Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Week 14
This is my last required week working for my project.
I did a flash project for the story “Ethics in the age of digital manipulation”. This time, it was a slideshow of original and photoshopped photos on newspapers.
(The size of the slideshow on the Web site is bigger than the one I embedded here, as I had to make it fit in the blog).
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/06/22/ethics-in-the-age-of-digital-manipulation/
I incorporated the images used for the printed version of the story with two other pairs of original and photoshopped photos I found on the AP’s Web site. It would have been great if I had got hold of some more, but despite my efforts, it seemed most flawed photos were no longer kept in the AP’s archive.
In the case of the three versions of the photo of the handshake between Chinese President Hu Jintao and late Deng Xiaoping, they were from a page of Chinese newspaper. The AP for some particular reasons did not separate the images and shot a picture of the whole newspaper page. I consulted our art director Lillian J.Kelly, who said that I should not split the images, either.
Therefore, with the images are of different shapes and sizes, I had to make compromises in designing to make sure that all the images looked clear and were in harmony with the accompanying features of the whole slideshow. I used violet for the background, dark blue for the holder of the buttons, and red to draw attention.
I also edited the photo on the homepage and published the story on the Web site
RESEARCH:
In the end, 68 people completed all the survey questions out of 146 people who began it. A common complaint was that the Web site looked so similar even with different ads, some respondents thought they were taken back to the previous page. This probably explained why so many people dropped out before they got to the end and at least several respondents seemed to give the same answers each time they were asked to look at a Web site.
I already copied all the figures from the survey responses to an Excel file and built my own coding for it, so that I could import the file into an SPSS program.
I am using Excel to sort the respondents into groups of age, sex, and time they spend on reading newspapers. Then, I will compare the attitudes of each small group towards each Web site. This information will be put side by side the attitudes of all the audience as a whole.
I did a flash project for the story “Ethics in the age of digital manipulation”. This time, it was a slideshow of original and photoshopped photos on newspapers.
(The size of the slideshow on the Web site is bigger than the one I embedded here, as I had to make it fit in the blog).
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/06/22/ethics-in-the-age-of-digital-manipulation/
I incorporated the images used for the printed version of the story with two other pairs of original and photoshopped photos I found on the AP’s Web site. It would have been great if I had got hold of some more, but despite my efforts, it seemed most flawed photos were no longer kept in the AP’s archive.
In the case of the three versions of the photo of the handshake between Chinese President Hu Jintao and late Deng Xiaoping, they were from a page of Chinese newspaper. The AP for some particular reasons did not separate the images and shot a picture of the whole newspaper page. I consulted our art director Lillian J.Kelly, who said that I should not split the images, either.
Therefore, with the images are of different shapes and sizes, I had to make compromises in designing to make sure that all the images looked clear and were in harmony with the accompanying features of the whole slideshow. I used violet for the background, dark blue for the holder of the buttons, and red to draw attention.
I also edited the photo on the homepage and published the story on the Web site
RESEARCH:
In the end, 68 people completed all the survey questions out of 146 people who began it. A common complaint was that the Web site looked so similar even with different ads, some respondents thought they were taken back to the previous page. This probably explained why so many people dropped out before they got to the end and at least several respondents seemed to give the same answers each time they were asked to look at a Web site.
I already copied all the figures from the survey responses to an Excel file and built my own coding for it, so that I could import the file into an SPSS program.
I am using Excel to sort the respondents into groups of age, sex, and time they spend on reading newspapers. Then, I will compare the attitudes of each small group towards each Web site. This information will be put side by side the attitudes of all the audience as a whole.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Week 13
This week I uploaded the pdf version of the Spring 2009 edition of our magazine.
I also edited three photos for the main story, published the story, as well as edited the photo of the homepage.
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/06/16/pakistan-living-on-the-edge/
I created the map of Pakistan for the story.
I also redesigned the maps of China, Serbia and Kosovo, as well as those of India and Mumbai city, as I was not happy with the quality of the original ones, which were created at my beginning stage of using MapInfo. After I worked on a substantial number of maps, I wanted to make sure that they looked consistent.
