Week 5:Discuss a website with relation to good principles of design

The website I’ve chosen to discuss is www.treearegood.com.

Contrast

The trees are good website has got contrasts of colours which makes the sites appear crisp and organized. Contrasting the elements allows the user to figure out which page areas are related and which are totally separate. This webpage ensures the user can differentiate the elements of this site from page sections.

Repetition

This website ensures it continues its styles throughout the website, which gives the page flow and shows the website has great repetition and continues the trend in other areas for consistency. The site is visually consistent with the rest of the site. This site has realised by repeating styles with similar meaning across various areas of the site. The site is allowing the user get familiar to this meaning which lets them browse the site more easily.

Alignment

The alignment of this site is good, the spacing of the page into the centre of the boundary. Everything on the page is visually connected to something else, nothing is really out of place or distinct from all other design elements. Also the alignment of the columns is perfect none of the columns are out of place.

Proximity

The principle of proximity allows similar or related elements to be grouped together to form a cohesive whole. The items on this page have been kept visually separate from those that are not related i.e. News, Merchandise. This enables the viewer to glance at a page and immediately know which page elements are grouped together and which are separate. There is enough space in between the different areas to communicate they are different.

References:

http://www.treesaregood.com/

Trees are good website

Week 4: Kevin Kelly’s The future of the Internet – The next 5000 days

For our week 4 assignment we have been asked to blog about Kevin Kelly’s Video ‘The future of the Internet – The next 5000 days’ and asked to discuss two aspects of the talk that I found most Interesting.

Kelly explores many of the ideas around the internet – “One Global Machine”. He speaks about this machine being one of the most reliable ever made, with zero downtime, uninterrupted since its existance and with over 100 billion clicks per day (Picture 1). I have never thought about the internet in this manner it is so vast and the huge power it has today. “55 Trillion links between all the webpages in the world” He explains everything in a relative way comparing the internet to a human brain introducing the idea of “The machine today = one human brain” but the human brain is not doubling in power every two years, “In 30 years time the machine = 6 billion human brains” and will exceed humanity in processing power by 2040.
Picture 1

Facts in the video.

The Other aspect I found interesting was the three consequences of the internet
1. Embodiment – Everything being part of the web
2. Re – Structuring – Convergence – Humans are extended senses of the machine
3. Co-dependency – No need to remember any longer just ask the machine

This is all very exciting and Interesting, there is so much to come but also there is quite a lot here already he brings this all in to perspective with this discuss making you think about what is to come, and be aware of it. The internet will become like the alphabet and writing everyone will eventually become dependent on it. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad outcome but people will have to be more trusting with technology, many people still are not trusting of the internet, hopefully this will change with time.

Week 3: Accessibility check on Public websites

For our week 3 blog assignment we have to discuss how a public website which is listed on http://www.gov.ie/en/sites addresses accessibility with regards to Tools, Layout, Design and Structure.

For this assignment I have chosen the Bord Gáis Website – http://www.bordgais.ie

Bord Gáis is synonymous with natural gas. However, the structure of the energy industry has changed significantly since the introduction of market liberalisation and Bord Gáis now has a variety of roles within the gas industry in Ireland. In addition, Bord Gáis has expanded beyond its original base into the electricity supply market. Bord Gáis has two main businesses – Networks and Energy. Bord Gáis has over 600,000 customers; many of these would use this site.

The Home page:

Bord Gáis Homepage

The home is divided in 6 parts, the two businesses are on either side Energy and Networks, and the other parts consist of useful information or tools e.g. Quick Links, How can we help you? And also the Safety advice number is located on the bottom right hand corner. The site is based in the centre of the page and also is minimal; however there are a number of links along the top which you can click to navigate around the website.

