In Episode 11 of Screen Space: Usability & Usability Testing 101

Welcome to Screen Space your podcast about creating usable, accessible, effective, and efficient web, blog, and new media design for the everyday (and non-expert) designer. This is Episode 11 of Screen Space: Usability & Usability Testing 101. This episode is a short introduction to Usability Testing. I explain what usability testing is, where it came from, and why you may want to consider integrating it into your design process for good web, blog, and new media design. This will be the first of three or four episodes on usability testing. While writing the script for the usability testing podcast I realized, eight pages in, that this would not nicely fit into a single podcast—unless I wanted to go very long. So, instead I am breaking it into parts. In this first part I discuss what usability is, provide a definition of usability testing, and an outline of the steps to conducting usability test. In the following episodes, I will discuss the five steps to conducting usability testing in greater detail: from defining your users to analyzing the results and making changes in your design. I will also discuss the number of users you should test.

I am your host, Dr. Jennifer L. Bowie, a professor at Georgia State University. I teach and conduct research in areas related to new media, web, and blog design. To start with, welcome new listeners from China and Arizona! Enjoy and let me know if there is anything you want me to cover.

This is a special “World Usability Day” episode. November 12th is World Usability Day and the day I am releasing this episode. The theme for 2009 is “Designing for a Sustainable World”. World Usability Day is put on by The Usability Professionals Association, who know all about usability and usability testing—the subject of this episode. All around the world people will be celebrating Usability with online and local events. So, celebrate with me by listening to this (which you are) and checking out the World Usability Day website at http://www.worldusabilityday.org/.

In episode 10 I introduced the concept of user-centered design, where real users become a central part of the design process. User-centered design results in a far more effective, efficient, and usable design than the more problematic user-friendly design, which tends to focus on stereotypes, and system-centered, which tends to focus more on functional specifications and bells and whistles. There are several techniques, methods, and processes we can employ to work towards the user-centered design process. Usability testing is one such method. It is frequently used in the United States and is an easier method for a single person or small group to try than some of the other options.

Usability is a term I use often in this podcast series. Since I shall be specifically discussing a method to test for it in this episode, and because it is a fairly general term, I will begin by defining usability. One of my favorite definitions is from Dumas and Redish, who wrote one of the first books on usability testing. They state “usability means that people who use the product can do so quickly and easily to accomplish their own tasks” on page four of their book. The International Organization for Standardization presents this definition “The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals in a specified context of use with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction” (ISO 9241-11). Whitney Quesenbery, on page 82, points out two issues with this definition. Her first issue is that the focus on tasks and tools may lead those who design products that do not have strongly definite tasks and tools (such as new media) to think usability does not apply. The second issue she sees is that this does not acknowledge “fun” as a user or designer goal. So, Quesenbery provides 5 dimensions of usability: effective, efficient, engaging, error tolerant, and easy to learn. While there are likely hundreds of other definitions I could bring up here, these three provide us with an excellent foundation. Combing these three we end up with a good working definition:

Usability is the degree to which real users can accomplish their own tasks or goals efficiently and effectively with a product that is error tolerant, engaging, and easy to learn.

I did add “the degree to which” since usability is not an absolute; it is more of a continuum. Products can be more or less usable.

So, now we know what usably is, how do we test for it? With usability testing of course. Which brings us to what exactly is usability testing? Usability testing is an empirical study of a product’s usability where actual users are observed while they complete real tasks with the product. Often the testers have specific usability goals or concerns, such as time to complete tasks. The testing is observed and recorded by the people conducting the test. After the testing is completed, the data is analyzed and used to diagnose problems and recommend changes to the product.

For those of you who have not conducted much research or who are more creative than analytical, terms like empirical and analysis may be scary. However, usability testers do not need a background in statistical analysis. If you can do averages and see trends then you can do usability testing, especially the smaller-scale testing that I would recommend for everyday and non-expert web, blog, and new media designers. However, if you really understand statistics, you can also have a lot of fun doing various statistical analyses of the data. Usability testing can be as statistically rigorous as you choose.

