Hello, everyone!
Wow, I can't believe today's the day! At long last, it's time for me to present my final(ish) capstone project for my Media Publishing class! Sound the trumpets, and click here to view it in all its glory! So to address the elephant in the room, my initial plan to recreate the voter registration form in Microsoft Powerpoint/Google Slides simply didn't pan out the way I'd hoped, despite various attempts to find the proper configurations. To quote the great Hell's Kitchen overlord, Chef Gordon Ramsay: "Great concept, terrible execution." Thus I was left with little choice but to try to perfect my original Google Sheets prototype, heeding as much of my professor and peers' feedback as I could. And as I suspected, I couldn't find the time to create that state-specific voter info pamphlet, so I scrapped it entirely and focused upon making my voter registration form as great as possible. Some key modifications I made from the prototype include:
A couple things that I was unable to accomplish, but would like to figure out if this form were to be released for widespread use involve:
Thanks for sticking by me all this time! I'm incredibly proud of what I've produced this semester and I've taken great value from the experience overall - hopefully y'all share similar sentiments. That's about all I have for you, and I'll leave you with a Melodramatic Mike Drop™!
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Hello, everyone! Well, here we are, a mere week away from me submitting my final capstone project (before revisions). What an exciting, but also somewhat terrifying, prospect! On Monday I had an individual conference with my Media Publishing professor, so now I'm tasked with providing another update for y'all. This shouldn't take too long, but here we go: So as far as the voter registration form is concerned, it looks like I'll be sticking with my initial idea of providing a slide presentation ... well, sort of. You see, my professor and I agreed that Google Sheets wasn't the optimal platform for creating a fillable, physical/online hybrid document. So instead, I'll be using Microsoft Powerpoint (or Google Slides) to recreate my color and black & white forms, incorporating my professor and peers' suggestions. There's a little-known feature that allows me to adjust the slide size, so I'll certainly make good use of it to create my horizontally oriented, copy paper-sized forms. With the voter information pamphlet, I'll have to play it by ear. I've already decided to scale it back and only cover Avon's town hall candidates - and honestly this makes more sense anyway if I'm operating off of the November 5, 2019 municipal election timeline - but even then I may not have enough time to create a high-quality product. One appealing alternative would be to simply apply a hyperlink to each state star (although for now, I'd really only bother doing that with Connecticut's) that would allow registered voters to access official, unbiased voter information. My initial intent behind the pamphlet was to increase accessibility for those using physical materials, but considering my project's hybrid nature, perhaps it'd be redundant for me to create "original content" containing information that's readily available already. I must admit that I'd be somewhat disappointed to have to take this route, as I'd feel that my project's scope was dispropportionately smaller than the time period I was allotted to work on it, but it's a sacrifice that I'm willing to make if it'll benefit me and my project as a whole. That's about all I have for you today! Look out for my final capstone project on November 22, and until next time, I'll leave you with a Melodramatic Mike Drop™! Hello, everyone! Yes, it's been some time since I last posted, but I have another quick exercise to undertake regarding my capstone project! This time around, I'll be conducting an audit (no, not the financial kind, don't worry!) in relation to its accessibility, using Eyman et al.'s "Best Practices for Creating Accessible Digital Texts" as my primary guide. Ok, here goes nothing: As a creator:
As an editor:
That's about all I have for you today! Hopefully I've made this auditing process, ahem, accessible for y'all! Look out for my project trailer on Facebook and Twitter tomorrow at 10 AM (Election Day, baby!), and until next time, I'll leave you with a Melodramatic Mike Drop™! Hello, everyone! I know that we've sorta established this pattern of reading analyses on Mondays and project updates on Fridays; but today I'll be deviating from this exact formula by combining the two into one, using everything I've learned about design thus far to analyze that of several different states' U.S. voter registration forms! I already highlighted a bunch of forms' design elements extensively throughout my genre analysis, so I'll reexamine those forms - alongside a few new ones - with the goal of creating some more general rulesets based around design and content. So without further ado, let's examine Connecticut, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, and Michigan's respective forms again, alongside those used in Texas, New York, Virginia, and Wisconsin: So, some consistent design elements include:
And contentwise, these forms commonly contain:
Hopefully this exercise proves insightful for us all as I create my project. And speaking of which, look out for my project prototype this Friday! That's about all I have for you today, and until next time, I'll leave you with a Melodramatic Mike Drop™! Hello, everyone! This week I continue my trek through online readings with a focus upon design! As someone who fancies himself as a sort of writing savant and doesn't really know the first thing about proper design, this should be an interesting venture, to say the least! First we have Robin Williams (no, not the late comedian)'s Non-Designer's Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice. Now, I wasn't sure how much I was supposed to read, so I only read the introductory chapter. Williams begins by recounting an epiphany that made her "realize the importance of being able to name things, since naming these principles is the key to having power over them." Basically she received a tree ID book as a Christmas gift one year, and it allowed her to identify the Joshua tree - an odd specimen that'd been heavily prevalent throughout her neighborhood. Then she lists the three steps to good design, which are to:
