I have beeen wanting to get into this for the past few weeks.
NEWS ITEM: The U.S. military is "secretly" paying Iraqi newspapers to run positive stories (written, apparently, by U.S. soldiers) to fight what the military called "misinformation."
And a lot of people are upset by it. Huh? First a quote or two from the Christian Science Monitor story on 12/1/05.
"Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all the first principles of democracy when we're doing it," said a senior Pentagon official who opposes the practice of planting stories in the Iraqi media.
And
"In the very process of preventing misinformation from another side, they are creating misinformation through a process that disguises the source for information that is going out," said John J. Schulz, dean of Boston University's College of Communications and a veteran journalist. "You can't be creating a model for democracy while subverting one of its core principles, a free independent press."
Now, I'm no fan of most public relations (or the war in Iraq), but isn't that really what's being done? Simple PR?
Subverting a core principle of a free independent press? If we cut out the placing of favorable stories in the news media, a lot of flacks would have to get real jobs. Maybe I am missing something.
Now, the president's OK of the NSA spying on us -- and we DO believe him when he said that all civil liberties were protected -- that's a horse of a different color.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Here comes the image
Are we heading toward a world of the image and leaving the word behind? It is a distinct possibility.
In a long essay at The New Atlantis web site, Christine Rosen presents some intriguing ideas about what the ascendacy of the image over the word may mean. One point that Rosen covers is the easy falsification of reality through photographs and software such as Adobe's PhotoShop. It used to be that a photo caught the world with complete accuracy. But now, with digital cameras and programs like PhotoShop, what we presume to be reality can quickly and easily be manipulated and, therefore, the meaning altered.
Mitchell Stephens, a professor at NYU and author of The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word, suggests something even scarier: he says that in the future, people will read and write less, relying instead on images "as the predominant means of mental transport." Sounds too much like Fahrenheit 451 to me.
Granted, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but a manipulated picture is a different (dare I say it?) story altogether. I think manipulation of another's thoughts is more easily accomplished by the image, in part because humans are visual animals and soak up image information voraciously, and in part because today, "image is everything." As Rosen points out, there was that old Canon camera ad campaign with Andre Agassi saying that exact phrase. We are told to dress with success, that first impressions (i.e., before someone really gets to know you), and we ignore the admonition that we "can't judge a book by its cover." Apple's iPod is a best seller, not because it's the best product or best buy, but because of its looks, its image.
Images are powerful, more powerful than words in today's nearly post-literate world. With their power comes this ease of manipulation, which scares me. Thinking takes words. Those with command of the language will be better equipped to recognize when someone is trying to manipulate them. Those who rely on images will be more easily fooled.
Rosen has some great examples -- it's well worth reading if you are involved with the presentation of information. Click on that link up above.
Now, instead of feeling somehow inferior that my web site has few images and is mostly words, I am going to feel good about it. I'm doing my small part in putting a finger in the dike.
In a long essay at The New Atlantis web site, Christine Rosen presents some intriguing ideas about what the ascendacy of the image over the word may mean. One point that Rosen covers is the easy falsification of reality through photographs and software such as Adobe's PhotoShop. It used to be that a photo caught the world with complete accuracy. But now, with digital cameras and programs like PhotoShop, what we presume to be reality can quickly and easily be manipulated and, therefore, the meaning altered.
Mitchell Stephens, a professor at NYU and author of The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word, suggests something even scarier: he says that in the future, people will read and write less, relying instead on images "as the predominant means of mental transport." Sounds too much like Fahrenheit 451 to me.
Granted, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but a manipulated picture is a different (dare I say it?) story altogether. I think manipulation of another's thoughts is more easily accomplished by the image, in part because humans are visual animals and soak up image information voraciously, and in part because today, "image is everything." As Rosen points out, there was that old Canon camera ad campaign with Andre Agassi saying that exact phrase. We are told to dress with success, that first impressions (i.e., before someone really gets to know you), and we ignore the admonition that we "can't judge a book by its cover." Apple's iPod is a best seller, not because it's the best product or best buy, but because of its looks, its image.
Images are powerful, more powerful than words in today's nearly post-literate world. With their power comes this ease of manipulation, which scares me. Thinking takes words. Those with command of the language will be better equipped to recognize when someone is trying to manipulate them. Those who rely on images will be more easily fooled.
Rosen has some great examples -- it's well worth reading if you are involved with the presentation of information. Click on that link up above.
Now, instead of feeling somehow inferior that my web site has few images and is mostly words, I am going to feel good about it. I'm doing my small part in putting a finger in the dike.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
The voice of reason
You ever notice that whenever anyone agrees with you, he or she becomes "the voice of reason?" People who disagree, are, of course, idiots or at least severely misguided.
Anyway, I have been ranting for years that cutting newsroom budgets to try to stanch the downward spiralling circulation figures and attendant financial bleeding is seriously wrongheaded. This past week, Kathleen Parker, a Tribune Media Services columnist, wrote a column that supports my contention that, in Zen-like fashion, worrying so much about the bottom line ruins the bottom line.
"By cutting newsroom staffs, the corporate suits are reducing the likelihood that papers can do what makes them necessary," Parker said. "Instead of cutting where it counts to satisfy shareholders, corporate honchos should be infusing newsrooms with more money to hire more staff. . . ."
As I have said before, cutting staff from the newsroom is like taking people off your production line and then wondering why production numbers are down.
Parker: "When revenues go down, the calculator crowd reasons, you cut costs. But to those in the trenches, cutting staff is exactly the wrong decision, more like a self-inflicted wound trending toward suicide than a remedy."
I would really love to see a publisher have the guts to say to shareholders: wait for it, this investment will pay off handsomely in the long run, even though immediate numbers might not look good. Other businesses do it all the time.
Why won't newspapers listen to the voice(s) of reason?
Anyway, I have been ranting for years that cutting newsroom budgets to try to stanch the downward spiralling circulation figures and attendant financial bleeding is seriously wrongheaded. This past week, Kathleen Parker, a Tribune Media Services columnist, wrote a column that supports my contention that, in Zen-like fashion, worrying so much about the bottom line ruins the bottom line.
"By cutting newsroom staffs, the corporate suits are reducing the likelihood that papers can do what makes them necessary," Parker said. "Instead of cutting where it counts to satisfy shareholders, corporate honchos should be infusing newsrooms with more money to hire more staff. . . ."
As I have said before, cutting staff from the newsroom is like taking people off your production line and then wondering why production numbers are down.
Parker: "When revenues go down, the calculator crowd reasons, you cut costs. But to those in the trenches, cutting staff is exactly the wrong decision, more like a self-inflicted wound trending toward suicide than a remedy."
I would really love to see a publisher have the guts to say to shareholders: wait for it, this investment will pay off handsomely in the long run, even though immediate numbers might not look good. Other businesses do it all the time.
Why won't newspapers listen to the voice(s) of reason?
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Web design and type
I am in the midst of yet another web site redesign. I have been concerned about type size for the body and whether I should use the navigation links down the left or in a horizontal bar below the header. Naturally, I did a little research.