Before we get more into what usability testing is, it is important to understand one key concept. Although we call it testing we are not testing our users. In no way is this a test of them. It is a test of our product and our users are the ones doing the test of the product. Our users cannot fail this test, although our products often can and do. There are no right or wrong answers for our users and our users can’t make mistakes. If a mistake happens it is likely because of a usability problem with our product. So remember—we do not test the users, we test our product.

So, now that we have gone over the basics, you may be wondering how exactly usability testing works and what testing may look like. So, here is an example. Let’s say you have a photography blog and you have a decent audience size and want to get more users and see how usable the blog is for your current users. Perhaps you even have gotten emails from a few confused users. So, you may decide to do a usability test to improve the usability of your blog. I’ll discuss the steps in detail in later episodes, but here are the basics.

• First you figure out who your users are and decide which users or user profiles you want to test.
• Then you decide what you will test. What is your overall purpose of the test? What are your objectives?
• What tasks will you test? What will you measure?
• Next you prepare for the testing by creating testing materials, recruiting participants, defining team member roles, developing a test plan, practicing the testing, and preparing the test environment.
• After that, you test! Greet and brief your participants, remain unbiased, record observations, and debrief your participants.
• And finally you analyze the data from the testing and decide which changes you will make (or recommend be made).

For that photography blog, you may decide you want to test the site on middle-aged, middle class, American users with limited photography experience, and a love of art. Your major areas of concern may be if they can find the pictures they want with the search engine, if your tagging of pictures works for them, and if they can easily leave a comment. So, you may design three tasks for them to complete: one where you ask them to search for something using the search engine, one where you ask them to find something via tagging, and another where you ask them to leave a comment. Once you have developed the testing materials and are ready to go, you’ll have users come to your “lab” (which may be your office or living room—wherever you computer is) or test them in the “field”—wherever their computer is. Then, you will give them the tasks and observe them using the blog to complete the tasks. You may video record them or just take observation notes. You will likely time them. You may ask them questions about what they did after the testing. Once you have tested a few users, you can analyze your results and see if your blog can be improved.

And that is Usability and Usability Testing 101. Thank you for joining me. Next time I will talk about determining who your users are going to be for your testing and deciding how many users to test. I plan to put this up before the month is over. This will be the second part of my series on usability testing. I will later do 2-3 more episodes. But for December—the month of giving gifts—I am considering a podcast on recommended resources for all of you. Books, websites, blogs, journals, and so on. This might give you some good ideas of what to ask for for the various holidays or what to give the everyday web, blog, and new media designer in your life.

If you have questions, comments, or thoughts on what you want me to cover please send me an email at jbowie@screenspace.org or check out the Screen Space blog—www.screenspace.org.
Also, check out the blog for a transcript of this podcast complete with links and resources.

Happy World Usability Day! Have fun and design well!

Screen Space is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. So, feel to send a copy to that website that seriously needs some usability testing, but don’t change the podcast, do give me and Screen Space credit, and don’t make any money off of it.

Screen Space’s opening music today is “African Dance” by Apa Ya off of Headroom Project and the closing music is “Survival” by Beth Quist off of “Shall We Dance”. Both these selections are available from Magnatune.

References:

• Dumas, Joseph S. and Janice C. Redish A Practical Guide to Usability Testing. Ablex, 1993.
• International Organization for Standardization. ISO 9241-11:1998. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9241#ISO_9241-11
• Quesenbery, Whitney. “Dimensions of Usability”. Content and Complexity: Information Design in Technical Communication, edited by Michael Albers and Beth Mazur. Erlbaum, 2003.

Links:

• World Usability Day “Designing for a Sustainable World”: http://www.worldusabilityday.org/
• The Usability Professionals Association: http://www.upassoc.org/
• Magnatune: http://magnatune.com/

[music]

This is a special edition announcement episode of Screen Space your podcast about creating usable, accessible, effective, and efficient web, blog, and new media design for the everyday (and non-expert) designer.

As many of you know, I, your host, Dr. Jennifer L. Bowie, am a professor at Georgia State University. As such I have to publish or perish and scholarly publications are a major focus of my pre-tenure life.

