Fresh Airwave

Hotels.com localization for Asia

2010-12-04T12:39:00.000-08:00

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am conducting research on the localization of corporate websites for Asia. I found an interesting article recently related to this topic: Hotels.com bets on scale and localisation. The article caught my eye because I lived in Asia (Singapore) for 3+ years starting in 2002 during which I always used Hotels.com to book my travel reservations. I was surprised to see this article touting Hotels.com as an emerging popular resource for travel in Asia. I thought it was popular already! What are they doing differently from when I last used the website?

Well, it turns out that Hotels.com is beginning to hone in on a very specific localization strategy. Their new motto, according to the article, is "to become more local than the locals." And they are certainly getting there. Listed below are some of the localization tactics they are starting to employ.

Their websites are translated into several different languages with localized regional content.
They are starting to encourage bookings in Asia via smartphones. Internet connections within different parts of Asia are surprisingly slow. Smartphones circumvent this problem. Many people in Asia are starting to perform functions on smartphones that they would not bother with on their computers, and Hotels.com is taking advantage of this opportunity to reach a wider customer base.
They are starting to market to corporate travelers with a view toward smaller Asian businesses trying to get by in harsh economic times.

As the article acknowledges, Asia is picking itself up out of the recent global economic slump. Corporate travel is on the rise, and the leisure travel market is growing. In order to take advantage of this market, Hotels.com will have to pay close attention to areas where it is to their advantage to employ further localization strategies. Personally, I would suggest they look to their social media pages. For example, the Hotels.com Facebook could start compiling their separate regional fan pages into one using the new Facebook location feature. McDonald's has gained considerable attention from employing such a strategy.

In the meantime, the Hotels.com website is much improved from when I last used it in Asia. There are clearly localization efforts taking place and I look forward to checking back to see what changes they make.

Click on the image to check out the Hotels.com website.

Cross-posted at More than Manuals.

Corporate web localization blogging. Let's talk it up!

2010-11-28T12:20:00.000-08:00

As someone who works with websites for a sizable organization, I often look to blogs for unbiased advice about best practices regarding corprorate websites. Corporate website localization is such a multi-faceted topic with potential for great discussion. I hope the future promises further expression of opinion and discovery related to this topic by web design and development bloggers. A recent search I performed on the topic came up relatively empty. I describe the results of my search below.

I recently tried to perform a Google search for "corporate web localization." I found pages upon pages of search results for companies selling website localization services. In between, I found a few research pieces written on the topic. In comparison to other searches I have done while researching corporate websites, I found this very strange. Searching "corporate websites" alone will get you a ton of blogs listing corporate websites with "the best" designs, information architecture structures, online commerce strategies, and more. Why don't bloggers appear too keen on talking about best practices in corporate website localization?

Upon further searching, I found a small handful of bloggers addressing this topic. There are a few that stood out to me. In bold below, I list my reactions to these blogs/bloggers followed by a brief explanation.

Hold up! This Malalysian website design firm appears to be a reputable source of information. In their blog, they write about many of their design projects to showcase their expertise. Their article on Globalization vs. Localization Website Design really caught my eye. In it, they define globalization as what I know to be standard Western (US/Europe) best practices in website design. I was inclined to totally disagree with their definition, until I wondered what they meant by it. As Asian designers themselves, do they get the impression that the generic global standard for web design should be something as close as possible to what Jacob Nielsen might recommend? Although their definition of localization does closely align with mine, I think their post brings up many debatable, unanswered questions - all great sparks for further conversation.

But there's so much more! Smashing Magazine is a web design and development blog based out of Germany that I often look to for advice regarding all things related to websites. Suprisingly, their blog revealed a dearth of information on website localization. There were a few posts peripherally connected to the topic. These focused on managing string translations in a CMS, project management strategies, and the blog's multi-cultural writing staff. I know the staff at Smashing Magazine has a lot more to offer from this topic given their multi-cultural backgrounds.

That's definitely a good start. Abduzeedo is a great blog focused on web and graphic design started by Brazilian web designer, Fabio Sasso. Their post, Web Localisation is Important... buy Why and How?, introduces a good overview of key considerations for website localization. And yet, more detail is needed.

My overall reaction to my quick search is that web design and development bloggers need to step up and educate themselves about best practices in corporate website localizations. There appears to be a lack of confidence and expertise among these bloggers on this topic. As these bloggers lead the charge in all other issues concerning website design and development, from typography concerns to best practices with CSS, I challenge them further to lead the charge in conversations concerning website localization. Many could benefit from a healthy debate on corporate website localization.

Cross posted at More than Manuals.

The importance of thinking ahead in corporate website localization

2010-11-28T12:05:00.000-08:00

In my previous post I wrote about a conference I was planning to attend on the localization of business communications for global markets. It was a great conference with some interesting speakers from a wide range of fields - technical writing, medical writing, web design, and more. I took away quite few tips.

One lesson I found particularly important was how having a global mindset at the start of any project can avoid "language afterthought syndrome," Gilbane runs a superb blog where they discuss this issue, among others, in depth. Language afterthought syndrome occurs when thoughts on translation enter a project's scope late in the game. If you haven't thought about translation early on, customizing any type of documentation for global markets post-production can be very labor-intensive and costly.

With websites, I believe that there is a lot of time and money to be saved in the assumption that your corporate website may eventually require translation and localization. There are many issues to consider, but I would suggest starting with the following:

Avoiding colloquialisms in web copy will help to avoid confused translators (or worse - incorrect translations).
Lightening the load of content on your home page could speed up load times for the various regions of the world with slower internet connections.
Choosing globally neutral graphics could help to lessen the extent to which you need to customize your visuals by region.

Cross posted at More than Manuals.

Connecting the dots in research

2010-11-28T12:02:00.000-08:00

One of the most rewarding parts of research is connecting the dots. I have just embarked on a rather large-scale research project. I plan to extrapolate from existing research a set of guidelines for the localization of corporate websites on a global scale. From a web usability standpoint, international corporations should take into account the web usability concerns of the individual regions for which they plan to localize their websites. From a technical communication theory perspective this is also true - the experts (the corporation itself) should work to address the non-experts/audience (regions for which the website is localized) appropriately. I believe there is a great deal of truth in both of these statements. I am currently gathering facts to back up my convictions.