Checked out the web a bit and, of course, went to Jakob Nielsen's web site and also checked out the journals. Seems that my own observations are shared: type is often too small or doesn't have enough contrast against the background or both.
This is another place where the graphic designers have pushed "looking cool" over "ease of use." Nielsen suggests at least 10-pt and maybe 12 would be better for us aging boomers or for the folks who have their monitors set at a high resolution. Nielsen himself uses quite large -- even funkily large -- type on his web site.
A 2004 study in Human Factors found that 12 was better then 10, especially if there were a lot of links and other content on the page ("clutter"). The study also found that links were more quickly found when they were on the left and when there were fewer links and less overall clutter. So it seems that scrolling is apparently preferable to jamming a lot onto one screen. This also helps cut down on clutter. I think even Nielsen's page would benefit from fewer links. Also, the study found that changing type size alone did little to decrease search times.
So I think I will use a horizontal bar for the major links, use the left area for sublinks and comments, and put a "crumb trail" at the top of the main part of the page. Also, I am going to experiment with proportional type sizes so that the type will adjust to the individual user's settings.
Check out robertbohle.com by Jan 1.
Checked out the web a bit and, of course, went to Jakob Nielsen's web site and also checked out the journals. Seems that my own observations are shared: type is often too small or doesn't have enough contrast against the background or both.
This is another place where the graphic designers have pushed "looking cool" over "ease of use." Nielsen suggests at least 10-pt and maybe 12 would be better for us aging boomers or for the folks who have their monitors set at a high resolution. Nielsen himself uses quite large -- even funkily large -- type on his web site.
A 2004 study in Human Factors found that 12 was better then 10, especially if there were a lot of links and other content on the page ("clutter"). The study also found that links were more quickly found when they were on the left and when there were fewer links and less overall clutter. So it seems that scrolling is apparently preferable to jamming a lot onto one screen. This also helps cut down on clutter. I think even Nielsen's page would benefit from fewer links. Also, the study found that changing type size alone did little to decrease search times.
So I think I will use a horizontal bar for the major links, use the left area for sublinks and comments, and put a "crumb trail" at the top of the main part of the page. Also, I am going to experiment with proportional type sizes so that the type will adjust to the individual user's settings.
Check out robertbohle.com by Jan 1.
Friday, November 18, 2005
Death of the Newspaper?: Doing the wrong thing
Recently the news has been filled with negative stories about the newspaper industry. I'm not even talking about Conrad Black's hand in his own till.
Knight-Ridder is suffering financially. The National Newspaper Association reports that weekday circulation is down 2.6% and Sundays down 3.1%. On its web site Editor&Publisher reported that an estimated 1,900 jobs have been cut this year. Although I haven't found anywhere that reports how many of those lost jobs were newsroom jobs, my guess is that a decent chunk of them were.
Now, at the same time, a number of newspaper groups, again from E&P, report increases in revenue or ad lineage (or how much advertising they received). Some samples:
Knight-Ridder is suffering financially. The National Newspaper Association reports that weekday circulation is down 2.6% and Sundays down 3.1%. On its web site Editor&Publisher reported that an estimated 1,900 jobs have been cut this year. Although I haven't found anywhere that reports how many of those lost jobs were newsroom jobs, my guess is that a decent chunk of them were.
Now, at the same time, a number of newspaper groups, again from E&P, report increases in revenue or ad lineage (or how much advertising they received). Some samples:
- McClatchy ad revenue up 3.4% in Oct.
- Tribune's Oct. ad revenue up slightly
- Lineage at WSJ up 1.1%
- Scripps up slightly in Oct.
- Newspaper ad revenue for Gannett inches up in Oct.
Granted, we don't know what the other side of the ledger book looks like, but the seeming discrepancy stands out to me. Revenues are up (Yea, say the stockholders), but it is still not enough, so pink slips must be handed out. The newsrooms I know of are stretched pretty thin. But publishers, instead of improving the product, cut budgets and personnel.
Based on my understanding of the newspaper business model, you get your money from businesses who want access to the eyeballs of your readers. The more readers the better. Do you think for one minute circulation would go up if the ads were "better" or if there were a few more? I know readers wouldn't want a paper without ads, but I believe that they purchase the paper mainly because of what is in the newshole. So that's your product.
As I have been saying for nearly 20 years, you have to deliver to your customers something they want to buy. It has to be easy, relevant and pleasureable, the last because media use is largely leisure or "play" time.
This is why I think the international movement to the tabloid and Berliner sizes is good. I also like what the folks at the Readership Institute suggest through their "Experience Newspaper" study. I may be naive, but I truly think that if you create the right content, approached the right way, and design it well in an appropriate format, they will come. Make it essential to their lives, make it easy, and even make it fun.
The fact that online newspapers are healthy and well-used, even by those younger cohorts, supports this.
So why do we get newsroom budget and personnel cuts and the same ol' newspaper (maybe redesigned), probably put out by what would have been a skeleton crew 30 years ago? Why not invest in your product's (news and entertainment) manufacturing process (the newsroom) to make it better?
Maybe I don't understand the newspaper business model after all. All I know is it's all so depressing.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
What is CNN thinking?
I think CNN made a big mistake in putting Silver Boy, er, Golden Boy Anderson Cooper in the 10 p.m. slot and letting Aaron Brown go. I was no big fan of Brown initially, but my wife liked him and tuning in to CNN became a habit at our house. I grew to appreciate his sincerity and apparent humility. I thought he asked good, honest questions.
I gather that CNN is desperate to catch up with FOX in the ratings. I thought Cooper's 360 show was how CNN wanted to grow its young audience. Putting him on at 7 was smarter than at 10. At seven, the young crowd is still near a tube, probably eating a dinner of cold pizza over the sink. At 10, they are partying or seeing a movie or playing video games. They are not watching TV news.
Only we newsroom relics are watching news at that hour. As we prepare for bed. I say Bad Move, but we'll see. . . .
I gather that CNN is desperate to catch up with FOX in the ratings. I thought Cooper's 360 show was how CNN wanted to grow its young audience. Putting him on at 7 was smarter than at 10. At seven, the young crowd is still near a tube, probably eating a dinner of cold pizza over the sink. At 10, they are partying or seeing a movie or playing video games. They are not watching TV news.
Only we newsroom relics are watching news at that hour. As we prepare for bed. I say Bad Move, but we'll see. . . .
Saturday, September 24, 2005
On hiatus for awhile
Other projects (ones that pay!) have stepped up and I must stop this for awhile. I will catch up and be back soon. I am sure both my regular readers will be disappointed. Sorry.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Intelligent design
(Been away for a week)
I have spent much of the past several months reading and thinking about design and what it means to design something. Just been too busy to write about it.
Before I get more deeply into it later this week, I just have to share something that recently seeped into my brain.
I have been following the discussions about evolution vs. intelligent design, in part because I have long been interested in the nature and beginning of our universe, the mysteries of the sub-atomic world, quantum physics, and so on.