I invite those of you in academia to join me for something I am trying in November: Scholarly Writing Month (or SchoWriMo). For those of you who are not academics, sick around and consider joining this adventure in your own way.

This short podcast is an abridged version of my longer invitation and discussion of this idea I posted on Screen Space. Go to Screen Space Click on the SchoWriMo category link to find the longer post or look around the blog.

November is “National Novel Writing Month” where participants try to write a novel (defined as 175-pages/50,000-words) during the month. As an academic, this concept always intrigued me, but didn’t work for me (see the blog post for why not).

So, I have previously not joined the crazy fun of Nanowrimo. However, this November I propose a scholarly version: Scholarly Writing Month (or SchoWriMo)

What is SchoWriMo, you may ask?

The goal is to spend serious time in November writing. As many writers of scholarly texts, novels, or other forms will state, the most important thing one can do as a writer is write regularly. So, SchoWriMo is based on this general concept: writing regularly. There are thirty days in November, so I propose an hour a day or at least thirty hours of writing for November. Since the idea is to write regularly, one should not just sit down in 3-4 days and pound out 30 hours. Ideally this will be an hour a day, 7 days a week, for November. Thanksgiving and other days may come up when writing is particularly hard, so, how about being able to make up one day/hour of writing on any other day, but no more than one? This means if someone needs to make up for the Thanksgiving hour, they can spend two hours the day before, but can’t spend three that day to also cover the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Types of writing: What counts?

• Actual writing: obviously
• Data analysis
• Formatting the document
• Putting together and formatting the references pages
• Anything that contributes to a scholarly publication: As the goal is to get work done on a scholarly publication I will not count blogging, writing for classes I am teaching, or anything else that doesn’t lead to further development of my scholarly contributions to the field (as counted by my tenure guidelines).
• For students, I would not recommend including writing for class unless it is a paper or project that you plan to publish or present at a conference. Your writing too should be something that works towards a scholarly publication–a line on the CV.
• Medium/media are not important: If you are writing for a print publication, a hypertext, a video, or a podcast, this still counts as “writing”, as I have loosely defined it here, as long as it moves your scholarship forward. For instance, I am working on an article I plan to publish in a peer reviewed journal and this article happens to be in podcast form. Writing the script for this, recording it, and editing it will all count as “writing” as it will move my scholarship forward.
• Am I missing anything?

So, this is what I will be doing in November. For those of you who are academics, care to join me? For those of you are not, is there something else you could do instead? Perhaps there is a project you are working on–say a quilt–and you could do QuiSewMo. Or perhaps you play an instrument and should practice an hour a day? Or maybe you have a blog you need to blog more on, and want to try blogging a hour each day–or podcasting, bike riding, running, getting an extra hour of sleep each night… whatever. I encourage you to join me, whether it be SchoWriMo or something else. I especially encourage my graduate students so they can get that writing done they need to be doing. And I likewise encourage my pre-tenure colleagues. But anyone, whether a scholarly writer or marathon runner are welcome to join.

Do you want join the fun?

I’ve put together a Google docs spreadsheet. To join, email me (jbowie@screenspce.org or jennifer.l.bowie@gmail.com) and I will share it with you. Then simply log in and record your hours. At the end of the month, we can see who has successfully completed SchoWriMo or their alternative.

You can even win a prize! I’ll offer a prize to those who complete their hours, or, more likely randomly draw from among those who complete and give them a prize. That is, if I don’t do this alone. The prize will be Inappropriate On Purpose the first album of my favorite steampunk rock band, The Extraordinary Contraptions. Do note, the band is not sponsoring this; I am buying their album for the winner. If any of you out there want to sponsor another prize, I’d be happy to take you up on the sponsorship!

So, join me for the fun and craziness!

And come back next time for Screen Space episode 11: Usability Testing 101. I will release this episode on November 12th, for World Usability Day. You can find out more about World Usability day at http://www.worldusabilityday.org/.

If you have questions, comments, or thoughts please send me an email at jbowie@screenspace.org or check out the Screen Space blog—www.screenspace.org. Have fun and design well!