Next week I will be attending a conference focused on localizing corporate web presences for the international market. I'm hoping it will help me to make more connections. Perhaps it will provide me with further information with which to enrich my research. I think this is a relevant issue because many big businesses think a cookie-cutter translation of their original website is sufficient for presentation to a global market.

Here is an interesting article I found that closely aligns with my point of view: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/marycz/hfweb98/barber

Cross posted at More than Manuals.

Post structuralism and web usability

2010-09-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

I am looking forward to learning about communication theory this fall. I plan to blog about topics relevant and interesting to me in this field.

To start the semester, my classmates and I recently read through a large historical overview of communication theory by Dr. Paul Cobley. One concept that sparked my curiosity was the idea of post-structuralism in linguistics. Post-structuralism is a school of thought that developed in contrast to a concept called structuralism. Structuralism traces its roots back to the linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, and it focused on the idea that there was no real link between a linguistic sign and the idea it was designated to express. Saussure concluded that language was a collective, yet arbitrarily chosen, way to communicate socially. Post-structuralism came out of a school of thought influenced by scholars such as the linguist Benveniste, the psychoanalyst Jaques Lacan, and philosopher Jaques Derrida. Unlike Saussure, these scholars claim the link between a linguistic sign and the idea it expresses is not arbitrary but in fact very deliberate.

Although this may be a stretch, I am now interested in looking at web usability in terms of post-structural principles. To be specific, I think that many international websites are designed from a structuralist perspective. These sites - e.g., Facebook - are cookie-cutter versions of one another with translated text. The designers of these sites communicate a structuralist disposition in that they seem to be saying that the site’s appearance is an arbitrary preference of the design team and has no bearing on the ideas it is meant to express. Expression is accomplished exclusively through text. Better web usability at an international level can only be achieved with a post-structural outlook. A good example of this is the Citroen site. I believe web designers who realize that a site’s appearance (and not just its text) can be used to communicate will succeed big-time. Using deliberately different design (subtle or otherwise) to accommodate various cultural preferences is a necessary step toward greater international web usability.

Cross-posted at More than Manuals.

Back in action!

2010-08-30T16:47:00.000-07:00

I let this blog go all summer long, and I'm not proud of that. In fact, I feel as if I stopped mid-sentence, not having shown my updated, now-not-so-ugly, portfolio. Someone needs to invent an unpublish my blog button for down time. Blogs on hold are sad. But this blog is no longer on hold. I am back in action, ready for the adventures in academia once more. Fall semester 2010, here I come!

Updating my ugly portfolio: Icons

2010-03-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

Here are some icons I recently created to add to my portfolio. My program requires students to demonstrate their abilities through the following core competencies. It's a lot to design for, and I'm not sure I made the right decision in "designing" these. A few are a little abstract. I tried to carry over the dot theme and a few graphic elements from my banner (see previous post). Feedback appreciated.

Updating my ugly portfolio: Banner and Palette

2010-01-31T12:10:00.000-08:00

In an effort to hold myself accountable for updating my hideous online portfolio (I'm not providing a url because it is really that embarrassing.), I plan to post updates on my progress to this blog. First items on the list: a new banner and color palette.

Banner (designed in Photoshop)

Fonts: ABC Pipe Font by Inoue Yoshikazu; Calibri
Brushes: Vector Stalks by melemel; Rising Sun by JavierZhX
Concept: I often use iamrodan as a screen name and I think it is catchier than using my first and last name. I will include an introductory sentence with my full name on my site’s homepage. I decreased the opacity of the brushes to make the text stand out. The green dots in the pipe text are meant to tie “through” to the sentence on the right, which formulates at the pipe’s opening.

Palette (designed in COLOURlovers, viewable here)

This palette (with the exception of the black and white) was created in COLOURlovers. I was aiming for a color combination reminiscent of a Microsoft Word Document yet edgier (hence the hot pink and lime green). With it, I plan to create a cleaner look for my site, using lots more white. Any and all feedback much appreciated.

A few thoughts on blogging

2009-12-11T11:50:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking about what makes a good blog, consciously trying to improve my own blogging skills. Here are some of the ideas I've been pondering.

Storytelling vs. Saying Something
I read a fair amount of blogs regularly, from humor blogs to web design. Some of my favorites include Luckybeans, Dooce, Smashing Magazine, and COLOURlovers. It always amazes me to see how effortless the writers of these blogs make it look to create captivating, colorful posts. I read these blogs regularly because I know they always have a story to tell. On my good days as a blogger, I feel I have stories to tell. Other days, I simply feel pressured to say something. This dichotomy is something I've struggled with since starting this blog a few months ago. I used to think this made me a bad blogger, but I've changed my mind since. I'm sure every blogger is faced with this dilemma. The good ones are simply more conscious of the fact that they have an audience that expects a decent story. Now, I try to keep this thought in mind with each blog post I write.

Breaking up Information and Making it Meaningful
Consciously having a story to tell is one aspect of good blogging, but there's so much more to it than that. A good blogger presents their ideas thoughtfully. When I started writing this blog, I wrote some very long-winded posts. Graphics and links I provided often did not assist the reader's understanding of the post - they were very haphazardly placed. For an example, here is a relentlessly long post I wrote on corporate blogging. You will notice that graphics and links seem to be there almost solely for the sake of having graphics and links.

Before:

I soon came to the conclusion that the blogs I liked best did not look mine. I noticed that when those bloggers wrote long posts, they tended to break their ideas into chunks. Sometimes they did this with headers, graphics, or formatting (bold, ital, etc.). As I became aware of this, I adapted the practice for my own blogging. I think I am improving at it. For an example, see the following post I wrote about a social media strategy I was contracted to develop. In this post, I tried to chunk information under headings. I broke up text with graphics and a video. I only put links where I thought they would enhance a reader's understanding of my writing.

After:

Designing for Usability
I've overhauled this blog's design twice since I started it. Here are two posts I wrote talking about each of those revamps.

So far, I've toyed around with color, the width of different page elements, and a banner. But I feel far from finished. I haven't really put much thought into a blog redesign from a usability standpoint. For instance, I feel that I should find the code (I know it is out there) to cut my long posts so that interested readers can click a link to "read more." Like this:

I would also like to move my comments to the top of each blog next to my title. I think this makes commenting options more obvious and inviting to readers. For instance, I really like how Webdesigner Depot clearly displays the number of comments at the top of each post.