Lastly Williams identifies the four basic interconnected principles of design: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Well, I guess from now on whenever I design anything, I'll think to myself, Oh c.r.a.p., that looks wretched! or Oh c.r.a.p., that looks fantastic! And as a sidenote, this reminds me way too much of that "people order our patties" (i.e. "p.o.o.p.") mnemonic from the classic "Krusty Krab Training Video" - man, do I miss when Spongebob was actually good! But all kidding aside, again I only read the intro; yet as I skim through the rest of the book, it seems inviting to "non-designers" - hence the title - like yours truly. Ok, next up! So then there's Anne Frances Wysocki's "The Sticky Embrace of Beauty: On some formal relations in the visual aspects of texts." Here she cites a provocative New Yorker ad and analyzes several scholarly principles, including those of Williams - ah, I see what you did there, professor! - suggesting that the "approaches many of us now use for designing the visual aspects of texts are incomplete and, in fact, may work against helping us acquire critical and thoughtful agency with the visual." Wysocki's primary intent is "to support students (and myself) be [sic] generously and questioningly reciprocal in our designings." Although a bit long-winded, this one's a worthwhile, thought-provoking read that achieves its goals. To wrap things up, we have some excerpts from Arola et al. that've clearly been ripped directly from a textbook. "Analyzing Design Choices" outlines five basic design principles. As with Williams's categorization we have contrast, alignment, and proximity, but instead of repetition we have emphasis and organization. I don't have much to say about this one, except that I appreciate the concise, straightforward definitions and conceptual/visual examples of each term. That's about all I have for you today, and until next time, I'll leave you with a Melodramatic Mike Drop™! Hello, everyone! I'm excited to provide another capstone project update for y'all today! This one shouldn't be too long, but I have some important things to share: First, I've been working on the documentation sheet for my U.S. voter registration form, which -as I mentioned in my tool demo - is designed around the American flag! It took a ton of time and effort - much more than you might think, in fact - to design and arrange everything properly, but here's my prototype (I would've provided a JPEG had the stars remained visible during the conversion). Note that I've labeled the stars alphabetically by state abbreviation and that I'll label the stripes later. It's a real beauty, isn't it? Anyway, I've also compiled photos for my state-specific candidate info sheet! In my infinite wisdom, I didn't consider that 2019 is an off-year for state and federal congressional races; therefore I'll focus upon U.S. presidential and municipal candidates exclusively. I'll include only the major presidential contenders - seriously, I'm not gonna bother with that entire Democratic field - and my hometown (Avon, CT)'s town council candidates - because my goodness, it'd take so much work to cover everyone on pages 5 and 6 of this list! Here's my photo collection. For my last matter of business, let's discuss how well I'm adhering to my initial project timeline! Admittedly I've deviated a bit from my original plan, but truthfully the sequence in which I complete Steps 1-3 doesn't really matter as long as I satisfy them all by October 25. So here's what I still have to do leading up to that "Project prototype" deadline:
I hope that y'all are encouraged by this status update; I know that my hype for this project is absolutely THROUGH. THE. ROOF. That's about all I have for you today, and until next time, I'll leave you with a Melodramatic Mike Drop™! Hello, everyone! As I did last week, I'll be diving into a bunch of readings - this time focusing upon American copyright policies! With a bit more time on my hands, I'll provide more in-depth impressions than I did during my last go-round. Alright, let's get to it! So first up is Lunsford et al.'s manifesto on ownership, authorship, and copyright. Overall it presents a pessimistic take on copyright, arguing that creators benefit greatly while the public hardly benefits at all. Key takeaways from this extensive, yet intriguing manifesto:
Next, legal activist and Creative Commons co-founder Lawrence Lessig cites the "Let's Go Crazy"-Stephanie Lenz Supreme Court case - which the aforementioned manifesto also details - to kickstart a more in-depth defense of fair use within the context of user-generated digital works. Check out his Wall Street Journal article, "In Defense of Piracy," below:
Lessig supplements this discussion with a TED talk about "laws that choke creativity." Here he cites John Philip Sousa's critique of talking machines, Thomas Lee and Tinie Causby's futile invocation of trespass law to obstruct aircraft flight, and the public domain-minded Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI)'s victory over the licenseholding American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). Before I move on, I'll just say that I thoroughly enjoyed the compilation of user-generated remixes that Lessig includes in his presentation! It relaxed me and almost made me forget that I was working on a homework assignment (emphasis on almost). Then there's a pair of articles from Rockford University's Kyle D. Stedman and Winthrop University's Devon Fitzgerald Ralston. In "Sue for Mario Bros.: Nintendo vs. Emulation," Stedman discusses beloved video game giant Nintendo's recent lawsuits against ROM sites distributing its older and/or less easily attainable games, alongside the ensuing public outcry. As a diehard Nintendo fan, I knew full well of this case and some of the company's other anti-consumer business practices (still love its games, though!). In accordance with Stedman and the rest of the Nintendo community, I'd love to have ready access to older games as we did via services like the Wii's "Virtual Console" about a decade ago - put Game Boy, Nintendo 64, and Gamecube games on the Switch, dang it! - for the sake of historical preservation and pure enjoyment! In "'Cockygate': Trademark Trolling, Romance Novels, and Intellectual Property," Ralston discusses the "Cockygate" trademark conflict among romance enovelists. I must say, Faleena Hopkins's attempted trademark of "cocky" is almost as ridiculous as Ohio State University's attempted trademark of "the!" And yes, I've been using the trademark symbol alongside "Melodramatic Mike Drop" at the end of each blog post jokingly; but these incidents take things just a step too far, diminishing the value of the practice in the first place. Anyway, you can find both articles in the PDF below:
Now, I actually don't have much to say about these last few articles given their more straightforward nature. In "DMCA Notices: Here’s Everything You Need To Know In 2019," Claire Broadley provides a bunch of general info and resources regarding Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices, which protect against copyright infringement - heck, she even includes a DMCA takedown notice generator! This article's a bit shorter than you'd expect upon first glance - it boils down to a ton of pictures, bulleted lists, and short paragraphs - and a worthwhile read for those of us who may need to file a DMCA notice or respond to one. Meanwhile the U.S. Copyright Office's "More Information on Fair Use" concisely defines "fair use" and outlines the relevant criteria from Section 107 of the Copyright Act, namely the "purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes"; the "nature of the copyrighted work"; the "amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole"; and the "effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." Lastly, we have the Creative Commons Wiki's "Best practices for attribution." But please don't disregard this as "a typical wiki page," for it's surprisingly informative and easily digestible! Also note my consistent implementation of TASL (or TAS, at least): title, author, source, license. That's about all I have for you today, and until next time, I'll leave you with a Melodramatic Mike Drop™!
Hello, everyone! Today I'll be providing another capstone project update! I've recorded a Kaltura screencast, where I showcase some tricks that I'll use to create one facet of my project. I opted to not record audio for this - I'm very self-conscious about hearing my voice recorded - so allow me to give some quick context behind what you're about to watch:
So as you know, I'm trying to create a more accessible and visually stimulating U.S. voter registration form that maintains the professionalism of a government-issued document and can be completed by any citizen regardless of state residence. In my project pitch, I mentioned that I'd compile U.S.-themed graphical elements for said form, and what's more American than our flag, right? However, my imagination's been running wild - as it tends to do because I pride myself upon my creativity - so I thought to myself, hey, instead of just plopping an American flag or two somewhere on the form, why not go the extra mile and build my entire form - specifically its documentation section - around it? Think about it - each of the fifty stars represents a state that each prospective voter can select to receive their appropriate state-specific candidate info pamphlet, and then the stripes can serve as the rows within which to document personal info! Also, Google Sheets and other data collection platforms aren't as well-known for their visual presentation capabilities, so this'll be a fun twist on their typical usage. Really, it's the best of both worlds as far as intrigue and viability are concerned! In the screencast embedded below, I demonstrate how to create the red-and-white stripes (i.e. add a fill color and merge cells), insert and arrange the stars, and insert text boxes into said stars (I'll label each one alphabetically with a state abbreviation). As a sidenote, I've also devised a compromise for the complicated issue of creating accessibility for non-English speakers. Although one of my peers noted astutely that online translators can be unreliable for long-range text, I feel that individual words and phrases shouldn't pose as great of an issue. Therefore, I'll create my instruction section and state-specific candidate info pamphlet in English only, but label each row of my documentation section in English, Spanish, and French (e.g. "Name/nombre/nom"). Anyway, check out my tool demo: That's about all I have for you today! Comment below whether you think I'm a creative genius and there's some method to my madness, or if you believe I've simply lost my marbles! Until next time, I'll leave you with a Melodramatic Mike Drop™! Hello, everyone! It's been quite a while since I've been tasked with reflecting upon some readings, but today I'll be reverting to that exact duty! Because of the great number of readings I have to cover - alongside their extensive lengths - prepare yourselves for some rapid-fire analysis! So up first is Erica Robles-Anderson and Patrik Svensson's "'One Damn Slide After Another': PowerPoint at Every Occasion for Speech." Now, here's an article that epitomizes the necessity of the common web acronym "TLDR"! It extensively outlines the history of Microsoft Powerpoint (logo pictured below) and its predecessors, alongside their pros and cons. Robles-Anderson and Svensson argue