Initially the concept of intelligent design appealed to me because it satisfied both the scientific and spiritual sides of me. But the other day, it hit me: the term is a redundancy. If anything is designed, from the universe to a blogger's page to a newspaper, it is the result of an intelligence with a plan. Even bad design (and there's w-a-a-a-y too much of that around), is the result of an intelligence with a plan, a blueprint. Randomness can create, but it can't design.
So that's why I can't use the term intelligent design any more. The second word includes the first. The editor in me now cringes.
More design thoughts TK.
I have spent much of the past several months reading and thinking about design and what it means to design something. Just been too busy to write about it.
Before I get more deeply into it later this week, I just have to share something that recently seeped into my brain.
I have been following the discussions about evolution vs. intelligent design, in part because I have long been interested in the nature and beginning of our universe, the mysteries of the sub-atomic world, quantum physics, and so on.
Initially the concept of intelligent design appealed to me because it satisfied both the scientific and spiritual sides of me. But the other day, it hit me: the term is a redundancy. If anything is designed, from the universe to a blogger's page to a newspaper, it is the result of an intelligence with a plan. Even bad design (and there's w-a-a-a-y too much of that around), is the result of an intelligence with a plan, a blueprint. Randomness can create, but it can't design.
So that's why I can't use the term intelligent design any more. The second word includes the first. The editor in me now cringes.
More design thoughts TK.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Form and substance
The excellent web site I Want Media recently posted an interview with Andrew Gowers, head honcho at London's Financial Times. The paper was labelled recently the world's best newspaper following an international survey of opinion leaders.
While that title should be open to a broader discussion of the criteria used, the FT is clearly a terrific paper, despite that newsprint color.
What caught my attention was his comment: "We have no plans to go tabloid, for a host of good reasons. In my view the tabloid format dumbs journalism down -- it oversimplifies complex issues and emphasizes froth over substance."
How in the heck can a format be responsible for bad journalism? True, in the minds of the Great Unwashed around the world, the term"tabloid journalism" has a pejorative spin, but it is irresponsible for a media baron to go along with it. It is true that many tab-sized "news" products are pretty awful, but are they really newspapers? Does the Great Unwashed make that connection? I doubt it.
Given that a move to a smaller format for most broadsheets is almost inevitable if paper products are to remain viable, reinforcing the tabloid myth now might be terrible timing.
I am pretty sure the good tab newspapers don't "dumb down" the news just because the page is smaller, just as I am fairly certain that magazines such as The Atlantic don't dumb down content because of a mere 8 1/2 by 11 inch size.
The trick is to prepare people for the future new sizes by slowly getting rid of the myth. Maybe the problem will take care of itself as more and more broadsheets make the switch to tabloid or even Berliner format.
While that title should be open to a broader discussion of the criteria used, the FT is clearly a terrific paper, despite that newsprint color.
What caught my attention was his comment: "We have no plans to go tabloid, for a host of good reasons. In my view the tabloid format dumbs journalism down -- it oversimplifies complex issues and emphasizes froth over substance."
How in the heck can a format be responsible for bad journalism? True, in the minds of the Great Unwashed around the world, the term"tabloid journalism" has a pejorative spin, but it is irresponsible for a media baron to go along with it. It is true that many tab-sized "news" products are pretty awful, but are they really newspapers? Does the Great Unwashed make that connection? I doubt it.
Given that a move to a smaller format for most broadsheets is almost inevitable if paper products are to remain viable, reinforcing the tabloid myth now might be terrible timing.
I am pretty sure the good tab newspapers don't "dumb down" the news just because the page is smaller, just as I am fairly certain that magazines such as The Atlantic don't dumb down content because of a mere 8 1/2 by 11 inch size.
The trick is to prepare people for the future new sizes by slowly getting rid of the myth. Maybe the problem will take care of itself as more and more broadsheets make the switch to tabloid or even Berliner format.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Newspaper design and Boomers
Newspaper circulation figures continue to fall. Since a high of nearly 63 million daily newspaper readers in 1985, the numbers are an exercise in subtraction. This is especially so among the 18-34 age group. Reading even just once during a week among that cohort fell to under 40 percent in 2004.
These losses came despite content changes aimed at women and that younger cohort. Some of this move away from solid news coverage to pop culture coverage and info graphics the size of a Volkswagen (while the news hole lost more space to advertising) was aimed at stopping the circulation decline.
A lot of the design changes newspapers have made in the past 30 years, some quite costly, have been made specifically to draw in the young. I have always wanted to do a ROI study of newspaper redesigns, but figured I wouldn't get accurate numbers from publishers, so why bother? In the aggregate, it must not be working, as the numbers show.
But a whole new career field called newspaper design evolved from trying to solve the circulation problem. As an aesthetic exercise, it has been wonderful: newspapers are much better organized and more attractive than 50 years ago. Then, people did page "makeup" for hot type and basically chose between ugly cuts of Bodoni or Futura for headlines. No color. Awful photo reproduction.
As a business exercise, it has to be called a failure, based on circulation figures. Worse yet, the Boomers' eyesight continues to get worse, and since they haven't really saved for retirement, that Gazette subscription will have to go. Then we'll all eventually die off.
Then that downward staircase of yearly circulation figures will turn into cliffs. When the Boomers are mostly gone, newspapers will be -- will have to be -- different. Maybe the "paper" part of the word will have to go (or it will be weird, like how we still say "dial" a phone number even though rotary phones are long gone).
All that being said, I not only love newspapers still, I love newspaper design. I just wish it had worked better.
These losses came despite content changes aimed at women and that younger cohort. Some of this move away from solid news coverage to pop culture coverage and info graphics the size of a Volkswagen (while the news hole lost more space to advertising) was aimed at stopping the circulation decline.
A lot of the design changes newspapers have made in the past 30 years, some quite costly, have been made specifically to draw in the young. I have always wanted to do a ROI study of newspaper redesigns, but figured I wouldn't get accurate numbers from publishers, so why bother? In the aggregate, it must not be working, as the numbers show.
But a whole new career field called newspaper design evolved from trying to solve the circulation problem. As an aesthetic exercise, it has been wonderful: newspapers are much better organized and more attractive than 50 years ago. Then, people did page "makeup" for hot type and basically chose between ugly cuts of Bodoni or Futura for headlines. No color. Awful photo reproduction.
As a business exercise, it has to be called a failure, based on circulation figures. Worse yet, the Boomers' eyesight continues to get worse, and since they haven't really saved for retirement, that Gazette subscription will have to go. Then we'll all eventually die off.
Then that downward staircase of yearly circulation figures will turn into cliffs. When the Boomers are mostly gone, newspapers will be -- will have to be -- different. Maybe the "paper" part of the word will have to go (or it will be weird, like how we still say "dial" a phone number even though rotary phones are long gone).
All that being said, I not only love newspapers still, I love newspaper design. I just wish it had worked better.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Journalism education
NEWS ITEM: Five universities and two foundations recently (May 28) announced a collaborative plan to bolster journalism education.
Normally competitors, the institutions using $4.1 million from the Carnegie Corporation and the Knight Foundation over the next two years to join forces will be the journalism schools of Columbia University, Northwestern University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Southern California and Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy. The universities have already pledged another $2 million in the third year to continue the collaboration.