Again, these are just some of the ways I have been looking to improve myself as a blogger and some of the plans I have for this blog's future. I know this blog is only worth the time I put into it, and I hope that a few months down the line I'll have a few more ideas for improvements.

Project defero, Part II: building a social media strategy

2009-12-06T11:49:00.000-08:00

In a previous post, I mentioned the social media strategy I was working to build for defero, a communications firm looking to move from traditional media to new media. Without further ado, here is Project defer o! In this post, I would like to talk about the social media strategy I have constructed.

I built Project defero as a teaching tool.
Through experience, I've learned that you cannot force a creative process on anyone. Companies launching themselves into social media are essentially re-creating their images, identities, and reputations. All of these things are very dear to them, and anyone working in the capacity of a consultant should recognize this. In my proposal, I was very careful not to force particular ideas on defero. Instead, I aimed to empower them, as experts in their field, through education by example and suggestion. Companies do not launch themselves into social media overnight, and those that do tend to fail miserably. Knowing this, I proposed that defero and I meet for four working sessions which would serve as a way to teach their staff how to identify, form, and pursue their own goals related to new media.

It was a challenge to show large quantities of information by example.
I employed a couple of strategies to do this to the best of my ability.

I used delicious, a social bookmarking tool, to track links of interesting articles, videos, and more that the defero team would find practical and meaningful. I tagged all of these articles "project defero." I have displayed them on my proposal site using a Wordpress widget to make them appear as a streaming list. I like this list because it gives defero staff immediate accessibility to my links without their having to sign into delicious.

I posted videos throughout the proposal site from an excellent series on vimeo. The series comes from BlogWell, a social media conference held in multiple cities for companies to share ideas and case studies relating to social media. Many of the speakers are people who handle social media for large, powerful companies. They offer lot of insight into best practices, concerns, triumphs, and failures of corporate social media and provide great examples for defero staff to discuss, critique, and learn from. Here is an example of one video I thought was a great example for defero. It is about General Mills' move from traditional to social media.
Throughout the proposal site, I included many links to top communications professionals in new media (Ketchum, Publici s Groupe, IPG, WPP), scholars (Jakob Nielsen), and relevant services (Basecamp, Survey Monkey, Google Analytics, Omniture, C amtasia). I hope that my highlighting of these items help defero become experts in new media so that they can make the best choices to harness it in order to grow their business.

Separating the information into four sessions helped to present defero's social media strategy as an agenda.
Together, these four sessions will empower defero staff to become experts in corporate social media. Once we have worked through all of these sessions, defero will be in an ideal place to implement the new media strategy I will help them to focus and sustain.

Session 1 outlines a plan for continual Observation & Research of social media trends. In this session, I outline some key questions that defero staff should always be asking themselves.
Session 2 provides and Internal Strategy to help defero staff build their own awareness and knowledge of trends and best practices in corporate social media. I outline several steps they need to achieve this insight.
Session 3 initiates an External Strategy aimed at enabling defero present themselves as an authority in their field by using social media in their best interests. Here is where I expand on the steps outlined in Session 2.
Session 4 reveals an Appearance & Branding campaign I designed for use in all of defero's marketing initiatives, online or off. It is here that I explain how I developed a color palette, logo, and icons appropriate for the "new" defero.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the social media strategy I have built for defero. I am happy that I was able to create a working relationship where mutual expertise is acknowledged: mine as the consultant in corporate social media and theirs as communications experts in traditional media. I believe we will learn a lot from each other.

Project defero, Part I: the presentation tool

2009-12-06T11:21:00.000-08:00

For the past few weeks, I have been working on a social media strategy for a communications/marketing company looking to make the move from traditional to new media. I have secured their permission to blog about this project, as an educational tool for others in the same boat. For my first post on this project, I would like to blog about the tool I chose to house my proposal for defero. I wanted an online tool that would allow the folks at defero to comment on my work. My requirements were that it look sleek, and that it allow me to focus on the content of my proposal rather than the "wrapper."

Blogger vs. Wordpress
I thought about using Blogger, but in the end, I chose Wordpress instead. I had read articles about using Wordpress as a CMS, and they looked promising. Now, having used both Blogger and Wordpress, I am constantly comparing them. Here are a few of my initial impressions:

Blogger (+)

Customizing your layout's code on Blogger is free. This is something I appreciate immensely. Not sure how? I've found Blogger Buster tutorials particularly helpful, although there are many other excellent tutorials out there.
You may choose a Blogger template, download one from somewhere else, or build your own. Blogger offers a lot of options in terms of choosing your layout. Of course, you have to be careful because someone else's homemade template may not work as well as one of their custom ones. Nevertheless, having all these options is terrific.
Embedding code for badges and videos has never been a problem. I've never had a problem embedding an element in a blog post. If I am ever unsure, there are many tutorials on how to do this.

Wordpress (+)

Many of the layout templates on Wordpress, unlike Blogger, have a very sleek design. I get this impression from color combinations and the use of sophisticated design elements like gradients and typography. Also, the fact that these templates vary in the number and positioning of columns makes them more "grown-up" looking than Blogger templates.
Inserting graphics into a Wordpress post is a much simpler process than it is on Blogger. Any graphic I insert appears wherever I put my cursor before I uploaded it. That's more like it! I don't have to drag any graphics down into my post.
Graphics do not need to be linked to anything in Wordpress. If you want to remove a link from a graphic and just have it as a flat image that your user is not meant to click on, you can do this. I find this is a great feature. I don't think images on a website should be linked to a white screen where they are featured solo. If there is no purposeful link from an image, why have a link at all?
There is a full-screen toggle feature that allows you to allow the screen you are blogging in to take up your entire monitor. I don't see this feature on Blogger. It's very convenient to be able to do this, especially when writing longer posts.
Favicons are easily added in Wordpress.

You can add pages to a Wordpress blog to make it more like a website. This is a feature Blogger does not have. It is something I really appreciated coming from the perspective of wanting more of a website presentation than a running blog for my proposal.

