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(source:viaterra.net)Blogging is an activity that I have been doing on and off since 4 years ago. I used to blog in Xanga, however I stopped because I lose interest in it. I always think blogging is a complete waste of time and somehow revealing our personal life to the world.However, blogging for this subject is different compared to regular basis of blogging. Though very time consuming, but it made me learn more thoroughly about the characteristics of weblogging and issues of publication design. Apart from that, I learn about the importance of including audience, purpose, and context in creating a good document design.A few issues that I have done have already been discussing about the combination of pictures and texts in a document design. Hence, according to Schriver (2006) explains that prose and graphics are integrated as a part of the body text in order to help users represent the content.Apart from that, copyright infringement is also an issue to weblogging and document design. People tend to copy materials from others without citing them. Hence, Walker (1997) implies that in addition to citing the source of texts, any graphics, audio or video files included in a student's work should include a proper citation. I have learnt to cite every single quote that I have found from articles or websites. In fact, I have even cited all the pictures that I have uploaded in all my postings to avoid any copyright issue.To conclude this discussion, I believe that I have induced a lot from this assignment. Learning how to manage my time to look for researches for each issue and learning to manage a blogging system is not an easy task. With that, as this assignment completes with my final post, which is the Reflection of what I have done, I know that in future, blogging will most probably to be back as my regular basis.
Thus, in order to end this blog proudly, I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who has the opportunity to read this blog. Thank you very much!References:- Schriver, KA 1997, 'The Interplay of Words and Pictures', Dynamics in Document Design: Creating texts for readers, Chapter 6, pp.361-441
(source: deliverability.comYahoo! can be referred as a internet content provider that allows its users to browse for almost everything ranging from webs, news, images to blogs. Yahoo! was founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo but was only incorporated in March 1995 (Wikipedia, 2009). Apart from that, Yahoo! also invented Yahoo! Mail where users can sign up email addresses using it and Yahoo! Messenger where users can chat with one another using its online chatting system. Labrou and Finin said Yahoo! provide a huge hierarchy of categories that touch every aspects of human endeavors.
(source: Wikipedia)
"Yahoo! is testing to redesign its homepage, emphasizing news feeds and applications as well as search results." (ZDNetAsia)
Methods in designing a homepage
Redesining a homepage acquires various kinds of methods. Jakob Nielsen (1993) introduced the heuristic evaluation method that allows a good guideline in designing a home page. It is also the least expensive method and conveniently useful.Home Page = Document DesignIn the case of Yahoo!, a home page equals to a document design. Nevertheless, redesigning a good home page means a good document design is needed. Reep (2006) implies that document design refers to the physical appearance of a document. Yahoo! needs to acquire both printed words and good visual presentation on its home page in resulting to a great home page design. As illustrated by Reep (2006), readers do not only read printed words on the text, they also "read" the visual presentation of the text. Hence, Yahoo! can design a webpage allows the good flow of virtual presentation and texts.GenreGenre can be defined as ways in which we make sense of types of texts, as culturally defined and expected combination of field, tenor and mode (Schirato & Yell, 1996). The genre that can be implemented in Yahoo! is Public (Wikipedia, 2009). This implies that Yahoo! provides a great usage to anyone as it does not contain materials that are not allowed in the online community.Home Page Design PrinciplesApart from that, a good home page design comes with principles. Thus, according to Reep (2006), the most essential way into creating a home page is to have balance, proportion, sequence and consistency.A good balance in a page should have the comparable visual weight on both sides of a page while a good proportion to a page design should have the appropriate size and placement of text, graphic aids and format elements on the page (Reep, 2006). Apart from that, a good sequence in a home page refers to the arrangement of the design features. Readers read from top left corner to right bottom corner. Lastly, consistency means presenting the features consistently such as fonts, typeface, margins and identation.
The latest design of Yahoo! homepage Printscreen (source: Yahoo!)My Personal OpinionThe latest home page redesign that Yahoo! did was just 3 months ago, which is March (ZDNetAsia, 2009). I am already very much satisfied with its current home page, and if it keeps redesigning it, it can lead to confusion in utilizing it because most people would spend more time in getting used to new home page. In other words, it is time consuming.
(source: www.feld.com)References:- Reep, D 2006, 'Document Design', Technical Writing, Chapter 6, pp.133-172
- Schirato, T, Yell, S 1996, 'Framing contexts', Communication and Cultural Literacy: an introduction, Chapter 5, pp.90-117
(source:viaterra.net)