Screen Space is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Screen Space’s opening music today is “African Dance” by Apa Ya off of Headroom Project available from Magnatune. As a special treat and example of what you could win by doing SchoWriMo or your unique version, here is one of my favorite songs off the Extraordinary Contraptions album you could win; this song is “Never Halfway Only”. The song and/or album are available on their website theextraordinarycontraptions.com, Last.fm and nimbit.

Links:

• National Novel Writing Month: http://www.nanowrimo.org/
• The full blog post: NaNoWriMo for the Rest of Us: Scholarly Writing & More Month http://www.screenspace.org/?p=141
• Email me jbowie@screenspce.org or jennifer.l.bowie@gmail.com
• The Extraordinary Contraptions: http://www.theextraordinarycontraptions.com/ on Last.fm and nimbit
• World Usability day: http://www.worldusabilityday.org/

In Episode 10 of Screen Space: User-Centered Design 101 (Why user-friendly is not enough)

Welcome to Screen Space your podcast about creating usable, accessible, effective, and efficient web, blog, and new media design for the everyday (and non-expert) designer. This is Episode 10 of Screen Space: User-Centered Design 101 (Why user-friendly is not enough). The episode is an introduction to User-Centered Design. I provide definitions and explanations for system-centered design, user-friendly design, and user-centered design, and argue why you want the later for good web, blog, and new media design.

I am your host, Dr. Jennifer L. Bowie, a professor at Georgia State University. I teach and conduct research in areas related to new media, web, and blog design.

We have all had problems with technology—links that did not take us where we wanted to go, buttons that did something different than we expected, confusing instructions, odd error messages, and we have probably lost data, time, and even our patience with such things. Many of us have probably wasted far too much time trying to get a word processing program to do something we want or to find information on a website that we know is there. As the designers of effective, efficient, accessible, and usable websites, blogs, and new media, we probably don’t want our users or audience to have these problems with our media.

Luckily we can turn to the areas of technical communication, human-computer interaction, psychology, information architecture, human factors and other usability and user experience areas for methods and techniques they have developed to create usable sites, blogs, and media and to understand why problems occur in the first place. As you will learn today, problems your users face rarely have to do with your users being incompetent, and more with problems with the design. There are three general models of design which follow three very different methodologies.

The first is system-centered design. I tend to call this the “look ma, no hands” model of design. In this model the programmers, developers, or “designers” of the technology decide what the technology needs or doesn’t need. The designers are most concerned with functional specifications and do not take in to account who will be using the system—the users. Frequently the designers design based on what they think is “cool”, what is easiest to do, and what they enjoy coding/creating. This is great when the designers are creating products for people like them with the same tasks, knowledge, skills, and behaviors, but this is rarely the case now. The resulting system-centered design is often something the designers can use and figure out, but the users cannot. To use the system the users often have to spend a great deal of time learning the system.

Since users who are different from the designers often have problems and issues with system-centered designs, the designers may even consider the users “stupid,” “dumb,” or “incompetent.” The designers might even feel that if people cannot figure it out, they should not use it.

This design model can lead to a lot of funky (according to the designers) bells and whistles—and bells and whistles the users many not want, need, or find at all useful. The real needs, tasks, skills, knowledge, and behaviors of the “users” are not considered in the design, and as a result the technology or media may very well fit what the designer wants it to do, but not at all what the user wants or needs it to do. The end result of system-centered design: technology or media that is not efficient, effective, accessible, and usable and often baffles users.

Why “look ma, no hands”? In this saying the ma is the user and the kid on the bike is the designer. Most mothers do not want their kid to be riding their bikes with no hands—thus the kid is not considering the audience/user. The kid is just all happy with what she can now do on a bike and is showing off (extra bells and whistles). An approach that better considers the use/audience/mother would be “Look Ma, I have my helmet on correctly!”.

The next model is user-friendly design. While this model is better than system-centered design, it is still problematic. With design under this model, the designers do consider the user, but often in simple, stereotypical ways and frequently only at the end of the development cycle. I think of this as the “pink because they are women” model. With this model a web designer designing site for women may choose to use the color pink because “women like pink”. However the designer doesn’t actually ask if the women who make up the audience of the site like pink, she or he just assumes and may not even consider the user beyond this surface level. Such assumptions may work, but no always. Some women may love a pink site; others may find it silly and insulting. Still others may have a red-green color blindness that will make the pink an icky color and possibly not contrast enough with the rest of the design. User-friendly can result in designs that are easy (or easier) to use, such as the Graphic User Interface, over the old command line interface (certainly an example of system-centered design).