Blogger (-)

Templates provided by Blogger have a very elementary feel to them. They do not look professional out-of-the-box. I would have had to fiddle with the template before I could make it look presentable in a corporate setting - not something I wanted to do for this project.
Adding graphics to a post is not a user-friendly experience on Blogger. The fact that I have to drag graphics down into my post after importing them is tedious and time-consuming.
Viewing graphics in a post can get confusing because they always appear as links. Regardless of whether you want them to, all graphics show up as links. If you haven't added a link to that particular graphic, the link will lead to your graphic on an empty page. Click on the following (supposedly unlinked) graphic to see what happens:
Favicons are very difficult to add to a Blogger blog. I've tried to do this multiple times for this blog, but my favicon inevitably gets replaced with the white "B" in the orange box. I've given up.

Wordpress (-)

Code to alter Wordpress' layout is only available to those who pay an annual subscription. I found this rather deceptive because I only found it out after setting up Wordpress and clicking on "edit CSS" in the Dashboard. I would need to pay to see my changes live on my site. I decided this feature was not worthwhile for my project because I would have to pay year after year to make the site show up with whatever alterations I had made. Since this is a one-off project, and not a Wordpress site I plan to add to and continually work on, I could not justify the investment.
Templates for free Wordpress accounts can only be chosen from the Wordpress site. I was excited to use Wordpress because I have seen so many fantastic blog layouts designed in Wordpress. Smashing Magazine always has a couple of gorgeous ones to look at. I was really disappointed when I found out I could only use this with a paid subscription account.
Embedding badges can be tricky in Wordpress. For example, I can't for the life of me find a way to add a delicious badge to Wordpress (I have a list of links, but no badge for my specific delicious account). The same action was a piece of cake in Blogger. Usually, someone has written a little tutorial about how to embed specific files in Wordpress. Most work just fine.

Despite the few negatives I've attached to using Wordpress so far, I have to say I am very satisfied with my choice given the fact that I am using the platform as a "wrapper" only. If I wanted to change the appearance of the blogging platform significantly, I don't think I would choose Wordpress again unless I was prepared to pay for a subscription. Stay tuned my next blog post - a presentation of the social media strategy I created for defero.

Google Wave for collaborative writing

2009-12-05T14:19:00.000-08:00

Recently, I co-wrote a blog post with my classmate Isao on Google Wave. If you are not part of the Wave, you may request an invite from Google. In this post, I would like to share a couple of thoughts on Google Wave as a tool for collaborative writing.

Google Wave as a tool for collaboration: positives and negatives
Google Wave is a very effective way to collaborate on short, uncomplicated documents. I wouldn't recommend it for co-writing a lengthy annual report. You will not be able to keep track of pages, nor will you be able to find things easily once you put too much text on a single wave. I would recommend it for drafting emails, brainstorming, or other short pieces of work. Since your text shows up in real time, you and the person you are working with must be comfortable with this. Not having any time to think about what you've written before it's sent to the other person may take some getting used to.

The software itself (strengths/weaknesses)
Google Wave has a great bunch of editing tools attached to its software. I was surpirsed to see that I could search for links right on the wave itself. Adding images is easy. Also, while writing with Isao, it was very easy for us to click the highlight function to differentiate our text (he was green and I was blue). Nevertheless, there are some problems we saw as we went along. Wave crashed Firefox twice over the course of our conversation. Luckily, all information is constantly saved. I'm not sure it would have been possible for us to lose parts of our conversation. One other negative I found is that if you invite someone on a Wave, you cannot remove them. I looked this up and it happens to be one of known issues in Wave. Here's a great video I learned a lot from when I first started using Wave. For those of you not on Wave yet, this is a good introduction to Wave's interface to see if it is something you might be interested in testing out.

The resulting content
The content that came out of my collaboration with Isao was rather rough, and a bit abstract. This was intentional. We decided to use Wave as a brainstorming tool rather than a tool to craft a cohesive response. We did this because our opinions on the topic differed and we did not want to write the same thing. Had we tried to write a cohesive piece, I think we could have done this well. In fact, I am thinking of all the times at work when someone asks you to look at a draft of their email. I would certainly put a drafted email on Wave, inviting colleagues to make edits. I think this would work much quicker than sending the email back and forth in Outlook through all of its various drafts. Is waving better than working on a document alone? Well, that depends on your content. I would collaborate on a document in Wave only if that document was something I'd be willing collaborate on pre-Wave.

Setting parameters for collaboration and evaluating contributions
Isao and I established a few parameters for our collaboration before we started. We decided we wouldn't delete each other's content (although we both have the power to do so), we would only speak in the colors we had chosen for ourselves, and anything that was not part of the collaborative document would be written in magenta so we could easily go back and delete it later. I think that because Isao and I decided to write in separate colors, it was very easy to evaluate our contributions to the document. I would do this again if I thought it were important to show the extent of my collaboration in relation to others on a wave.

All in all, I think Google Wave is a spectacular tool for collaboration. Once it becomes mainstream, I expect to see this used most frequently in the workplace and for collaborative school assignments. I'm sure corporations will eventually learn to harness this tool - possibly to collaborate with their customers. I am particularly curious to see what new strategies the corporate world will develop in relation to Google Wave.

Co-blogging on Collaboration with Isao

2009-12-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

Today I will be blogging together with one of my grad school classmates, Isao Kato from Helping others 'get' it. We attempted to co-write a blog post using Google Wave. We just started using Wave this week, and this is a little experiment. Our topic for this blog was collaboration as it relates to a large class project we are working on, higher education, and the workplace.

Unfortunately, this post cannot be viewed unless you are signed into a Google Wave account. Do you want to collaborate in real time and explore the Wave everyone is buzzing about? Request an invitation to Wave.

On Readability Testing

2009-11-26T20:14:00.000-08:00

I recently read a comprehensive article on readability tests. The article did a great job of attempting to clarify the function, usefulness, and capabilities of readability testing. I will try to summarize some of the article's most valuable points here.

What is readability testing methodology?
Readability testing methodology allows for quick, cursory assessment of a body of text. Generally, testing readability refers to testing a text’s metrics. How many words are there per sentence/paragraph? How many syllables are in each word? Readability testing can act as a way to screen text to determine whether it is too dense, or simple. A test such as this is useful in the sense that it can provide quantifiable measurement of how appropriate a text is for its intended audience.

How can readability play a role in usability testing of written work?
Readability testing can serve a limited but meaningful purpose in the usability testing of written work. For instance, an author writing a book for young adults may want to run a readability test to ensure that their text is neither too dense nor too simple for their target age group.