(citation below)
----
It seems to me there is a disconnect between what this project is aiming for and what the average j-school and students need, and I can’t wait to get the details. It’s a bit of an “inside the beltway”mentality, it seems to me. If we wanted to improve the productivity of the average American worker, would we toss our money only at Wal-Mart, GM, Nike and the like?
I believe that some of the more important issues won’t be studied in depth, if at all:
(a) Most journalism programs are joined at the hip with advertising and/or public relations. While this may be good for student numbers and therefore dollars, those students can be a drag on a good journalism curriculum.
(b) Journalism schools are increasingly unable to hire talented working journalists, even to teach the skills classes, if they don’t hold the Ph.D. That’s becoming a huge problem.
(c) Too many faculty members are way behind the curve technologically, which is not only where the field is going, it is important as we try to attract more and better students, who often see print journalism as boring. I know some j-profs, for instance, who don’t know what a blog is.
(d) ACEJMC, the accrediting body, is not as relevant, important and influential as it should be. Or maybe accreditation is not as important as we think it is. Only one in four programs is accredited today. I agree with the accreditation guidelines generally. I just think the group is slow to adjust to meet the quickly changing media environment and provide support for programs under various pressures from ill-informed administrators. It also is not flexible enough for smaller programs with unusual institutional challenges.
(e) Out here in the apparent hinterlands of journalism education, most students work 15-20 hours a week and many are working full-time jobs. Then journalism programs suggest or require a 20-hrs-per week internship, probably for no pay, in preparation for a job that pays worse than a full-time pizza delivery driver. Tough to get a lot of talented students interested.
I hope these high-powered foundations and deans remember to look into what the little guys need. We could use some help, too.
Story link:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/05/27/carnegie
Normally competitors, the institutions using $4.1 million from the Carnegie Corporation and the Knight Foundation over the next two years to join forces will be the journalism schools of Columbia University, Northwestern University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Southern California and Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy. The universities have already pledged another $2 million in the third year to continue the collaboration.
(citation below)
----
It seems to me there is a disconnect between what this project is aiming for and what the average j-school and students need, and I can’t wait to get the details. It’s a bit of an “inside the beltway”mentality, it seems to me. If we wanted to improve the productivity of the average American worker, would we toss our money only at Wal-Mart, GM, Nike and the like?
I believe that some of the more important issues won’t be studied in depth, if at all:
(a) Most journalism programs are joined at the hip with advertising and/or public relations. While this may be good for student numbers and therefore dollars, those students can be a drag on a good journalism curriculum.
(b) Journalism schools are increasingly unable to hire talented working journalists, even to teach the skills classes, if they don’t hold the Ph.D. That’s becoming a huge problem.
(c) Too many faculty members are way behind the curve technologically, which is not only where the field is going, it is important as we try to attract more and better students, who often see print journalism as boring. I know some j-profs, for instance, who don’t know what a blog is.
(d) ACEJMC, the accrediting body, is not as relevant, important and influential as it should be. Or maybe accreditation is not as important as we think it is. Only one in four programs is accredited today. I agree with the accreditation guidelines generally. I just think the group is slow to adjust to meet the quickly changing media environment and provide support for programs under various pressures from ill-informed administrators. It also is not flexible enough for smaller programs with unusual institutional challenges.
(e) Out here in the apparent hinterlands of journalism education, most students work 15-20 hours a week and many are working full-time jobs. Then journalism programs suggest or require a 20-hrs-per week internship, probably for no pay, in preparation for a job that pays worse than a full-time pizza delivery driver. Tough to get a lot of talented students interested.
I hope these high-powered foundations and deans remember to look into what the little guys need. We could use some help, too.
Story link:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/05/27/carnegie
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Print vs. Online
Print outperforms the monitor screen when it comes to remembering information, according to an article in the August 2005 issue of Psychology & Marketing.
According to the authors, a print ad (persuasive message) and an informative health sheet (non-persuasive message) were recalled significantly better than the same information presented to subjects in an online format. The screen did a little better when the test was of recognition only.
This supports what I have always contended: print is not going away fast. The web is a totally different interface, more of an entertainment or "play" interface compared to print. Although the research used advertisements, the results carry over to information and news design.
I think what it means is that good information design will synergize web and print, using the former for brand-building only, and using print when they have a message they want to get across. They key is that both, used properly, makes the best presentation of your information.
If you want the complete citation for the article, e-mail me.
According to the authors, a print ad (persuasive message) and an informative health sheet (non-persuasive message) were recalled significantly better than the same information presented to subjects in an online format. The screen did a little better when the test was of recognition only.
This supports what I have always contended: print is not going away fast. The web is a totally different interface, more of an entertainment or "play" interface compared to print. Although the research used advertisements, the results carry over to information and news design.
I think what it means is that good information design will synergize web and print, using the former for brand-building only, and using print when they have a message they want to get across. They key is that both, used properly, makes the best presentation of your information.
If you want the complete citation for the article, e-mail me.
Monday, June 27, 2005
Brought to you by...
Columnist Jon Fine, in the June 27 issue of BusinessWeek, says that at least three magazine companies are looking to integrate advertising into editorial content, sort of like how companies place products in movies and television shows as sort of subliminal advertising.
I think that is an empty Shell of an idea and certainly not one that makes me want to Shout Yahoo! It is hard enough to Ford the ever-growing stream of ads, especially those at the front of the -- it really makes me Mad -- Magazine. We need to Target these advertisers and try to stop this high Tide of bad ideas, even if we have to Sprint to do it. We have to close The Gap in publishers' thinking about all this if we hope to have a Goodyear reading magazines.
Now back to your regularly scheduled blog.
I think that is an empty Shell of an idea and certainly not one that makes me want to Shout Yahoo! It is hard enough to Ford the ever-growing stream of ads, especially those at the front of the -- it really makes me Mad -- Magazine. We need to Target these advertisers and try to stop this high Tide of bad ideas, even if we have to Sprint to do it. We have to close The Gap in publishers' thinking about all this if we hope to have a Goodyear reading magazines.
Now back to your regularly scheduled blog.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Menus or icons: browser whine II
I mentioned a while ago that I think one of the problems with web design may not be a design issue at all, but a browser issue, a HCI (Human Computer Interface -- add that to our alphabet soup list) issue.
I recently read an article in Computers in Human Behavior that discussed a research project involving subjects using menu-based interfaces vs. icon-based interfaces. A major problem in HCI is disorientation, especially upon first encountering a web page, cell phone or etc. Once the disorientation sets in, anxiety and giving up follow.
It seems that some people understand and prefer menus, while others prefer icons. Actually there is some evidence that one works better with some tasks, while the other works better with some others.
So to truly provide an optimal experience for web site visitors one would almost have to allow visitors to pick their preferred presentation. Operating system windows already do this, why not browsers?
If we could find a better way to allow the person facing the monitor to control the interface, we would be better designers.