In many ways user-friendly design is what writing teachers teach when they say “think of your audience”. I tell this to my students often. However, how can I expect my students to really write for their audience if they do not know who their audience is? If they have not interacted with their audience? Asked their audience about the writing or design? All they have are stereotypes and ideas of their audience, and often these are not based in reality. While my students may write a stronger document when they consider their audience, the end result may not be as efficient, effective, accessible, and useable as it could be. And the same is true for any user-friendly design.

In user-friendly design the user may just be an afterthought. Granted, and afterthought is better than not at all, but the real needs, tasks, skills, knowledge, and behaviors of the users are still not deeply considered or incorporated into the design. Such a design may be friendlier, but we can do better.

Which brings us to the third model of design: user-centered design. While system-centered places the system and programmer at the center of the design, and user-friendly considers the users, user-centered design put the user at the center of the design. What better way to design for the real needs, tasks, skills, knowledge, and behaviors of the users? In this model, users actively participate in the design process from the beginning to the end, from the first designs through development, implementation, and even maintenance of the design. Sometimes the users may literally become co-designers and other times users are integrated in other ways.

Many methods and techniques can be used in user-centered design: from usability testing, contextual design, participatory design, design-based ethnography, to simple tools like surveys, interviews, and observations. Often a truly user-centered design will include a variety of these methods. Testing is regularly involved—usability testing or other types—where it is not the users that are tested, but the interface that is tested by real users to see if they can use it. The actual tasks, needs, skills, knowledge, and behaviors of the actual real users are not only considered and studied, but put at the center of the design. The bells and whistles the designer can create and the stereotypical references of the “users” are ignored in favor of real information, real needs, and real uses of real user. The end result is not only efficient, effective, accessible, and usable, but often intuitive, helpful, and easy.

In user-centered design, users no longer must shape their tasks and uses around what the system allows, but now the system is shaped around these tasks and uses. If the website is pink, it is because this is what the users found best. If the interface has a bell it is because the users found it useful. The users are not thought to be dumb or incompetent because they cannot use a system in this model, but the system is found to be problematic and changed. This empowers the user and results in technology, software, or media the users will keep coming back too. It also results in less people swearing at your design, which is always good (unless you like making your users mad, but if you do it is unlikely they will be your users for long).

A good user-centered design process can be expensive (but not always) but the end results are an improved bottom line and better yet happy, effective, and efficient users. What more could you want?

For your everyday web, blog, and new media designs user-centered design may seem like an unreachable utopia. And perhaps a true involvement of the users of your media (beyond yourself) may not be feasible or possible throughout the whole design process. However, there are many techniques you can use to integrate the user into your design process and have resulting media that is more user-centered. In my next episode, I will touch on one such method—usability testing.

So, now you know why you do not want to make a system-centered design (at least if you want anyone to come to your website, blog, or other new media). System-centered design focuses more on the system and abilities and desire of the designer, not on the user. You also know why you want to go beyond user-friendly design. Superficial and last minute considerations of the user are not enough. You know user-centered design is the way to go. The user and her real needs, tasks, skills, abilities, and desires are placed at the center of the design and the design is truly created for her. If you make your website, blog, or other new media user-centered, your audience will grow and your design will be more effective, efficient, accessible, and usable.

That’s it for the three models of design. Remember the continuum goes from problematic system-centered, to somewhat better user-friendly design, to the ideal of user-centered design. Join me next time for one way to begin working towards user-centered design—usability testing.

If you want to find out more, I’ve included some references in the transcript on the Screen Space blog on User-Centered Design. Feel free to send me questions too!

In fact, If you have questions, comments, or thoughts on what you want me to cover please send me an email at jbowie@screenspace.org or check out the Screen Space blog—www.screenspace.org. Have fun and design well!