Tools:

I checked the site to ensure it provides appropriate alternative text in which this case Bord Gáis have done so for each picture and links. This will help users who need a narrator to read the screen and understand what is on it. I also went through the website with the ‘tab’ key to ensure that users with motor disabilities could also go through the website with ease; this site was in chronological order when I did this. Bord Gáis have ensured tools used to help the user are enabled on this site.

Layout

This site is well layout ensuring the user is not overwhelmed by too much information, it is divided into 6parts, and these are all of relevance to the user. The links across the top of which there are 11, all needed. All pages fit although they could have made the site a bit wider as so there is less scrolling in some of the pages with a lot of writing. Also including the sitemap was a great idea, as this may help many users as you can see the whole site and understand how to get to the subject of your preference.

The Sitemap

Bord Gáis Sitemap

Design

This websites home page is small in size and this should help with downloading time. The content is clear and easy to read.  The colours used blue purple and green do not cause any problems to people whom suffer from all colour-blindness, as I ran a check of this on  http://www.vischeck.com. Bord Gáis have ensured people with Visual, Hearing, Motor and Cognitive disabilities can use this website with ease.

Structure

The website has been well structured. There are no problems with the site apart from the width, too much scrolling on some of the pages. The site is accessible to all of the users.

Week 2: Good Website Design and the 5 E’s

Ease of use, navigation, layout and an effective design, are all key characteristics that are expected in a good website or webpage. All sites should comply with the 5 E’s of Good Website Design. The 5 E’s are: 

1. Effective
2. Efficient
3. Engaging
4. Error Tolerant
5. Easy to learn

In this blog I will identify sites that demonstrate poor execution of some of the 5 E’s along with our reasons why the page falls down in the category.

Link: Cahir Latest News

screen capture 1

This site lacks: Effectiveness, Efficient, Engaging, Error Tolerant, and Easy to learn

Effectiveness:  The site is not up to date many of the links have not been updated in years such as latest news picture above this has not been updated since 2004. Another problem is the photo many of which won’t download.

Efficient: The sites navigation is cluttered as seen in the above screen print of the site it is located on both left and right of the screen this is bad design.

Error Tolerant: There are links in this site that do not work e.g. Scouts link to their website does not work. (Screen print below). Another problem is the lack of updating on some of its pages.

Easy to learn: The navigation on the page is overloaded, the writing on each is not very big and it is also in the blue background which may make it difficult to read.

This website is badly designed and run it has many flaws and is not useful with some of the information updated once every couple of years. This is not a very useful page for the town.

 

screen capture 2

Week1: A key figure and influence on Human Computer Interaction today.

Douglas Engalbart – Life and Achievements

Douglas Engelbart is an American inventor and pioneer of human computer interaction. His invention of the computer mouse and use the cathode-ray tube for the display of text, of graphics and of the mouse pointer (the monitor as we know it today) has revolutionized the world of computers today. He has since has help develop networked computers, hypertext, email and word processing. Douglas saw the technology in computers as the answers to the problem of dealing with the ever more complex modern world and has dedicated his life to the pursuit of developing computer technology.

Innovation

The research by Engelbart and his team laid to many innovations in computing and is now continuing in the development of an open hyperdocument system (OHS). As an intermediate step toward building the OHS, Engelbart has proposed the design for a hyperscope, a tool for browsing otherwise incompatible document types and facilitating linkages between them. The hyperscope would be built on top of the OHS’s hyperdocument architecture.

Open Hyperdocument System (OHS)

The OHS Project is developing open source tools for collaborative knowledge management, building on XML and other open standards. It is being designed to manage and create knowledge across the Internet, allowing users to package and share information for collaborative work. A scalable system meant for true international use, the OHS is being designed so that all groups and nationalities can build on top of its architecture.

More Information

This site will give you more insight into his life and in to the work he has completed in helping the human interaction with computers:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/engelbart.html

There is also another website which contains numerous videos of interviews with Douglas about his goals and achievements in computers:

http://www.invisiblerevolution.net/index-inside.html 

 

Douglas Engelbart