Tainted
Kosovo's fresh start
Mumbai under the lense
RESEARCH:
I already got past the required number of 50 respondents who answered all the questions of my survey. I am currently manually copying the data into an excel file, which is a very time-consuming task. My survey actually consists of seven surveys, so I have to use the IP's of the respondents to make sure that I have the data of the same person for all the surveys. I will then put this data into a SPSS program.
While working with the data, I realized that the question “Are you aware of the ad?” which I included for each of the six Web sites was redundant. The statement “The ad grabbed my attention” with a 5-point-scale is already sufficient. As for the yes/no question, there is little use I could make with the information.
I also edited three photos for the main story, published the story, as well as edited the photo of the homepage.
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/06/16/pakistan-living-on-the-edge/
I created the map of Pakistan for the story.
I also redesigned the maps of China, Serbia and Kosovo, as well as those of India and Mumbai city, as I was not happy with the quality of the original ones, which were created at my beginning stage of using MapInfo. After I worked on a substantial number of maps, I wanted to make sure that they looked consistent.
Tainted
Kosovo's fresh start
Mumbai under the lense
RESEARCH:
I already got past the required number of 50 respondents who answered all the questions of my survey. I am currently manually copying the data into an excel file, which is a very time-consuming task. My survey actually consists of seven surveys, so I have to use the IP's of the respondents to make sure that I have the data of the same person for all the surveys. I will then put this data into a SPSS program.
While working with the data, I realized that the question “Are you aware of the ad?” which I included for each of the six Web sites was redundant. The statement “The ad grabbed my attention” with a 5-point-scale is already sufficient. As for the yes/no question, there is little use I could make with the information.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Week 12
This week I had to make two changes to the Flash project of the interviews with international journalists. The Pakistani journalist asked me to use a different photo of his for his interview, and the Chinese journalist Xin Zhiming wanted to have Taiwan and the Spratly Islands added to the map of his country, or else he would rather have his interview deleted. I had to turn to my supervisors Pat Smith and Stuart H. Lorry for advice in the latter case. Xin Zhiming eventually agreed that only Taiwan should be added to the map.
From working with the international journalists, I learned that it was very necessary to try to see their issues from their view points. When Xin Zhiming asked me to include the Spratly islands on the map of his country, admittedly, as a Vietnamese citizen I felt offended, because these are disputed islands among several countries, most significantly between China and Vietnam. It is currently the most heated issue in the relationship of the two neighbors. Many Vietnamese people used to demonstrate in front of the Chinese embassy in Hanoi to protest about the issue. And the anger ran even deeper in the population, as the Vietnamese government discouraged these demonstrations for fear of displeasing powerful China. However, the fact that I tried to see things as an independent journalist helped me to reply to him in an objective and appropriate way. His problem was finally solved and he felt that he was respected.
During the week, I edited front-page photo for the main story of the week which is a slideshow Xiaoxian Ye and I produced last semester using Soundslides (see week 8).
I could not publish the slideshow the way we originally did it however, as I would have to upload the whole folder, and not one single Flash file. This is currently impossible for our Content Management System. In the end, I had to upload the photos manually on the CMS and published the slideshow the way it has always been done at the Global Journalist.
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/06/09/dont-seal-our-lips/
I added a North Indicator for all the maps I produced so far, following my committee chair Daryl Moen’s suggestion. I also made two new maps of Haiti and the Gaza Strip for two articles "A show of strenght" "Access denied in Gaza"
RESEARCH:
I made a final change for the survey: moving the position of the NEXT button to the end of the Web site, after some people complained that they could not find it when it was on the right side of the page. At the end of the week, I began to make the survey public. So far I got some 30 respondents who answered all the questions. The drop-out rate was very high, fewer than half of the people who began would go through to the end of the survey.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=bP_2blR_2f2MQRi7GvsVry2H1g_3d_3d
.
This week I had to make two changes to the Flash project of the interviews with international journalists. The Pakistani journalist asked me to use a different photo of his for his interview, and the Chinese journalist Xin Zhiming wanted to have Taiwan and the Spratly Islands added to the map of his country, or else he would rather have his interview deleted. I had to turn to my supervisors Pat Smith and Stuart H. Lorry for advice in the latter case. Xin Zhiming eventually agreed that only Taiwan should be added to the map.