Screen Space is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. So, feel to send a copy to that clearly system-centered website you hate to use, but don’t change the podcast, do give me and Screen Space credit, and don’t make any money off of it.

Screen Space’s opening music today is “African Dance” by Apa Ya off of Headroom Project and the closing music is “Survival” by Beth Quist off of “Shall We Dance”. Both these selections are available from Magnatune.

Resources: coming soon!

In Episode 9.5 of Screen Space: A Metacast of where Screen Space went and what to expect next

Welcome to Screen Space, your podcast about creating usable, accessible, effective, and efficient web, blog, and new media design for the everyday (and non-expert) designer. This is your host, Dr. Jennifer L. Bowie. It has been a while since the last Screen Space, but never fear. I have not podfaded, just podpaused. In this metacast I will explain the pause and give you information on what to expect in the future from Screen Space. I also end with a special treat.

As loyal listeners who have stuck by the podcast despite the break likely remember, I am an assistant professor. Last fall I taught a senior seminar that included a large podcasting component. I was doing so much with podcasting through that class I just did not have time to keep up with this podcast. In addition, I was focusing on some publications. As this podcast unfortunately falls below both teaching and more formal scholarship on my priority scale the podcast was paused. But the class is over, and progress made on some publications. So, I am back at it. Pause over.

Due to the business of life as a profession, I doubt I can keep up regular weekly or even biweekly podcast. While I’d like to do biweekly, I am going to try for every three weeks during the semester. Hopefully I can be more frequent, but other things do take priority.

If you are interested in podcasting from an academic or educational perspective, I am currently working with the research I collected in my podcasting senior seminar and will be shortly presenting the findings from this research at ATTW. My research is an assessment of how students produced podcasts impacted learning. Keep an eye on the blog and I’ll likely post a link to the presentation.

So that is what I’ve been up to professionally beyond podcasting. Now for what you can expect from Screen Space. The next episode, 10, will be on why you do not want user-friendly sites. This will be my introduction to User-Centered Design. The following episode will be on usability testing, which is one way to work towards user-centered sites. Other upcoming episodes will include information on running usability tests; basic copyright issues as they relate to blogs, websites, and other new media; creative commons and copyleft, blog tips and ideas; accessibility; a bit of rhetoric including ethos, pathos, & logos; and a discussion on multimedia use. I am also open to your own questions and episode ideas, so send them in to jbowie@screenspace.org. I’m happy to talk about your web, blog, and new media design concerns.

So, loyal listeners thanks for staying with this. New listeners, thanks for giving this a try. There are many exciting forthcoming episodes. Stay tuned!

I leave you today with a special treat. Instead of my outro music, I am including, with special permission, what is probably my favorite song from The Extraordinary Contraptions, an exciting up an coming Atlanta Steampunk Band. The song is “Smote.” You can find more on The Extraordinary Contraptions by going to their MySpace page or even Googling them. You can listen to six of their songs on MySpace and more on Last.fm and nimbit. I will post all the links in the transcript. If you enjoy the song, let me know and let them know and, of course, consider buying more of their music.

That’s it for now! Have fun and design well!

If you have questions, comments, or thoughts on what you want me to cover please send me an email at jbowie@screenspace.org or check out the Screen Space blog—www.screenspace.org.

Screen Space is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. So, feel to send a copy to your favorite rock or steampunk band, but don’t change the podcast, do give me and Screen Space credit, and don’t make any money off of it.

Screen Space’s opening music today is “African Dance” by Apa Ya off of Headroom Project and is available from Magnatune. . The closing music is “Smote” by The Extraordinary Contraptions and is available on Last.fm and nimbit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Welcome to Screen Space your podcast about web, blog, and new media design for the everyday (and non-expert) designer. It is July 21, 2008, and this is Episode 7 Screen Space: Design 101 (Four Basic Principles). Today I’m giving special welcome for my listeners from around the world. After my last podcast, I started looking at my stats and found I do have plenty of listeners from around the world, including people from Canada, the United Kingdom, China, Germany, Spain, the Russian Federation, Bulgaria, and Sweden. Thank you for joining me. If you have any special issue you want to cover, just drop me a line via email or the comments. I’d love to hear from you.

