Transcript Never Draw a Pig in Clay October 3, 2002

Never Draw a Pig in Clay
(and the Ticket Taker in the Tutu)
Wayne MacPhail, Web Coordinator, Centennial College
October 3, 2002
What we’ll be doing
1 hour 30 minute talk
Lots of questions welcome
Challenge and engage
The Good News
You already know a lot about
creating online content.
Why?
Because you live in the
real world. I hope.
The Bad News
Online content creation has been
dominated by MBAs, graphic
designers, and software engineers
not writers.
The Problem?
ADD
Attention Deficit Disorder
Attention Deficit Disorder
Not enough attention paid to the:
• past
• audience
• world
• purpose
• user
• results
• words
• experience
• structure
• lessons
And too much attention paid to the wrong things
The State of the
(Too Much) Art
Medium and Memento
The Selfish Medium
The Ticket Taker
in the Tutu
dddddddd
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ADMIT ONE
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www.120seconds.com
www.klan123.com
www.twinkies.com
www.cbc.ca
“Years ago Lord Reith, director-general
of the BBC, gave the right reply to those who
would dumb down Web media today.
An interviewer asked: “Will you give the
people what they want?” “No,” he replied,
“we shall give them something better.”
Martyn Perks - Create Online March, 2002
When MBAs rule the Web
That’s not an org chart, that’s site
architecture
www.bayer.com
Computers and the
Beauty Myth
The Joy of Complexity
www.slashdot.com
When MBAs Rule Newspapers
Citizens, Audience,
Eyeballs and Customers
The Dirty Truth about
Online Canadian Content
More good news
www.ofoto.com
www.ofoto.com
iPhoto
What We Can Learn
The Willful Web
Never Draw a Pig in Clay
Never Draw a Pig in Clay
Rabbis, Monks and
Blind Guys with Harps
Book Larnin’
Lessons from the
Real World
What’s Your Handle?
Lessons
From Other Media
From Books
Tell readers where they are
Provide a convenient map of the work (TOC, index)
Provide a title page
Let users mark their spot and progress
Show users how long the text is
Break the text into standard pieces (chapters)
From Television
Keep visuals interesting
Make screen graphics readable
Tell a story with pictures
Online cannot compete as a rich media experience
From Comics
Social relationships do not depend on bandwidth
Completion is a powerful tool for engagement
Tell a story with pictures
Keep dialogue crisp
Tell a human story
From Movies
To think of character as response to conflict
Figure out whose story it is
Provide tension and release
Break story into fractal units (acts/scenes/beats)
Give the story a dramatic arc
From Newspapers
Keep the front page fresh
Tell human stories
Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell
them what you told them
Keep writing short, muscular and active
Provide surprise and a sense of discovery
Story Space
From Hypernarrative
Stories can have a geography
Objects can contain stories
Space can replace time as the axis of storytelling
Stories, objects and memory have resonance
In the absence of forward momentum, story dies
Being Human
Being Human
We often experience only what we expect to experience
We often miss the obvious
We can be absolutely blind to data we don't expect
We are creatures of paradigm
We all respond to human stories
Our short-term memory is fragile, limited and easily taxed
Our long-term memory compresses events and is
unreliable
Being Human
We have limited bandwidth, especially when we're busy
or focussed
We are easily distracted
We could always use more time
We understand symbols, conventions, narratives and
scripts
We often believe other people experience the world the
same way we do
Being Human
We easily form social relationships, especially under stress
We need feedback
We tend to blame ourselves for errors when confronted
with new technology
We find our own uses for technology
We are fragile, frightened and flawed
The Media Equation
The Media Equation
MEDIA = REAL LIFE
Being Human - Part Two
We are helplessly social especially when stressed
We cannot tell true praise from flattery
Other praise is valued higher than self-praise
Expertise can be easily conferred
We more easily criticize to a third party
We want to be polite and expect politeness
We like people most who are most like us and like people
best who become more like us
Know Thy Users
for They are not You
The Birdfeeder Lessons
User Goal
User Interface
What We Can Do
We can
listen well
and watch
intelligently
We can learn that no user cares
about our code, our graphics or
jargon.
They only care about
their task.
And so should we.
Our job is simple.
Get out of our
users’ way
so they can
achieve their goals.
The user as hero
Listening and Watching Well
Stakeholder input
Paper prototyping
Usability testing
Discontent,
Content
and
Microcontent
Create Clear Microcontent
Head
Subhead
Byline
Story Summary
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
The Story Begins
Banish Happy Talk
Hello. Welcome to our new, improved site about gardening in
Canada. We’re sure glad to see you and hope this site provides
you with the tips, message boards and catalogue guides every
Canadian gardener needs! Enjoy your visit and thanks!!!
New
Message Boards
Tips
Catalogues
Be Clear
Clarity of writing
starts with clarity of thought
and intention
Write Tight
Say what you want to say.
Cut it in half.
Cut it in half again.
Write it.
Cut it in half, twice.
Write. Cut. Twice.
Rewrite Exercise
Think of Buttons as Doors
You’re in a strange room full of doors.
You’re rushed and searching for something.
The only way you know where to go next is to
read the signs on the doors.
Imagine that when you’re writing the words
for your navigation buttons.
Don’t bury the user
in bananas
Give users one task at a time.
Make the task clear.
Use the right word(s)
Useful Devices for the Disabled
Workshops to Help You Succeed
Use Standards
There are few Web standards, but here’s one.
The term is look for something on the Web is:
Search
Not
Find
Find It
Find it Now
Go
Get
Look it up
etc.
Designing for Disability
Disability Design Tips
Tag content for meaning, style for presentation
Use style sheets, but make pages legible without them
Don't rely on colour alone
Images and image maps must have ALT text labels
Use concise link names
Scripts must have a nonscript alternatives
Applets must have alternative text
Allow users to freeze moving or blinking text
Provide synchronized text transcript for audio, and audio
Provide text transcripts for video
Give clear titles to acronyms and abbreviations
Frames are optional and titled and contain documents, not images
directly
If all else fails, link to an alternate page and give alternate contact
information
Let Users
Participate
Types of Online Community
Searching
Trading
Education
Content Building/Issue Oriented
Scheduled events
Subscriber-based
E-mail and Listservers
Support
Customer Relations Management
Multiuser Dimensions or Dungeons (MUDS and MOOs)
3D Worlds
WebLogs
Chat
SMS
Instant Messaging
Walled gardens
Planting Marigolds
Summary
Learn from the past and the world.
Don’t get fancy.
Write tight. Be clear.
Use the right word(s)
Listen.
Tell human stories.
Stay out of the way.
Be helpful.
Wayne MacPhail
[email protected]
Web Coordinator
Centennial College