From working with the international journalists, I learned that it was very necessary to try to see their issues from their view points. When Xin Zhiming asked me to include the Spratly islands on the map of his country, admittedly, as a Vietnamese citizen I felt offended, because these are disputed islands among several countries, most significantly between China and Vietnam. It is currently the most heated issue in the relationship of the two neighbors. Many Vietnamese people used to demonstrate in front of the Chinese embassy in Hanoi to protest about the issue. And the anger ran even deeper in the population, as the Vietnamese government discouraged these demonstrations for fear of displeasing powerful China. However, the fact that I tried to see things as an independent journalist helped me to reply to him in an objective and appropriate way. His problem was finally solved and he felt that he was respected.
During the week, I edited front-page photo for the main story of the week which is a slideshow Xiaoxian Ye and I produced last semester using Soundslides (see week 8).
I could not publish the slideshow the way we originally did it however, as I would have to upload the whole folder, and not one single Flash file. This is currently impossible for our Content Management System. In the end, I had to upload the photos manually on the CMS and published the slideshow the way it has always been done at the Global Journalist.
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/06/09/dont-seal-our-lips/
I added a North Indicator for all the maps I produced so far, following my committee chair Daryl Moen’s suggestion. I also made two new maps of Haiti and the Gaza Strip for two articles "A show of strenght" "Access denied in Gaza"
RESEARCH:
I made a final change for the survey: moving the position of the NEXT button to the end of the Web site, after some people complained that they could not find it when it was on the right side of the page. At the end of the week, I began to make the survey public. So far I got some 30 respondents who answered all the questions. The drop-out rate was very high, fewer than half of the people who began would go through to the end of the survey.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=bP_2blR_2f2MQRi7GvsVry2H1g_3d_3d
.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Week 11
This week I completed the Flash project and published it online. I also edited the photo for the story on the main page.
Here is the photo I edited
Here is my Flash Project http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/06/01/independent-journalism-at-stake/
Before I started this project, I already spent a lot of time thinking about how to design it. There is a lot of information, with seven journalists and very long chunks of text for each of them. It would thus easily get boring. One idea was using the names of the journalists as links to the interviews with them, but I dropped it right away, as that would add more text and make the viewing more cumbersome. Another idea is using their photos. However, as the Egyptian journalist used an alias, I could not use her image. Also, the photos that I managed to get were very inconsistent in quality and different in color tones, one was even black and white. Therefore if I grouped all the images together, they would look disorganized.
I finally settled on the idea of the little maps of the countries from which the journalists came from as the buttons. They made the flash project more attractive while also giving adding information to the story. It gave readers some imagination about the countries where the journalists come from.
I made various measurements to make sure that the screen of the flash was suitable and not stretch beyond the computer screen. It could not be too small, as less text could be put on the screen, while it could not be too long, as it would stretch beyond the computer screen and viewers could not see the whole structure of the flash layout.
From this project, I felt that my vision in designing seemed to be improving markedly compared with when I began working at the Global Journalist. I have a better way of combining colors and of putting little details into the flash, so that it can be user-friendly while looking good. Examples are the maps with the name of the countries changing color when readers hover the mouse over each of them. Or the arrows will stay in the same places in each story. Also, the colors choices are consistent and complement each other.
RESEARCH:
I had to put some changes into my survey and Web sites. Khoi To, a statistics student, remarked that my mentioning in the introduction that there were as many as 69 questions would deter people from completing the survey. He recommended that I should cut down the questions which I was unwilling to do. Ngoc Vo, who worked as a web evaluator at the IE lab of School of Information of Science and Learning Technologies, said that I should make the introduction shorter, as most people will tend to skip it anyway and go straight to the survey. She also pointed out that I should not put the button “Next” inside my Web sites, as this will confuse the readers. They might assume that it belongs to the Web site and not that it is in fact a button of the survey. She recommended that I should put the button outside my Web site and make it look exactly like the one in the survey pages. I followed her advice about the changes.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=bP_2blR_2f2MQRi7GvsVry2H1g_3d_3d
I plan to try out the survey on some more of my friends to see if I could improve further and then launch it later this week or early next week the latest.
