Weinberger 5-6

In Weinberger's book, Everything is Miscellaneous, chapter five reminded me a lot of the key points we read about in Don't Make Me Think. The idea of tree leaves and tagging seems much like Krug's love of tabs on web pages. Just as Weinberger says everything has a proper place and those that don't should be limited, Krug stressed the very same points of organization in his book. I liked the was Weinberger explains the creation of tagging. Although Weinberger states that Wikipedia was created to be a source of miscellaneous articles from A-Z, all the articles can be found through various tags. Making it not only a highly popular website but an easy to use on as well. My favorite part of Weinberger's theory is the idea of putting "one leaf on many branches." To me the best part of the virtual world is that face that one item can be found in many places. Instead of having a stack of books locked into one place in the physical world, they can be in many place in the virtual world. For example I did a experiment to see if I could find the same photo using different tags, or search words on google. The first search I did was for sunsets.  I found many  images, one of which was of a whale in the ocean. If you click on the photo in the top left  you can see it enlarged. To find the same photo I searched for simply whale tale (not even spelling tail right) I came up with many images and couldn't find an exact match but several of the photos were of whale tails on the horizon of a sunset. Such as this example. If more time was available I'd like to try this experiment again with other sites and other tags.  I completely agree with Weinberger that events in the virtual world should be tagged more than once, in order to use our resources to the fullest. I fully believe that it is entirely possible to find the same photo, book or any item using different tags to search!

Krug (94-185)

I have to say the overall I found the last several chapters of Krug's book to be uninteresting. I have to blame myself for this though. At this point in my life I really don't seem myself even needing to know how to design a web-page for a business. These last chapters seemed to be aimed at a worldly use, such as media, marketing or simply getting involved in the global market as opposed to my simple rhetoric goals for the glass. 

Despite this I did find several very interesting aspects =)

* I agree with Krug that fist timer links are pointless. In fact I hate them. It might be because I have what Krug calls a low/small reservoir. I just get frustrated easily when trying to navigate through certain sites. To have a "first time user link" that doesn't help is doubly as stressful. If you are frustrated enough to click on the link it better have a good explanation for navigating the site. 

* I enjoyed his idea for varying a home page on your site. I think I will try and apply this to my own page for Writing in the Digital Age. 

* Krug makes an amazing (and somewhat obvious point) that web designers are web users with their own strong ideas about what a site should look like. My own example of this is Krug's love of tabs, while I personally don't find tabs that appealing. I think they are probably the most useful if you have a site with a lot of information, such as amazon, but otherwise I like buttons or blocks to click on. Both of us are designing based on our own personal ideas of what we like best. But in our defense I think both options provide a positive experience for both web designers and users. Which brings me to my next point:

* I think  one of Krug's biggest points was that web sites should be created to make it so each audience can get the best experience. This point is remarkably simple and yet remarkable on so many levels. I also like how Krug used this argument to end the constant debate between designers about how they should create their pages. The important question should be "What will be best for our audience to navigate and find what they need?" and not, as Krug said, "Is drop down best?" The bigger issues are what is important in a site. After addressing the basic struture and needs, then a designer should figure out ways to be creative and elegant. 

Don't Make Me Think (1-93)

I found that in Krug's first seven chapters the material was highly relatable. My gut reaction to most of the points was " I agree with this completely!" Especially the points and graphs made to explain consumers and web users reactions and frustrations. I can honestly say I'm not an avid web user. I'd rather spend two hours in the library looking up books for a project than spend five hours on the internet looking for useful resources. Despite this I often find myself taking the "easier route" online; aka the one I don't have to leave the room for, and the one I can do at three in the morning. Everyone knows, or says at least, that the whole world is only a click away; bringing new meaning to the term "the world is at your finger tips." With this in mind most of us internet users expect to find information easy and clearly assessable. Instead we are met with sites that confuse and seem to lead nowhere. One example is our school website. When trying to search for a specific faculty member you have to go through several confusing steps before-hand and then finally you reach a page made to search for faculty staff, but your only two options are "name contains" or "sounds like" neither of which work appropriately the majority of the time. I've had such a hard time looking up professors on the school site that I always use Google instead. 

Krug makes a good point of stessing the importance of being able to return to a specific area of the site once you've found it. My example for this is finding your phone pictures on your online Verizon account. I've been doing this for several years now, and I still to this day get confused when trying to click through the options. I've learned to just bookmark the page, but without the bookmark I am lost and extremely frustrated. I think reading these first seven chapter will also be helpful in designing my website for class. Many of the points may seems small, but I think can help make or break a website. 

EXAMPLES: 

school example:

start/home page

faculty search

verizon example:

start/home page

picture page