• Discuss general group processes and issues in their own groups.
• Apply working documents and digital communications for the organization of projectwork.
• Use iterative methods for testing the information architecture and interface design.
• Use rhetorical effects and argumentation theory in both content and presentation of the portfolio.
• Using Web parts in static and dynamic websites for construction and maintenance of a portfolio on a given platform (WordPress).

Discuss general group processes and issues in their own groups.

At first I want to refer to the Chindogu exercise, were I discuss groupwork contra working alone. In the course: Introduction to Media and Communication, my group, at times experienced some extreme groupconditions. We began the group with discussing the characteristics of a group as Algreen-Ussing et al. (2006, p. 225) defines it: A group has: the same goal, shared conditions, shared behaviour, the feel of being in a group.

Especially the first two were important to us, and we quickly agreed at the common goal, what grade we worked for. We spended a couple of hours discussing the conditions of our upcoming groupwork. Eventually we agreed. We ofcourse had normal norms like: “You MUST do the work assigned to you”; “You MUST arrive when appointed”. But beyond that we also had some unique norms like the ricebag: “You cannot speak without holding the ricebag”. This really sorted out some quarrelling!

The process worked out just fine thanks to the norms, but what we did not see coming was that: At the end when we were to split the authorship, the twillight of the Gods broke loose. The ones who had not wrote that much of the text demanded more of the text, but the ones who wrote it, of course did not want to let go of it. It ended in a three our session of sad looks, and discussion. This might have been easier, if we discussed it at the beginning!

Other posts relevant for group processes and issues: Teamwork at a distance – Tangible Computing – Designalysis.

Apply working documents and digital communications for the organization of projectwork.

What we also discussed in the group norms is how we use the digital media. We agreed to use Facebook as an update service, only used to notices. Using Google Docs for documents and Dropbox for pictures, presentations etc. We also seldomly used Skype for distanced work, but as I wrote in the post: Teamwork at a distance, this is not nearly optimal. Google Docs and Dropbox on the other hand, worked out perfectly for us. It worked as it was supposed to, just like technique is intended to, but rarely do. The Facebook group slowly became inactive, without our notice. My conclusion is: If everybody agrees to use the digital platform it can be an indispensable part of groupworking.

I have used Google Docs and Dropbox in all my project this semester, and I cannot imagine working on a project without digital communication and documents.

Lately a few of my class mates has asked me about the portfolio and coding different things. And here Skype was perfect, it allowed me to see their screen: their code, and suggest solutions to their problems.

Use iterative methods for testing the information architecture and interface design.

At first we did this Card sorting,  where we tested the structure of a website. Then we did a usabilitytest in groups where we tested how many clicks it took to reach specific things on the pages. I recently repeated this with a friend and it worked out a lot better with my new structure and the search field.

Use rhetorical effects and argumentation theory in both content and presentation of the portfolio.

I have, in the reflections, written about how I want to appear and appeal to my audience.

In Course timetable up for subscription I have made a timetable of our courses available for the other students, this shows my good will to the readers. This eunoia is also showed in this post Study and technique where I share a catalogue regarding techniques on studying. Eunoia is an element of ethos and therefore adds credibility to my person (Lund & Petersen: 1999, p. 122). Also supporting this i my post Enlighten me, where I ask the listener for some imput on my work. But eunoia alone does not do it: there are two more elements to ethos. I the video I try to sound fun and friendly, and appealing this way is called areté. I hope that my main text with references and especially my reflections shows my pronesis. Out of the three appealing forms I have a hard time appealing to the two othes under these circumstances: logos and pathos. Logos is appealing to the logic of the user, the way I appeal to this could be my infrastructure. Pathos is all about the readers feelings, and to implement this I have tried to make it a litte funny. But if I did too funny, it would damage my credibility elsewhere. You can read more about credibility at the reflections page.

Using Web parts in static and dynamic websites for construction and maintenance of a portfolio on a given platform (WordPress).

Around this website and especially in the ChangLog you can see that I master HTML, CSS and PHP.