How can readability be utilized in visual design?
A readability test can help ensure a text's visual appearance is appropriate for its intended audience. For example, a technical document would likely have a fairly low level of readability. Its appearance should reflect this, displaying rather densely written text with long sentences and paragraphs. A readability test could be used to confirm these expectations have been met throughout the document. Similarly, someone hired to write content for a website may want to use a readability tests to check that their writing is appropriate for the web. Good writing for the web relies on a writer's ability to be as direct and forthcoming as possible. It often starts with a conclusion and continues in an inverted pyramid style where the most important information for the reader is revealed at the very beginning. A readability test for web text could confirm that the visual design of a website's content is appropriate. It could check for an inverted pyramid structure in lengthier texts on a site - confirming that the first few sentences of that text carry more complexity than the text body. For shorter pieces of text on a site, readability tests could confirm simplicity and ability to be understood by a wide variety of readers.

inspiration for this post:
What is readability? author unknown
How Users Read on the Web Jakob Nielsen

Tweaking Blogger Templates, Again!

2009-11-13T11:12:00.000-08:00

There were a few things I wanted to change about this blog since its last redesign. Here's what it looked like then.

What I Didn't Like

The color palette was not at all friendly on the eyes. The rich, saturated turquoise background clashed with some of the coral/red lettering I was using for post titles.
The blog title didn't stand out. It was still in the same font from the original template. It was boring.
The body wrapper of the blog wasn't wide enough.

Improvements Made

I changed the color palette. I wanted to set the body of the blog on a lighter background with darker text to ease legibility.
I made a little banner/logo for Fresh Airwave in Photoshop. I used the Toyota IQ font together with these equalizer brushes to create a more unique identity for my blog title. I thought the IQ font blended well with the wavy background, and that the equalizer brushes might symbolically represent a type of "fresh airwave."

Additionally, I widened the body wrapper of the blog. It used to be 660px, and now it is 760px.
I added two lines to act as borders on either side of the blog body in green to contrast with the off-white background.

Do you think it looks any better? Are there any other changes you would suggest? I'm still new to this, and I appreciate any input you may have.

Google Sites project for specific learning styles: Hire Wire

2009-11-03T18:46:00.000-08:00

As part of a project, I have been working to create a website with Google Sites. The name of the website is Hire Wire, and you may view it here. The purpose of Hire Wire is to teach people how to use social media to enhance their job search. That's a pretty straightforward goal, right? Well, there is a catch to the design for this site. It had to be crafted to suit a very specific audience. In particular, Hire Wire was designed to suit an audience of reflective, visual, sensing, intuitive, sequential, and global learners (see this site for further information on these learner terminologies). Allow me to explain how Hire Wire accomplishes all of this on and within its Home, About, Tools, Tutorials, and Tips pages.

Hire Wire for Reflective Learners

Summaries on the main Tools, Tutorials, and Tips pages allow reflective learners to contemplate topics they want to explore further. Click image to enlarge.

Open-ended gray italic text overviews at the top of the Home, About, Tools, Tutorials, and Tips pages will make reflective learners think about ideas before using them. Click image to enlarge.

Featured items highlighted on the Home page allow reflective learners to think about how they want to start exploring the site. Click image to enlarge.

Step-by-step Tutorials make it possible for reflective learners to think about individual steps that make up an entire process. Click image to enlarge.

Hire Wire for Visual Learners

Social media icons added for site navigation will aid visual learners in perusing Hire Wire. Click image to enlarge.

Screenshots providing examples for each tutorial help visual learners to better follow along with the step-by-step instructions. Click image to enlarge.

Hire Wire for Sensing Learners

The main Tutorial page uses real-life stories about social media in career networking to draw the attention of sensing learners.
The screenshots provided in Tutorials contain examples from actual websites that sensing learners are invited to explore for themselves. See screenshot provided above under the visual learners section for an example.
The Tips page shows sensing learners articles, videos, and more about real-life uses for social media in a job search.

Hire Wire for Intuitive Learners

The Tips page introduces new theories and concepts so intuitive learners can think about new ideas and possibilities.
Invitations to comment on the Tools, Tutorials, and Tips pages provide opportunities for intuitive learners to voice their thoughts about how the items presented in these pages have led them to think about new ideas and possibilities. Click image to enlarge.

Each Tutorial gives intuitive learners basic instruction which they are welcome to expand on and use their imaginations to adapt.

Hire Wire for Sequential Learners

Clearly linked pages provide sequential learners with a linear introduction to Tools, Tutorials, and Tips for one specific type of social media. Click image to enlarge.

Tutorials provide sequential learners with A-Z instructions for how to harness social media to enhance their job search. See step-by-step instructions screenshot under the reflective learners section for an example.

Hire Wire for Global Learners

The navigational sidebar allows global learners to jump around the site in a non-linear fashion in order to skim all of the information before focusing in on one particular topic. Click image to enlarge.

Summaries on the main Tools, Tutorials, and Tips pages supply global learners with "big picture" thoughts on various types of social media and how they can be used to obtain jobs. See summary screenshot in the reflective learners section for an example.

For an overview of how Hire Wire caters to specific learning styles, please click on the diagram below.

Imagery as a reflection of corporate identity: Firefox

2009-10-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

Mozilla is an open source software project. According to their website, their mission is to use technology to enrich people’s lives. One of their core beliefs is that the internet should be public, open, and accessible. Their corporate identity reflects how much they value collaboration and communication with their public to create better products. You probably know them best for their web browser, Firefox. Analyzing Firefox's imagery, it’s interesting to note how well Mozilla integrates their corporate identity into every aspect of developing their product - especially in its design.

Logo design
The first thing I think of when I read the word Firefox is their logo. The following is the newest revision of their logo, from June 2009.

The logo was revised to provide a new, updated look, anticipating the launch of Firefox 3.5. I took the following image from this post on Alex Faaborg's blog. Alex is a Principle Designer on Firefox. If you read through the linked blog post and all related posts, you will see just how much feedback and collaboration went into the redesign of the Firefox logo. Several drafts of the logo were shared with the public. Even the creative brief for the new logo was shared with the public. In addition to Alex's blog posts, the design of the new logo was posted to mozilla.dev.apps.firefox, mozillazine, and bugzilla for further feedback.

The creation of this new logo was a true to Mozilla's corporate identity - it was in every way a collaborative process. I can't think of a better way to connect the public with a brand. Firefox's logo is one of those rare ones that doesn't require words (like Nike or Apple). They've done a great job of acquainting their public with the image of the red-hot fox wrapped around the globe.