For any new listeners, I am Dr. Jennifer L. Bowie, a professor at Georgia State University. I teach and conduct research in areas related to new media, web, and blog design. In fact, I teach a class on document design, which is directly related to this episode.

Design itself is a funny term, especially when one is discussing web design. The phrase “web design” means many things from all aspects of creating and producing a web site to the actual visual components of it, which better fit the more traditional definition of design. In this episode, I’ll be talking about the visual design of websites.

Like color design, which I briefly covered in the last episode, visual design is a very complex subject and it is one pursued by a variety of experts and artists from graphic designers to photographers, painters, sculptors, and more. Not only are there books on this area, but a huge number of varying degrees. So, this is no small subject, and even a focus on the visual aspects of web design is still a huge area—with numbers books and classes of all types. Since this is such a huge topic, I’m not going to attempt to over it in one podcast, but several. This is just the first one, and as such the most very basic. And what better place to start then with basic design principles?

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[Transcript]

Greetings and welcome to episode 6 of Screen Space: Color Design 101. It is Sunday July 6, 2008. For the United States Citizens in my audience (which may be my whole audience, if not let me knew), Happy belated 4th of July. The 4th was actually inspiration for this episode. I was trying to decide which of the many upcoming topics to do. After running in the Peachtree 10k road race (the largest 10k in the nation), I decided that colors were a fitting topic.

As you know by now if you’ve been listening, Screen Space is a podcast for all of you out there who want to make your websites, blogs, and other new media more usable, accessible, effective, and efficient. I, your host, am Dr. Jennifer L. Bowie. I am a professor at Georgia State University where I teach a variety of classes related to this podcast. I also do much of my own research in this area.

Without further ado, let’s talk color. One of the biggest differences between print and new media design is color doesn’t cost any more in new media. You can use millions of colors (but please don’t) and it doesn’t cost you any more then using just black and white. This is not the case with print. Unfortunately the ability to use color without extra cost can lead to some very colorful and very atrocious designs.

Color is a very complex topic, and artists and graphic designers can spend years studying it. However, advanced knowledge is not necessary to use color effectively in your new media. In this episode I’ll cover some of the basics, and in future episodes I’ll cover more material on color. It is a topic I could dedicate the whole podcast too instead of a few episodes because there is so much to know and consider. Today, I’ll focus on some basic, key concepts for color design.

The first principle of color use online is to use color to communicate not decorate. Don’t simply add color because it looks pretty; add it because it makes your site more useable, efficient, and effective. If you do it well you will have a good looking site that communicates clearly. The following principles all provide information on using color to communicate.
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In this episode, I’ll first present 7 tips for strong basic writing for websites, blogs, and other new media. After the basics, I’ll talk about the idea behind this podcast and also about the development of it. I’ll also introduce the Screen Space Star Rating System.

Today’s topic, web writing 101, is an important one. Most websites, blogs, and other new media don’t function if people can’t or won’t read what you have written. In this episode I’ll just present 7 basic tips. In later episodes, I will present more advanced tips. Although I will call the writing I am talking about throughout this episode “web writing” it is really electronic writing—for the web, blogs, other new media, or anything else that will be read on a computer screen.

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Greetings and welcome to episode 4 of Screen Space. Screen Space is a podcast for everyday people with websites, blogs, and other new media who want to learn more about making these more usable, accessible, effective, and efficient. I, Dr. Jennifer L.
Bowie, am your host (and for this case interviewer). I am an assistant professor at Georgia State University and I teach and research in areas related to this podcast including user-centered design and web design.

This episode is a bit different—it is an interview with Brian Snead about the use of sound online. Brian Snead is a Master’s student at Georgia State University and has presented heuristics for the use of sound in website design at a local conference and a national conference. The interview is very interesting and quite helpful for anyone interested in integrating sound into their websites and for those of us who have to listen to poorly integrated sound in other people’s websites. I have even included a special treat at the very end of the podcast. So, sit back and enjoy.

INTERVIEW [note: I do not currently have a transcript of the interview, but one may be forth coming.]

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