Introduktion til Interaktionsdesign
Seniorinteraktion i hverdagen

Disposition:

Først vil jeg præsentere vort endelige produkt

Siden vil jeg beskrive hvordan processen kronologisk, i forhold til litteraturen, er forløbet.
Hvad vi har gjort.

Hvad det har betydet.

Hvad vi skulle have gjort ifølge litteraturen.

Hvad det ifølge litteraturen ville have gjort ved projektet.

Jeg vil overveje og reflektere over den kritik vi har fået.
Ligeledes vil jeg argumentere, med grund i litteraturen, for de valg vi har truffet i forhold til designet af produktet.

Litteratur:
Jeg har endnu ikke været igennem alt litteratur men her er et udkast til den teori jeg vil anvende:

Buxton 2007
Side 114
Side 138
Side 144
Side 146
Side 148
Side 150
Side 240

Dourish 2004

Nielsen 2010

Norman 1990
Side 3

Spørgsmål
Er produktet i centrum eller er processen i centrum?
Hvis processen er i centrum, er det vel irrelevant at reflekterer over yderligere design af produktet?

How to come up with something new that is appealing to the principe of Chindogu?
I did a hybrid scheme choosing Coal as the related stimulus. And choosing Piano, Fight, Phobia and Banana as my unrelated stimulus.
To get the most reliable brainstorm as possible, not affected by my thoughts I used a “random word generator” I found on the internet. Click a button and it comes up with a totally random word.
All these words gave some funny combinations and almost bizarre sentences. But among odd and queer words, I found my subject.

Carbonphobia. -Fear of Coal.

So now I had the theme of my association. I called it “Kulfobi” and the slogan: “Er kul noget du ikke kan li’, så læs kulfobi.”
I like rhymes a lot and it was clear from the beginning that my slogan had to rhyme.
After getting this straight, I started working on cover of a possible magazine.
I found (thanks Google) a picture of the famous Norwegian painting “The Scream” and paired it with a picture of coal. This didn’t look that smooth so I did some tricks and gave the coal the same style as the painting had, so it now looks unified.
Now it was time to make it look like a magazine cover. I used a tool by “Big Huge Labs” called “Magazine Cover“, which was incredible easy to use.

Now I started work on a mockup of potential webpage of the association. Again I used an online application to do the work (thanks Jakob, for the tip!). It is called “Balsamiq Mockups” and is in a free- and a shareware version. I used the free version to do my mockup.
Before I knew it I was looking at four mockups. I made four to better show my design of the webpage.

Video time!
I have been using Jing before, and I must say, I am not that huge a fan, so I decided to use a recorder that gives me an actual video-format as result. Imovie 11 was my choice, I never used Imovie before, but I figured that this was the easiest way to make a presentable video.
But I must say that it was a bit tricky, and I did not end up the way I wanted it to be, all though I am almost satisfied with the result.
There is no Chris talking on the video as I find it speaking for it self. There is not much practical to say about either the cover or the webpage. It works as expected.

Reflections
The hybrid scheme really surprised me, as it did things I did not expect. It really trickers the mind and get it going. I know I do not think I can use the hybrid scheme in a straight forward way, but I am convinced that it will come in handy in a more metaphorical way.

The hybrid scheme makes you think in whole new ways, forces you to think of things you thought was (as I wrote earlier) odd and queer. I usually trash those ideas before they get a chance to speak their cause. And the more ideas you have, the more you can choose from.

I realized, just now writing this, that to me there is a difference between brainstorming and solving a problem or an assignment. The difference is that when I brainstorm, I find myself at the school, in a group, where we are told to or have agreed to brainstorm. And when I try to solve a problem I think in a more narrow line through the process and towards the goal.
I must now, to solve problems better and more effectively, work on erasing that line between brainstorming and thinking narrowed.

As I mentioned, I am not used to brainstorm alone, but I am looking forward to it being a customary way of thinking.

Groupdynamics
When I was done brainstorming and had something to work with I confronted some of my ITU mates, and got some nice verbal feedback. It is always a great idea to get others opinion on a project and it gave me even more to work with.
I have always been a fan of single sports like badminton, the cause of this was that I was the only one to blame if I lost, and I knew that. It is no fun to have a bad one on the team or to be the bad one.
But when it comes to schoolwork, I am divided because I certainly have adopted some mentality from the sports, but I also know that the teams different opinions are indispensable.