Navigational themes
One of the best things about Firefox's design is how customizable it is. You can even customize your navegational theme. Developers are able to create custom theme designs for Firefox and any user may able to download the theme of their choice.

True to Firefox's collaborative, open identity, it is possible for users to rate and comment on the themes they have downloaded. This helps developers create better, more user-friendly toolbars. It also helps users choose the toolbar that is right for them. Right now I am using a theme called Abstract PC. It looks like this:

As you may notice, the back, forward, refresh, and home buttons very clearly tell the user their functions. Personally, I appreciate that. I've downloaded other themes for Firefox where the buttons were simply too creative, or not intuitive in their execution. Navigational images without words must have clear symbolic meanings. For instance, how am I supposed to guess that an apple is a refresh button while a dinosaur means forward? It's nice to know that with Firefox, I can communicate such concerns directly to the person who designed the theme.

Do you think the amount of collaboration and participation Firefox allows in design makes it a better product?

On Folksonomies

2009-10-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

I recently joined delicious, the social bookmarking site. What’s social bookmarking? Well, it’s a collaborative way of organizing content with tags. This kind of classification is often referred to as a folksonomy.

Unfortunately, delicious has left me unimpressed. I acknowledge the benefit of being able to access bookmarked sites from any computer, but to take a stroll through someone else’s bookmarks does not seem practical to me. If I want to surf the net, I’ll type key phrases into Google. It’s much faster and more direct that logging into delicious and clicking through an arbitrary audience’s list of personal preferences. Also, I think I am much more likely to turn up reputable, well-informed sites through a Google search. Here is a link to my bookmarks on delicious:

I have bookmarked the certain pages because I am interested in user interface and graphic design. I subscribed to the tag msptc605 in order to see recommendations from classmates in a course I am taking. The amount of clicks I had to go through to accomplish this make it impossible for me to think that Google is not the better option.

I certainly do see the value of delicious for people who move from one computer to another and need their personal bookmarks available to them wherever they go. I also see delicious as a valuable way to organize a series of resources for group work – on the job or for school. Apart from those specific applications; however, I find delicious a bit of a let-down when compared to other sites that operate on the concept of folksonomies.

In my opinion, digg is a better example of a site based on folksonomies. It is a news site with a twist – all of the news on the site is chosen, linked to, and voted on by users. I think digg and sites like it beat delicious tenfold in terms of providing relevant, useful information to someone who is just browsing. The digg is a page contextualized by different categories of news on a centralized menu screen. Like delicious, digg allows you to bookmark links to articles online. Unlike delicious, you don't have to have existing bookmarks to secure a meaningful, purposeful digg search. On delicious, users must navigate small, hard-to-read tags to search for topics of interest. Meanwhile, digg allows larger photos than delicious for posting alongside the links they belong to. When it comes to sites based on folksonomies, I am certainly a fan of “digg” type sites versus social bookmarking sites like delicious. Do you use folksonomies to keep track of your favorite places on the web? Which ones do you like best?

Semantically Challenged Labels of Web #.0

2009-10-14T19:22:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0 has become one of the biggest internet buzzwords of recent years despite its virtually meaningless name. Because of its vague label, many people use it to mean modern anything-on-the-internet. Nevertheless, Web 2.0 does have a real, concrete meaning (see my first blog post for details).

If I had to explain it myself, I’d say the concept behind Web 2.0 can be compared to a movie theater. While the theater is closed, nothing much happens. Once the theater opens for business, the action begins – staff bustle about preparing for business that day. Then the reels are loaded onto the projectors, moviegoers arrive, popcorn is popped, and the action really takes off.

The whole dynamic of a closed, empty theater morphing into a frenzied hustle and bustle for tickets and snacks and previews perfectly summarizes Tim O’Reilly’s notion of Web 2.0 applications as ones that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. The theater’s atmosphere gains color and life as more and more people enter and participate in the wheelings and dealings of its confines.

What is a Web 2.0 application like Facebook, for instance, without users? Isn’t it just empty space with a couple of organizational categories? But the more people use it and link to others that use it and post status updates and photos, the better and more fascinating it gets. I would expect the branding of such a crucial point in the communications revolution might merit a more meaningful name than the generic “Web 2.0.” No such luck.

In 2006, John Markoff of the New York Times decided to envision the internet one step further in his article - Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense. He labeled the upcoming trend following previous indistinct “Web #.0” naming conventions, calling it Web 3.0 (sometimes more clearly referred to as the Semantic Web). He explained that this referred to applications that become smarter the more people use them. Web 3.0 is a vision of the internet as one gigantic database from which information is intelligently pulled by different applications to fit the needs of a specific user. Here is an article that explains the workings of a Web 3.0 application – the search engine, Bing: Bing Reference is the S emantic Web in Action.

If Web 2.0 was all about enhanced communication with people adding value to the internet, Web 3.0 is all about internet applications providing people with valuable information. There isn’t much of a direct correlation between the two except for the fact that they are both evolving trends in online communications. Why do the power players insist on naming these trends so similarly? 2.0 and 3.0 say nothing about the actual trend itself. This naming convention is confusing, and lends itself to all kinds of misuse. I know names like the Collaborative Web and the Semantic Web are not as easily "buzzable," but in all honesty, there must be better way to label these ground-breaking trends and developments.

Chart taken from Media Snackers.

A Color Community to Train Your Eyes

2009-10-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

Choosing the right color palette for a design can be just as important as choosing the right typeface. Verbal and visual communication should be carefully planned to provide a strong, cohesive message. Good color choices will strengthen the content, composition, and communication of an overall design.

But how do we learn what good color choices are? How do we train our eyes to see what colors will work best together? I think we can only do this with practice and feedback.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a website called COLOURlovers.com It’s an online community, and you can sign up fairly quickly – simply choose a user name and a password. Once you are in, you may create palettes and patterns. You can rate and comment on other user’s palettes and patterns. Another thing you can do is explore and infinite range of colors, find one that you like, and obtain the hexadecimal code. Hexadecimal codes are six numbers and letters used together to define a single color on a computer screen. In case you aren't familiar with these, here is an example: #FFFFFF is used to define white. You can create a palette for your website/design project on the site, or borrow one that someone else made. The hexadecimal codes are there for you to use freely.