I recently read an article in Computers in Human Behavior that discussed a research project involving subjects using menu-based interfaces vs. icon-based interfaces. A major problem in HCI is disorientation, especially upon first encountering a web page, cell phone or etc. Once the disorientation sets in, anxiety and giving up follow.
It seems that some people understand and prefer menus, while others prefer icons. Actually there is some evidence that one works better with some tasks, while the other works better with some others.
So to truly provide an optimal experience for web site visitors one would almost have to allow visitors to pick their preferred presentation. Operating system windows already do this, why not browsers?
If we could find a better way to allow the person facing the monitor to control the interface, we would be better designers.
Monday, June 20, 2005
Designing infinity
It occurred to me today that newspaper design consists of all sorts of different kinds of design disciplines.
For instance, the overall design of a newspaper is rather like architecture. Part of the architect's job is to provide different spaces for different uses, to obviously guide the eye (and then the feet) through a space. All this is rather like anchoring certain sections and features in certain parts of the paper. Both activities are geared toward making the interface easy, obvious, and even pleasureable.
Then I thought individual page design is comparable to interior design. Both fields are dedicated to making a visit comfortable and pleasing to the eye. The colors are meant to complement one another and fit into a plan -- they aren't just tossed in as an afterthought. On an individual page -- as in a room -- space is finite and often smaller than you would like, so the idea is to utilize the space available to its best advantage.
There's more, but that's the idea. Space is the common thread, and it is here that the web becomes difficult.
A newspaper is finite: it is thick on Sundays and thin on Mondays. By heft alone, the readers get an idea of what they are in for. There is a beginning and an end. The pages have edges, beyond which lies only the ink-stained kitchen table.
But the web.... Someone (Wurman?) has already said that the never-ending onslaught of information availability is one of the problems with the web, and perhaps even the cause of some anxiety.
Website visitors can't really get the "heft" of a site from a home page, even if they pay attention to the number of links. Who knows how deep those links go? And what about the links that take you off site. Given the kudzu-like growth of web pages, those links, for all practical purposes, lead you off into infinity. It would be like finally getting to the last page of the New York Times only to find A-1 of the Washington Post, under which was the Miami Herald.
How do you design for that? No wonder there is so much discussion and disagreement from so many groups and individuals about web design.
How would an architect design infinity?
For instance, the overall design of a newspaper is rather like architecture. Part of the architect's job is to provide different spaces for different uses, to obviously guide the eye (and then the feet) through a space. All this is rather like anchoring certain sections and features in certain parts of the paper. Both activities are geared toward making the interface easy, obvious, and even pleasureable.
Then I thought individual page design is comparable to interior design. Both fields are dedicated to making a visit comfortable and pleasing to the eye. The colors are meant to complement one another and fit into a plan -- they aren't just tossed in as an afterthought. On an individual page -- as in a room -- space is finite and often smaller than you would like, so the idea is to utilize the space available to its best advantage.
There's more, but that's the idea. Space is the common thread, and it is here that the web becomes difficult.
A newspaper is finite: it is thick on Sundays and thin on Mondays. By heft alone, the readers get an idea of what they are in for. There is a beginning and an end. The pages have edges, beyond which lies only the ink-stained kitchen table.
But the web.... Someone (Wurman?) has already said that the never-ending onslaught of information availability is one of the problems with the web, and perhaps even the cause of some anxiety.
Website visitors can't really get the "heft" of a site from a home page, even if they pay attention to the number of links. Who knows how deep those links go? And what about the links that take you off site. Given the kudzu-like growth of web pages, those links, for all practical purposes, lead you off into infinity. It would be like finally getting to the last page of the New York Times only to find A-1 of the Washington Post, under which was the Miami Herald.
How do you design for that? No wonder there is so much discussion and disagreement from so many groups and individuals about web design.
How would an architect design infinity?
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
More on journalebrities
A few posts ago I whined and fussed about those people I call journalebrities, people who are not trained to be journalists but are famous for playing one on television. Nancy Grace and her ilk at her former gig on CourtTV (I was truly disappointed in CNN after they signed on Grace following her embarassing pouty and angry spewings about the Scott Peterson trial). Fox's Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh also come to mind.
I just read that novelist Stephen King recently complained about the same thing.
Anyway, an Annenberg poll of 1,500 Americans this spring found that more Americans think O'Reilly (40%) is a journalist than think the Washington Post's Bob Woodward is (30%). Fifty-three percent didn't even know who Woodward was. Limbaugh was called a journalist by 27%.
At first I was upset -- though not surprised -- with those figures. Then I realized that if Americans are trusting the media less and less, and if they think numbskulls like O'Reilly and Limbaugh are true journalists, maybe we shouldn't worry. Maybe more Americans are recognizing pseudo-journalism when they see it. And they don't like it.
One can only hope. For more info:
Annenberg Survey
I just read that novelist Stephen King recently complained about the same thing.
Anyway, an Annenberg poll of 1,500 Americans this spring found that more Americans think O'Reilly (40%) is a journalist than think the Washington Post's Bob Woodward is (30%). Fifty-three percent didn't even know who Woodward was. Limbaugh was called a journalist by 27%.
At first I was upset -- though not surprised -- with those figures. Then I realized that if Americans are trusting the media less and less, and if they think numbskulls like O'Reilly and Limbaugh are true journalists, maybe we shouldn't worry. Maybe more Americans are recognizing pseudo-journalism when they see it. And they don't like it.
One can only hope. For more info:
Annenberg Survey
Sunday, June 12, 2005
What's most important?
I have been working on a new web site for journalists at weekly newspapers, and I got to thinking about what was the most important point to remember about design and layout for newspapers.
At first, I settled on the grid. If journalists understood how to use a good grid system, their pages would immediately improve, even if they received only reporting training in college. Then I thought, no, it's typography. If they understood even the basics, their pages would improve. But no.
I went through the rest -- white space, color, photos, info graphics and such -- but I ended up where I always do: content.
Ultimately people read newspapers for content. I have heard that the work of a good typographer is mostly invisible to the reader. In a sense, it is even that way for the designer; well, most of the work anyway. Sure, it's good to "surprise" the reader on those special pages. but most of the paper consists of pretty straightforward element placement and packaging.
In that sense little has changed from when we talked about newspaper "makeup."
Make it easy to access, easy to read, pleasurable if you can, and you have done well.
Because good design springs directly from content (I like to call it design morphogenesis), good design can't be done before content, so therefore content has primacy, i.e., content is the most important component of good design.
Watch for my weekly newspaper design site and blog in the coming months.
At first, I settled on the grid. If journalists understood how to use a good grid system, their pages would immediately improve, even if they received only reporting training in college. Then I thought, no, it's typography. If they understood even the basics, their pages would improve. But no.
I went through the rest -- white space, color, photos, info graphics and such -- but I ended up where I always do: content.
Ultimately people read newspapers for content. I have heard that the work of a good typographer is mostly invisible to the reader. In a sense, it is even that way for the designer; well, most of the work anyway. Sure, it's good to "surprise" the reader on those special pages. but most of the paper consists of pretty straightforward element placement and packaging.
In that sense little has changed from when we talked about newspaper "makeup."