After this exercise I can see myself using the hybrid scheme as a tool to brainstorm individually and then get together with the group and present all of the ideas to the others. In this way we combine the advantages of two worlds.

To round this off, there is, as i mentioned in the past section sometimes flaws in teams. And that is why I think that all group work ought to start with a conversation about norms. I am positive that this will prevent a lot of angry faces.

woah! this came out like an essay.

The page is called Kariyer and is in, what looks like, Turkish. Meaning this analysis is only based on the looks of the site and our individual interpretation of what it might concern. After joining our interpretations we believe that the webpage works as a job database.

Overall it is a mashup of mostly purple, white, black and orange. It has a lot of pictures and a couple of flash animations. Along with that they have smoothen it up with round corners everywhere it is suitable.

There is a tremendous amount of groupings on the page, and it looks very confusing at first sight (especially with the language barrier taken into consideration).
What looks like a search box seems to be the most important part of this page, simply because it is placed in the upper left golden section and has, by far, the biggest font size (almost as bis as the logo text).

We have illustrated the structure of the groupings in the picture to the left. It seems impossible to describe in words.

As said the purple color clearly dominates the color theme. And according to www.color-wheel-pro.com purple is

“[..] associated with royalty. It symbolizes power, nobility, luxury, and ambition. It conveys wealth and extravagance. Purple is associated with wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity, mystery, and magic. [..]“

If the assumption of this being a job portal is right, words like royalty, nobility and ambition, wealth and wisdom is in great accordance with what they presumably want to be connected with.

The font is regular and does not pop into you eyes. There might be no reason for this, but a reason could be that they do not want the looks to be in focus more that the content of the page.

There are few symbols like the phone, the crossair and the

magnifying glass, not to speak of some company logos like Siemens and Mercedes, that is widely known in all over the world. However the Icons are not making anything considerable easier for foreigners as me, since they are not used to navigate around nor to describe the different groupings.

Second round

Redesign the page in the favour of a Scandinavian user who is 30+ years old.

To begin with, some of the 16 different groupings must go. I see no reason that all that data is exposed on the frontpage.

THE GROUP. We moved some of the groupings from the frontpage to underpages to make it more clear and well-arranged. As seen to the right we did not dare to remove too many things from the frontpage. This is so because we of course did not know what all of the contet acually was.

ME. Well if I should truly follow my own feelings I would say that the only vital things is the search box and a menu to hold all other data [SIMPLICITY]. Taking the fact that one of the most popular websites only contains of a single search box, into consideration it can not be totally mistaken.

Reflections

At first we split the group up in three minor groups that worked on a subject each. This meaning that we were quite effective, but at the same time it also means that we did not get everybodys opinion on all tasks.After that we worked on the design all together.

Even though we agreed that the old design was confusing and not very professional looking, it was very difficult to reach unity concerning the new design. Like I have mentioned before in this portfolio I am very fond of the KISS and the less is more concept.

The groupwork didn’t work out that well I think. Perhaps the general understanding of this exercise was to get it done as quickly as possible. I think it is due to the recent random making of the groups. It is not that I do not like random groups, I do, but sometimes the dynamic in the groups just are not that great.
Another factor which I know is current for me, is that after 3 hours of exciting stuff at the lecture, I have a hard time concentrating in the afternoons.

That is sad because this is a subject that really interests me.

This way of brainstorming was very interresting and sure we got many different idears we would never have discovered without this brainstorm. But curiously enough some elements was repeated in several sketches even before all our pensils had left their marks on them.

The Television monitor was playing a part in more of the sketches. I know I am in a time where I spend a lot time rethinking how I can make my Television the greatest media server of my aprtment, serving movies, tunes and pictures. Undoubtably this is in my subconscious mind and I think it has affected my personel brainstorm.

Below is an exstract of our brainstorm.

The assignment is to write an opening to a paper. But only the opening, as a part of practicing openings.

See the paper below or download the paper here. [danish]