.
• Select colors that work for colorblind users: The Color Scheme Generator allows you to select colors schemes and see how they look with 8 different types of color blindness. This is very handy and quite fun to play with.

Color Design, Colorblind Issues, Visual Design, Teaching Resources, Good Design, Resources, Design | No Comments »