I know there are other websites out there like COLOURlovers, but there is a reason I like it best. With the amount of interaction and the sense of community you get on the site, you are exposed to a very wide range of styles. Although you are limited to five colors in a palette and there are a limited number of patterns, there is still plenty to explore. There are thousands of people choosing from an infinite range of colors to make their palettes and patterns unique. It’s good training for the eye to see which colors work together versus which colors don’t. It’s also great that people will give you feedback on your designs (Don’t worry, they typically comment only when they have something nice to say!). There are many professional designers on the site and it’s nice to hear from them when you have succeeded in choosing a color combination that works. They also write a blog on the use of color in design.

Let me give you one bad and one good example of color schemes from my account.

Early on, I created this entirely-too-saturated monstrosity:

Please try and view it in the largest version here. Only then will you see how badly these colors work when they take up the majority of what's on your screen.

Later, I learned from watching others that saturated colors are not pleasing to the eye when viewed in large quantities on a computer screen. I reduced the amount of chroma I had been using, and came up with my best rated pattern to date:

You can view the large version of this pattern here.

To close, I think this COLOURlovers is a great community for learning to use color on the web.

Test Driving Toyota's iQ Font

2009-10-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

A Belgian ad agency called Happiness Brussels had a very creative idea when it came to promoting the Toyota iQ, a new compact car for the European market. They hired two typographers and a software engineer to come up with a car-designed font. The car’s movements were tracked using special software as the car was driven around by a professional race car driver. A program was created to track the car’s skid, and the driver was told what kinds of skids he needed to perform to create letters, numbers, and symbols. Here’s how it went down:

iQ font - When driving becomes writing / Full ma king of from wireless on Vimeo.

But honestly, how great can a font created by car tires be? Let’s find out.

How legible is the iQ font?
The iQ font is reasonably legible. Let’s apply a simple legibility test. Covering the top or bottom of this font, can you make read the sentence below? I would say it is fairly easy to decipher the halved text. Since the iQ font is a sans serif font, there are few guidelines for your eye at the tops and bottoms of letters. However, the letters do have a substantial x-height (body minus ascenders and descenders) at larger point sizes. This adds to the font's legibility.

How does the iQ font stack up in terms of readability?
The larger the x-height, and the shorter the ascenders/descenders, the more readable the typeface. The thickness of this font interferes with the x-height at smaller sizes. As the point size goes up, x-height increases, and so does readability. At 12 points, the font is difficult to read. At about 18 points, this font is highly readable on a screen.
Another factor used to determine readability is space. The spacing between letters and words in the iQ font works well. The font appears neither cluttered nor disconnected. It's easy to glance at the iQ and see how white space is used well between characters and individual words.

What kind of personality does the iQ font convey?
Here's my verdict:So where would you use a font like the iQ?
The iQ, a contemporary font whose legibility and readability increase with point size, would probably work best in modern website headers or poster designs. It would probably not work well as longer, scrolling text. But don't take my word for it. Download the iQ font and go to town!

Inspiration for this post:
Typeface by Toyota. The iQ font Designed By a Moving Car. - If It's Hip, It's Here.
Avoiding Typeface Terrors - Kathleen Burke Yoshida

Tweaking Blogger Templates

2009-10-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Blogger Buster and COLOURLovers, I've made a few minor adjustments to this blog's design. I started with the Minima template from Blogger, and I made a few small changes with the help of an article called "A Cheat's Guide to Customizing Blogger Templates." This is what my blog looked like

Before:

At that point I had only made a couple of changes to the color scheme, but overall I wasn't thrilled with how my blog appeared. I needed to do something to make it my own. Since part of the Blogger Buster article calls for a pattern, I decided to design my own on COLOURlovers' site. I designed my own color palette, and from it I designed this pattern.

After:

I know it's not a huge change, but I'm still learning how to work with code and colors. I am happy to say that I finally feel like this blog is "mine." All in all it was a very simple process - a quick and easy way to personalize Blogger. Let me know what you think of my new design. Feedback is much appreciated!

Interactive UX Design for all Ages

2009-10-10T18:35:00.000-07:00

Age can have a big influence on user interface design. For example, take a look two different sites branded under the largest broadcasting corporation in the world - the BBC and the Children’s BBC homepages:

BBC Homepage

Children's BBC Homepage

Andragogy vs. Pedagogy
A lot of thought went into making each of these websites appropriate for their respective audiences. The BBC homepage uses principles of andragogy, or teaching geared toward adults, to communicate with its audience. Adults learn effectively by linking previous knowledge with new information. It seems the BBC homepage was designed with this idea in mind, as it allows its user to completely customize their homepage with topics they are familiar with and interested in by using the “Add more to this page" option. The site is full of eye-catching headlines in categories that can be dragged and dropped anywhere within the page’s grid. Adult themes dominate the page in the form of world news, business news, a travel section, etc. There are many words on the page, appealing to visual/verbal learning tendencies in adults.

The CBBC homepage uses pedagogy, or learning strategies geared toward children. Young children are often tactile/kinesthetic learners. They are very hands-on. Appropriately, the CBBC site is highly interactive. The creatures in the background of the site move and make sounds, there is a video to watch in the center of the screen, there is a lever to pull that makes a screen spin and stop on different shows from the network, etc. The content is more static than that of the BBC homepage (the user cannot move it around on the screen), but there is still plenty to “do” on the site to keep a child engaged and busy.

Same Goals
It’s obvious that the designers of both the BBC and CBBC sites aimed to provide maximum usability for their intended audiences. In doing so, it’s interesting to note how both of the sites were built to achieve similar goals. It appears that both sites were created with the intention of providing interactive learning environments for their users. The BBC homepage allows the user to more or less build their own online newspaper catering to their individual interests. The CBBC homepage also encourages interaction, with so many places to click to see, hear, and communicate with new material.

Conclusion
It appears that the designers of both BBC and CBBC sites were motivated by the goals of gaining and maintaining their audience's attention by getting them to “play” with a website, albeit in two completely different ways.