that Powerpoint doesn't garner enough public recognition despite its dominance over the communicative landscape since the dawn of personal computers. Furthermore, they stress the importance of acknowledging slideware's ability to not only distill info, but also present it in a unique manner. Lastly, the authors encourage us to devise alternative presentation mechanisms that allow for critical thought. Admittedly this is a fascinating case study, but if you don't have much time on your hands and/or aren't a hyperenthusiastic tech junkie, then the introduction and/or conclusion should suffice for your comprehension. Next we have Jenny L. Davis and James B. Chouinard's scholarly article, "Theorizing Affordances: From Request to Refuse." Because I couldn't possibly summarize said article more adequately, allow me to quote its abstract: As a concept, affordance is integral to scholarly analysis across multiple fields—including media studies, science and technology studies, communication studies, ecological psychology, and design studies among others. Critics, however, rightly point to the following shortcomings: definitional confusion, a false binary in which artifacts either afford or do not, and failure to account for diverse subject-artifact relations. Addressing these critiques, this article demarcates the mechanisms of affordance-- as artifacts request, demand, allow, encourage, discourage, and refuse—which take shape through interrelated conditions: perception, dexterity, and cultural and institutional legitimacy. Together, the mechanisms and conditions constitute a dynamic and structurally situated model that addresses how artifacts afford, for whom and under what circumstances. But unlike with the previous article, I'd highly recommend that you give this one the light of day in its entirety, for it's considerably more reader-friendly in terms of its wording, conciseness, and relatable examples. In fact, I've inserted Davis and Chouinard's article in PDF form below for any interested parties:
Throughout his brief article, "Datacloud: Expanding the Roles and Locations of Information," Johndan Johnson-Eilola provides a general timeline of various computer-based interfaces and contextualizes their implementation within different forms of work and learning. I appreciate the copious graphics that complement his points, particularly as someone who isn't the most computer-savvy person in the world. Check out Johnson-Eilola's article in PDF form below:
Next in line (I'm almost done, I promise!) are a couple chapters from Amy J. Ko's "User Interface Software and Technology" online textbook. Chapter two outlines a theory of user interfaces, while chapter three describes what interfaces mediate. Although these readings largely lack the multimodal stimulation that some of the others offer, they're still basic and insightful enough to merit your attention. Lastly, check out this neat video about graphical user interfaces! All of you audiovisual learners and historical buffs should get a true kick out of it: That's about all I have for you today, and until next time, I'll leave you with a Melodramatic Mike Drop™! Hello, everyone! After sketching out my capstone project concept earlier this week, it's time for me to spruce things up a bit with my project pitch! Here goes nothing: So national voter turnout rates are criminally low given the importance of exercising our voting right and myriad of opportunities for us to do so. College students (e.g. I and several of you reading this) constitute the largest voting demographic, yet turn out at the lowest rates come Election Day! Contrary to popular belief, this doesn't indicate apathy on our part - in fact, we're some of the most passionate advocates of civic engagement - but rather exhaustion surrounding the involvement process, in which I believe the faulty structure of our current voter registration forms plays a key role. Therefore, I've decided that I want to create the optimal voter registration form for all U.S. citizens of legal age (18 or older), correcting some major flaws I found upon analyzing a small sample of state forms and thus making the forms more accessible to interested parties. For instance:
But wait, how'll I execute all this? Well...
Now, you're probably thinking, Mike, this sounds like so much work! How'll you pace yourself through all this? Fair question, which I'll answer to the best of my ability. Given the extent of my schedule - which is incredibly packed and has a considerable number of moving parts - I don't feel so comfortable committing to particular dates at the moment, but I can try to estimate the weeks during which I'd like to accomplish certain tasks. Here's a tentative timeline for the completion of my capstone project: Week ending on October 5: Complete Step 1 Week ending on October 12: Complete Step 2 Week ending on October 26: Complete Step 3 (just in time for my "Project prototype" deadline on October 25) Week ending on November 2: Complete Step 4 Week ending on November 9: Complete Step 5 (and create a promotional social media post on Facebook and Twitter for my "Project trailer," which is due on November 8) November 22: Complete Steps 6 and 7 In conclusion, I'd like to address my project's potential impact. As one of my peers and even my professor suggested, I could certainly present this to state government officials with a letter outlining my intentions. I'm incredibly fortunate to have extensive writing experience across a wide array of genres - including that of the formal letter - and my affiliation with UConnPIRG should facilitate my connections to local legislators. Even if my project proves more inconsequential than I'd like, I'm still excited to undertake this initiative for an issue that's been one of my greatest passions for about half of my existence thus far! That's about all I have for you today, and until next time, I'll leave you with a Melodramatic Mike Drop™! |
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