Make it easy to access, easy to read, pleasurable if you can, and you have done well.
Because good design springs directly from content (I like to call it design morphogenesis), good design can't be done before content, so therefore content has primacy, i.e., content is the most important component of good design.
Watch for my weekly newspaper design site and blog in the coming months.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Web v. Print Design
I sometimes get stuck thinking in black and white. The previous post (you know, the one below this one...?...) mentions TechDesigners vs. ArtDesigners and how neither alone is really enough.
Then I got to thinking about how much more complicated web design is when compared to print. Hardware issues, software issues, usability issues and such really don't impact, for instance, newspaper designers. While it is helpful for them to know what percentage of screen the press can hold, they really don't have to know ink, paper and the vagaries of the presses rumbling down in the basement. And being concerned about whether someone is reading your paper seated at the kitchen table or standing up on a train is nothing like worrying about whether somone is reading your web page on a monitor or PDA/cell phone.
The challenges are immense. No wonder there appears to be more substantial work and discussion going on in web design, compared to print. Both (all?) kinds of designers must work together to find optimal solutions.
Then I got to thinking about how much more complicated web design is when compared to print. Hardware issues, software issues, usability issues and such really don't impact, for instance, newspaper designers. While it is helpful for them to know what percentage of screen the press can hold, they really don't have to know ink, paper and the vagaries of the presses rumbling down in the basement. And being concerned about whether someone is reading your paper seated at the kitchen table or standing up on a train is nothing like worrying about whether somone is reading your web page on a monitor or PDA/cell phone.
The challenges are immense. No wonder there appears to be more substantial work and discussion going on in web design, compared to print. Both (all?) kinds of designers must work together to find optimal solutions.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Get out of my interface: Babel III
I know I should let this go, but I cannot.
I have been trying to do a lot of catching up on my reading about presenting information on the web. My first web site was up in 1994, back in the days when your choice of page background colors was a Henry Fordish choice: any color you want as long as it was gray. Been in the ink-on-dead-trees design world mostly since then, just dabbling in pixel manipulation as time would allow.
Much of what I have read in the usability and user interaction (and their ilk) literature seems to ignore what I think is an important point: not all info consumers (still can't go with users) are alike. We have a wide range of people using the web from propellor-heads to boomers to Gen-Xers and Yers to even some Digital Generationals who either (a) are not as computer savvy as they think they are, and/or (b) are only borderline literate, or at least not literate in the same way their parents are. It is not as bad as the problem one has designing for people who read left to right and for those who read their native language right to left or vertically. But it is a problem.
Designing an interface then becomes a much more complex problem than either the TechDesigners (those who approach information presentation as a technical problem) or the ArtDesigners (those who approach information presentation as a visual/aesthetic problem) seem to admit.
Beyond the obvious children's web pages and books, which do adjust the interface for the young consumer, and beyond the relatively simple personalization allowed by some portals (e.g.,Yahoo, etc.), and perhaps here we should even count those sites that recognize which browser and version you are using, the mainstream web is still "one size fits all."
And speaking of browsers, maybe that's where the problem lies. Over the years, IE, Netscape, Opera and Mozilla have made numerous improvements, but the basic interface is still the same. Maybe if browsers were better, we could present information better.
Maybe even Blogger could figure out how to place new posts at the bottom instead of at the top, causing people who miss the start of a thread to jump down the page and scroll up.
I have been trying to do a lot of catching up on my reading about presenting information on the web. My first web site was up in 1994, back in the days when your choice of page background colors was a Henry Fordish choice: any color you want as long as it was gray. Been in the ink-on-dead-trees design world mostly since then, just dabbling in pixel manipulation as time would allow.
Much of what I have read in the usability and user interaction (and their ilk) literature seems to ignore what I think is an important point: not all info consumers (still can't go with users) are alike. We have a wide range of people using the web from propellor-heads to boomers to Gen-Xers and Yers to even some Digital Generationals who either (a) are not as computer savvy as they think they are, and/or (b) are only borderline literate, or at least not literate in the same way their parents are. It is not as bad as the problem one has designing for people who read left to right and for those who read their native language right to left or vertically. But it is a problem.
Designing an interface then becomes a much more complex problem than either the TechDesigners (those who approach information presentation as a technical problem) or the ArtDesigners (those who approach information presentation as a visual/aesthetic problem) seem to admit.
Beyond the obvious children's web pages and books, which do adjust the interface for the young consumer, and beyond the relatively simple personalization allowed by some portals (e.g.,Yahoo, etc.), and perhaps here we should even count those sites that recognize which browser and version you are using, the mainstream web is still "one size fits all."
And speaking of browsers, maybe that's where the problem lies. Over the years, IE, Netscape, Opera and Mozilla have made numerous improvements, but the basic interface is still the same. Maybe if browsers were better, we could present information better.
Maybe even Blogger could figure out how to place new posts at the bottom instead of at the top, causing people who miss the start of a thread to jump down the page and scroll up.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Design Darwinism
Got to thinking about good design today. More people seem to be concerned with the design of mediated information-transfer interfaces (MITIFs -- you know, books, newspapers, magazines, web sites, etc.) than ever before. Note earlier post re the arguments among various UX, UI, ID, etc., MITIFers. People are coalescing into one feisty camp or another to champion their own view of design -- hey, why not, we are knee deep in the postmodern world....
Anyway, surfing through web site after web site and perusing the many books (my favorite MITIF) on my shelves about the visual and information, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe design isn't all that important after all. If it were, wouldn't the good be driving out the bad? Wouldn't design Darwinism dictate that the strong survive?
Every day I am surrounded by bad typography, bad layouts, bad color choices and so on, ad nauseum. If good design is so important, why isn't it winning?
In my particular field of newspaper design, most of the 9,000 or so papers strive to be merely competent. Some are simply ugly. Granted, newspaper readership is on the decline, but we can hardly lay that at the feet of design. If the "user experience" is so damn critical, why are the MITIFers the only ones seemingly concerned?
I have heard readers in focus groups complain if the body type is too small, but that's the only issue outside of content I have ever heard. Not once has anyone said, "I am getting damn sick and tired of Franklin Gothic Demi-bold!"
Are we guilty of the "hammer syndrome?" (If the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem becomes a nail.) Is design our hammer?
Anyway, surfing through web site after web site and perusing the many books (my favorite MITIF) on my shelves about the visual and information, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe design isn't all that important after all. If it were, wouldn't the good be driving out the bad? Wouldn't design Darwinism dictate that the strong survive?
Every day I am surrounded by bad typography, bad layouts, bad color choices and so on, ad nauseum. If good design is so important, why isn't it winning?
In my particular field of newspaper design, most of the 9,000 or so papers strive to be merely competent. Some are simply ugly. Granted, newspaper readership is on the decline, but we can hardly lay that at the feet of design. If the "user experience" is so damn critical, why are the MITIFers the only ones seemingly concerned?
I have heard readers in focus groups complain if the body type is too small, but that's the only issue outside of content I have ever heard. Not once has anyone said, "I am getting damn sick and tired of Franklin Gothic Demi-bold!"