Inspiration for this post:
Characterizing Audience for Informational Web Site Design by Jennifer Turns and Tracey S. Wagner
Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic Learners by Terry Farwell

Words with Personality: V for Vendetta in Kinetic Typography

2009-10-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

I think the most impressive thing the video below is that even if you have never heard of V for Vendetta, the comic book by Alan Moore, you will have a pretty good sense of the two main characters, V and Evey, once you've watched it. The creator of this video successfully uses several elements of design to convey personality and expression. Watch it and see:

The visual organization of this piece is particularly striking. Regular changes in text orientation are effectively used to convey transitions, particularly in V's dialog. The constant turning, angling, and reorientation of text gives the viewer a sense of V as a fast-talking, enthusiastic vigilante. The regular changes in text orientation also play with the viewer's eye movement and create a fast-paced rhythm. As the viewer's eyes move from one of V's declarations to another, the viewer gets a very accurate impression of Evey's character - it's clear she is a regular girl asking few simple questions and getting an absolute whirlwind of an answer.

Visual relationships created throughout the video give the viewer a sense of a world filled with danger, excitement, mystery, and intrigue. The colors used, a dark red to black gradient fill background contrasted with white text, convey a dark world in which thrilling events are about to occur. The font, which appears to be Garamond bold, stands out, conveying a sense of adventure. Anomaly, or elements differing from those that dominate the composition, is used within the text to stress certain words and deemphasize others. For instance, articles and determiners are often turned sideways and put in a smaller font than the rest of the text to give emphasis to more descriptive, exhilarating words. Looking at the scale of the majority of the text, the viewer will see that V's words are typically bigger than Evey's. This clues the viewer into the fact that V has an enormous personality while Evey is more of an average person.

Amazingly, without ever seeing V or Evey or the world they inhabit, a viewer of this video can get a very clear feel for all of these things. Visual organization and visual relationships come together brilliantly in this video to create a world of their own.

Two Genuinely Terrific Corporate Blogs

2009-10-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

These days, one of the most effective ways for a company to broadcast its identity and build its reputation is through a corporate blog. Corporate blogging is not as straightforward as it sounds. There is a science to it, and corporations that blog without researching this science risk serious damage to their reputations. Corporations must remember that due to the popularity of online communities such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, they are dealing with a very sophisticated audience – an audience that can exalt or trash a brand internationally with a few sentences and the click of a button. This audience is very brand-loyal and expects the companies they support to participate in online communities and social networking in a way that shows they are both personable and human.

What corporate bloggers must understand is that their blog is not their chance to “talk at” their public, letting them know how great and wonderful they are. Instead, this is their chance to relate, connect, listen to, and bond with their public. Consequently, one of the most important requirements a corporate blog can meet are to portray an honest face of a company that cares about their customer base, employees, and anyone else with interests in the company. A successful corporate blog will be well-planned and genuine. Recently, I came across two exemplary corporate blogs: Nuts About Southwest and The Diff.

Nuts About Southwest is Southwest Airline’s corporate blog. It is written by various employees of Southwest Airlines and its intended readership includes customers, potential customers, employees, investors, and beyond. Nuts About Southwest is written with the following purpose in mind: “...to give our visitors the opportunity to take a look inside Southwest Airlines and to interact with us. This is as much your site as it is ours…” Nuts About Southwest is about everything from aviation to world news. The blog is updated on a fairly regular basis and recent posts include write-ups on Labor Day, an employee’s pet dogs, and an early check-in scheme the airline would like to implement. The blog allows, encourages, and receives both positive and negative comments. When replies are given to comments, they are thoughtful, personalized, and timely. For example, there were many different reactions to the post about the early check-in scheme. Visually, the blog is very neat, compact, and clean. The average entry is of reasonable length and fits within a computer screen without scrolling. Entries with photos can be up to twice this size. Stylistically, the site is uncluttered and pleasing to the eye. There are peanuts scattered around the borders of the blog itself to tie-into the “nuts” about Southwest theme. The fonts and font styles are clear and very easy to read. The overall message I take away from this blog is that this is a company that cares - not just about their business and their customer base, but about the world as a whole.

Quicken Loans is an award winning mortgage lender. Their blog is called The Diff because the company’s employees’ opinion is that the greatest thing about their job is the ability to make a difference in people’s lives. The goal of the blog is to highlight this claim. Topics covered in the blog include personal interest stories, current events, financial advice, and the occasional mention of Quicken Loans’ business offerings. Like Nuts About Southwest, The Diff is written by a network of employees in a variety of positions at Quicken Loans who are very enthusiastic and responsive regarding both positive and negative comments. They update regularly. The average entry fits within a computer screen and occasionally requires minimal scrolling. Entries that exceed the aforementioned length include a link that asks the reader to click on it so that they may continue reading the rest of the article. This is a great idea because it allows readers to get a taste of the article before they decide they would like to read on. Like Nuts About Southwest, The Diff is highly designed including a professional-looking color scheme and logo. The blog has a clean, direct appearance due to the use of easy-to-read fonts and neatly organized, easy-to-locate content. Once again, the impression I get from this blog is that I am reading about a socially responsible company that cares about its customers’ interests, welfare, and feedback.

Nuts About Southwest and The Diff are both great examples of well-executed, thoughtful corporate blogs. They deliver an identity true to the reputations they aim to build. Do you know of any corporate blogs that deserve a gold star?

Inspiration for this post:
Technorati: State of the Blogosphere, Day 5 - Technorati's annual report on blogging trends
Corporate Blogging: Is It Worth the Hype? - by Backbone Media
Corporate Blogs as Reputation Management 2.0 - a case study I wrote on corporate blogging

My motivation

2009-10-10T18:01:00.000-07:00

In 2003, Dale Dougherty, VP of O’Reilly Media, participated in a brainstorming session examining the role of the internet after the 2001 dot-com crash. While many were dismissive, concluding “that the web was overhyped," Dougherty pointed out how the web was becoming more creative than ever - new applications were popping up almost daily. It was at this brainstorming session that Dougherty coined the term, Web 2.0. Web 2.0 represents the movement after the dot-com crash toward viewing the Internet as a platform for information. The success of this platform is contingent on building “applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them.” A blog, for instance, is a good example of a Web 2.0 application. As posts, comments, links, and photos are added, a blog becomes richer in content and therefore more interesting.

I'm interested in Web 2.0 applications and how they can help improve people's lives. I love how Linked In makes networking and job hunting so efficient. I get excited when I read posts like this one about Twitter being used as a customer service tool. I'm grateful to open source design programs such as Inkscape for making professional graphics software available to a design novice like myself. I would like to use this blog to explore these new applications - this "fresh airwave" - of the Web 2.0 era.