Are we guilty of the "hammer syndrome?" (If the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem becomes a nail.) Is design our hammer?
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Babel II
I want to get back to this user interface vs. interaction design vs. yada yada yada.
Just because hypertextuality makes web design have more involvement from the user, er, ah, reader, doesn't mean that non-hypertext design has none. I guess that is what bugs me in all this: the fact that the usability mavens are all strutting about and pontificating about the user "experience" as if they invented the concept of paying attention to reader needs with one's design.
One quick example comes to mind from my world of newspaper design: jumps. We know readers hate jumps (how? We asked!), but we also know they dislike long gray slabs of body type. So we run as much type as we can justify (pun intended) on A-1, then jump all stories to the same place to ease the "user experience." Done it for years.
This new stuff is just the overtechnification (new word) of a simple concept. Hey, who let the engineers into the designer's room?
BTW, I used to think I was the first to coin the word "infotainment," way back in the 80s. Finally searched Lexis-Nexis and found it in a 9/13/81 column by William Safire in the NYT. His best guess was that it originated in a February 1980 Phone Call magazine article by Ron Eisenberg. Sigh. But how about journalebrities, for people like Nancy Grace or that O'Reilly guy on FOX NEWS and their ilk -- celebrities who think their 15 minutes of fame allows them to qualify as journalists? I think that's mine.
Just because hypertextuality makes web design have more involvement from the user, er, ah, reader, doesn't mean that non-hypertext design has none. I guess that is what bugs me in all this: the fact that the usability mavens are all strutting about and pontificating about the user "experience" as if they invented the concept of paying attention to reader needs with one's design.
One quick example comes to mind from my world of newspaper design: jumps. We know readers hate jumps (how? We asked!), but we also know they dislike long gray slabs of body type. So we run as much type as we can justify (pun intended) on A-1, then jump all stories to the same place to ease the "user experience." Done it for years.
This new stuff is just the overtechnification (new word) of a simple concept. Hey, who let the engineers into the designer's room?
BTW, I used to think I was the first to coin the word "infotainment," way back in the 80s. Finally searched Lexis-Nexis and found it in a 9/13/81 column by William Safire in the NYT. His best guess was that it originated in a February 1980 Phone Call magazine article by Ron Eisenberg. Sigh. But how about journalebrities, for people like Nancy Grace or that O'Reilly guy on FOX NEWS and their ilk -- celebrities who think their 15 minutes of fame allows them to qualify as journalists? I think that's mine.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Small Newspaper Design
(Back on board after a brief -- too brief -- vacation)
A problem exists in the world of newspaper design. It is a "size matters" issue.
The Society for News Design (a fine organization and I have been a member for 20 years) focuses on mostly large dailies. It has made efforts to deal with smaller newspapers and their design issues, but generally the big (circulation) dogs run the show. The annual SND publication of award winners is largely inhabited by the large circulation papers. It features work that simply cannot be duplicated by smaller dailies and certainly not by weeklies. Yet the vast majority of newspapers in this country fit in those categories.
Those newspapers probably need more help on design and typography than do the larger papers, yet less is available. The small paper newsworkers are almost exclusively trained in journalism schools, where little visual communication is taught. Large papers have graphic editors, even art directors. Small papers have an overworked photographer and mostly self-trained writers (Hey, Ed, you will be taking over page layout, starting next Tuesday....).
A new web site called News University (http://www.newsu.org) -- a joint venture of the Knight Foundation and The Poynter Institute -- is a great idea, but it still offers nothing (yet?) on design issues for smaller papers.
What if small papers got together, created a version of SND's competition for themselves, and used the small entry fees partly to cover the cost of the judging and partly to fund a web training site that would actually be helpful for them? Most of the lessons/problems could be set up by talented small paper newsworkers and design professors. Hmm. I might just do it.
More...
A problem exists in the world of newspaper design. It is a "size matters" issue.
The Society for News Design (a fine organization and I have been a member for 20 years) focuses on mostly large dailies. It has made efforts to deal with smaller newspapers and their design issues, but generally the big (circulation) dogs run the show. The annual SND publication of award winners is largely inhabited by the large circulation papers. It features work that simply cannot be duplicated by smaller dailies and certainly not by weeklies. Yet the vast majority of newspapers in this country fit in those categories.
Those newspapers probably need more help on design and typography than do the larger papers, yet less is available. The small paper newsworkers are almost exclusively trained in journalism schools, where little visual communication is taught. Large papers have graphic editors, even art directors. Small papers have an overworked photographer and mostly self-trained writers (Hey, Ed, you will be taking over page layout, starting next Tuesday....).
A new web site called News University (http://www.newsu.org) -- a joint venture of the Knight Foundation and The Poynter Institute -- is a great idea, but it still offers nothing (yet?) on design issues for smaller papers.
What if small papers got together, created a version of SND's competition for themselves, and used the small entry fees partly to cover the cost of the judging and partly to fund a web training site that would actually be helpful for them? Most of the lessons/problems could be set up by talented small paper newsworkers and design professors. Hmm. I might just do it.
More...
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Design Tower of Babel
Most of my design work has been for newspapers, although I have done corporate logo and identity projects, magazines, newsletters and web sites. Even though I was an early adopter of the web -- had my first site up in 1994 -- I sort of fell away from all web creation software improvements and the discussions about how to design for the web. I wrote an article on web vs. print design for O'Reilly's Web Review in 1995 and was invited to a panel discussion on design the next year at the WWW Symposium in Paris.
But since then I have only barely kept up, focusing instead on ink-on-crushed-dead-trees design. I wasn't a neo-Luddite or anything. My interests and job just shifted. Lately, however, I have begun looking into web design some more as my professing is slowly shifting away from research back to design classes. I am appalled that the online design field is just as much an argumentative Tower of Babel as the print field has been.
Those of us in newspaper design can't decide on pull quote vs. pullout vs. quote out or readout head vs. second deck head vs. nut graf vs. explainer, and so on.
So, as I have tried to rejoin the field online, my reading has crossed arguments about user experience (UX) vs. usability vs. information architecture vs. interaction design, and so on. And is it a quality or a discipline? People are getting angry about all this, my friends. They also talk about how new usability is.
Granted I am not only a design "silverback" -- hell, when I first started working at a newspaper, headlines were still set by hand, letter by letter, basically the way Gutenberg did -- but mostly a mere professor of design, i.e., not a real designer. Nonetheless, I think good design has always been about the reader (geez I hate "user") in the same way that architecture is really about people, not glass, cement and steel. Focus on the users, er, uh, readers may be more important now, because they have so many choices and all those choices are businesses with shareholders who want dividends and don't care a whit about design or users or readers. But that's marketing and for another day.
Bottom line is that little of the current activity surrounding the message receiver is truly new and the internecine feuds between AI, UE, ID, UX, blah blah blah are almost embarassing to read. I get the feeling, however, that getting everyone to sit around a table, talk it out and stop squabbling is (as Darwin, or maybe it was Mr. Bean, once said) as futile as a blind man in a dark room searching for a black cat that isn't there.
More....
But since then I have only barely kept up, focusing instead on ink-on-crushed-dead-trees design. I wasn't a neo-Luddite or anything. My interests and job just shifted. Lately, however, I have begun looking into web design some more as my professing is slowly shifting away from research back to design classes. I am appalled that the online design field is just as much an argumentative Tower of Babel as the print field has been.
Those of us in newspaper design can't decide on pull quote vs. pullout vs. quote out or readout head vs. second deck head vs. nut graf vs. explainer, and so on.
So, as I have tried to rejoin the field online, my reading has crossed arguments about user experience (UX) vs. usability vs. information architecture vs. interaction design, and so on. And is it a quality or a discipline? People are getting angry about all this, my friends. They also talk about how new usability is.
Granted I am not only a design "silverback" -- hell, when I first started working at a newspaper, headlines were still set by hand, letter by letter, basically the way Gutenberg did -- but mostly a mere professor of design, i.e., not a real designer. Nonetheless, I think good design has always been about the reader (geez I hate "user") in the same way that architecture is really about people, not glass, cement and steel. Focus on the users, er, uh, readers may be more important now, because they have so many choices and all those choices are businesses with shareholders who want dividends and don't care a whit about design or users or readers. But that's marketing and for another day.
Bottom line is that little of the current activity surrounding the message receiver is truly new and the internecine feuds between AI, UE, ID, UX, blah blah blah are almost embarassing to read. I get the feeling, however, that getting everyone to sit around a table, talk it out and stop squabbling is (as Darwin, or maybe it was Mr. Bean, once said) as futile as a blind man in a dark room searching for a black cat that isn't there.
More....
Friday, April 29, 2005
Size matters
Garcia-Media and Mario Garcia, one of the best-known and best newspaper designers on the planet, recently released an interesting white paper about the international move from the broadsheet to the tabloid size and smaller (http://garcia-media.com/files/GM_whitepaper.pdf).
Garcia points out that in 1999 he predicted an 8.5x11 (or a European A4 size) by 2020. Now he says it will happen much sooner. I agree, but I also predict that as the marriage of the home computer and the television gets closer (and, hey, how about digital paper?), we will see that A4 size, but in landscape or horizontal format. It is much closer to the orientation of monitors. That way media outlets can create information packages for any of the above without having to radically change formats. People will become habituated to the horizontal display of all media, but especially news media.
While I am in the predicting mood, I also think that when we get a digital newspaper, it will become even smaller and perform the function that TV Guide does for television. The newspaper will tease -- and connect -- to fuller coverage on your plasma, high-def, wall-mounted computervision (computer-television) in an on-demand mode. The newspaper will be a reference to help you find what you want easily, not a first-line medium, as it is now.
If it happens, I won't be happy, but at least I won't have to clean up inky fingerprints from my kitchen table, doors, walls, clothes, etc. Electrons leave little behind. . . .
Garcia points out that in 1999 he predicted an 8.5x11 (or a European A4 size) by 2020. Now he says it will happen much sooner. I agree, but I also predict that as the marriage of the home computer and the television gets closer (and, hey, how about digital paper?), we will see that A4 size, but in landscape or horizontal format. It is much closer to the orientation of monitors. That way media outlets can create information packages for any of the above without having to radically change formats. People will become habituated to the horizontal display of all media, but especially news media.
While I am in the predicting mood, I also think that when we get a digital newspaper, it will become even smaller and perform the function that TV Guide does for television. The newspaper will tease -- and connect -- to fuller coverage on your plasma, high-def, wall-mounted computervision (computer-television) in an on-demand mode. The newspaper will be a reference to help you find what you want easily, not a first-line medium, as it is now.
If it happens, I won't be happy, but at least I won't have to clean up inky fingerprints from my kitchen table, doors, walls, clothes, etc. Electrons leave little behind. . . .
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Graphic designers are not the Devil
A quick clarification in my thinking/writing. There is, obviously, good work done by graphic designers. I have seen some wonderful glyphs, logos, logotypes, illustrations and so on. But, and again I am generalizing here, graphic designers' successes seem to come when solving the communication problem involves the purely visual. Add words to the mix and many if not most graphic designers flail about.
That's why I like the term information design, and I have used it for years. We information designers work with both words and visuals; graphic designers seem to get lost when words are in the mix. Naturally the best way to communicate, to transfer meaning, is when words and visuals are integrated.
So if you are in the market for a visual communicator, get an information designer, not a graphic designer.
That's why I like the term information design, and I have used it for years. We information designers work with both words and visuals; graphic designers seem to get lost when words are in the mix. Naturally the best way to communicate, to transfer meaning, is when words and visuals are integrated.
So if you are in the market for a visual communicator, get an information designer, not a graphic designer.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Info vs. Graphic Design, Part II
I suppose the main point here is that I believe good media design is functional. Actually, though I use the term, I believe that "functional design" is an oxymoron. Design must have some kind of function whether it is newspaper design, package design, product design or architecture or it is not design. It is art. Ignoring the function of what you are designing is simply bad design, regardless of how good it may look.
This is where graphic designers seem to make a wrong turn. The emphasis -- probably gathered during an education focusing on learning how to overuse certain software just because you can -- on looking good first and the heck with whether the design succeeds in its functional task is simply upside down, a "through the looking glass" approach.
That's why I prefer information design for those of us trying to deliver meaning to meaning consumers; graphic design for me has become a pejorative term. Next I will turn to my ideas about design morphogenesis.
This is where graphic designers seem to make a wrong turn. The emphasis -- probably gathered during an education focusing on learning how to overuse certain software just because you can -- on looking good first and the heck with whether the design succeeds in its functional task is simply upside down, a "through the looking glass" approach.
That's why I prefer information design for those of us trying to deliver meaning to meaning consumers; graphic design for me has become a pejorative term. Next I will turn to my ideas about design morphogenesis.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Design: Information vs. Graphic
I have a bit of a problem with graphic designers in media fields. Seems to me they are more interested in how things look than in how they work, i.e., in whether their design supports the transfer of information -- the purpose of media communication. If the mediaworker's meaning isn't quickly and easily moved to the reader/viewer, then no matter how pretty something is, it is unacceptable.
And don't even bring up such things as accuracy and proper spelling, grammar and punctuation. Graphic designers look at words and see a typeface and kerning, not meaning transfer tools.
This is my problem with a lot of advertising design contests. Awards sometimes go to "pretty ads" that didn't work for the company. Heck, if an ad didn't move people to action, then it simply wasn't a good ad.
I have been all for information design for a long time, an approach that puts the transfer of meaning first. More from me later, but check out http://www.informationdesign.org. Cheers.
And don't even bring up such things as accuracy and proper spelling, grammar and punctuation. Graphic designers look at words and see a typeface and kerning, not meaning transfer tools.
This is my problem with a lot of advertising design contests. Awards sometimes go to "pretty ads" that didn't work for the company. Heck, if an ad didn't move people to action, then it simply wasn't a good ad.
I have been all for information design for a long time, an approach that puts the transfer of meaning first. More from me later, but check out http://www.informationdesign.org. Cheers.
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