Here is the photo I edited
Here is my Flash Project http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/06/01/independent-journalism-at-stake/
Before I started this project, I already spent a lot of time thinking about how to design it. There is a lot of information, with seven journalists and very long chunks of text for each of them. It would thus easily get boring. One idea was using the names of the journalists as links to the interviews with them, but I dropped it right away, as that would add more text and make the viewing more cumbersome. Another idea is using their photos. However, as the Egyptian journalist used an alias, I could not use her image. Also, the photos that I managed to get were very inconsistent in quality and different in color tones, one was even black and white. Therefore if I grouped all the images together, they would look disorganized.
I finally settled on the idea of the little maps of the countries from which the journalists came from as the buttons. They made the flash project more attractive while also giving adding information to the story. It gave readers some imagination about the countries where the journalists come from.
I made various measurements to make sure that the screen of the flash was suitable and not stretch beyond the computer screen. It could not be too small, as less text could be put on the screen, while it could not be too long, as it would stretch beyond the computer screen and viewers could not see the whole structure of the flash layout.
From this project, I felt that my vision in designing seemed to be improving markedly compared with when I began working at the Global Journalist. I have a better way of combining colors and of putting little details into the flash, so that it can be user-friendly while looking good. Examples are the maps with the name of the countries changing color when readers hover the mouse over each of them. Or the arrows will stay in the same places in each story. Also, the colors choices are consistent and complement each other.
RESEARCH:
I had to put some changes into my survey and Web sites. Khoi To, a statistics student, remarked that my mentioning in the introduction that there were as many as 69 questions would deter people from completing the survey. He recommended that I should cut down the questions which I was unwilling to do. Ngoc Vo, who worked as a web evaluator at the IE lab of School of Information of Science and Learning Technologies, said that I should make the introduction shorter, as most people will tend to skip it anyway and go straight to the survey. She also pointed out that I should not put the button “Next” inside my Web sites, as this will confuse the readers. They might assume that it belongs to the Web site and not that it is in fact a button of the survey. She recommended that I should put the button outside my Web site and make it look exactly like the one in the survey pages. I followed her advice about the changes.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=bP_2blR_2f2MQRi7GvsVry2H1g_3d_3d
I plan to try out the survey on some more of my friends to see if I could improve further and then launch it later this week or early next week the latest.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Week 10
This week I took on the project in which Jake Stokes interviewed a group of journalists from different countries about censorship. As I could not reach Stokes, I decided to contact directly the journalists who he interviewed, to ask for their photos myself. I also contacted the Egyptian journalist to ask her about the reason she wanted to use an alias instead of her real name. In the end, I could not include the Vietnamese journalist’s answers, due to her personal concerns.
By the end of the week, I was half way done in my Flash project of the interviews. That is how it will look on its first page in my draft version.
I also edited the photo for the front page story and published the story on the Web site, which used to be Brian Schraum’s weekly task in the spring semester.
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/05/21/a-show-of-strength/
RESEARCH
I did the pre-test of my survey. Mark Lewis’s comment summarized the opinions of most of those who tried the survey: “You need to start the experiment with a page of instructions. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Am I supposed to be reading stories? Something along the lines of: this is an experiment testing the user effects of advertising placement. It will take you through a series of Web pages, each followed by a short questionnaire. Please take a minute or two to look over each Web site. You may quit at any time. Also, the next button is a little hard to find. You may want to do something to make it more obvious. I had to look for it. “
The other friends who helped me test the survey were caught by surprise by the fact that the survey took them to an outside Web site, when they clicked Next.
I followed Lewis’s advice in adding a page of instruction and changed the color of the button Next on my Web sites to red, so that it will attract attention. This is what I have after the changes. I will ask some other people to run the survey to make sure that it is as user-friendly as possible.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=bP_2blR_2f2MQRi7GvsVry2H1g_3d_3d
By the end of the week, I was half way done in my Flash project of the interviews. That is how it will look on its first page in my draft version.
I also edited the photo for the front page story and published the story on the Web site, which used to be Brian Schraum’s weekly task in the spring semester.
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/05/21/a-show-of-strength/
RESEARCH
I did the pre-test of my survey. Mark Lewis’s comment summarized the opinions of most of those who tried the survey: “You need to start the experiment with a page of instructions. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Am I supposed to be reading stories? Something along the lines of: this is an experiment testing the user effects of advertising placement. It will take you through a series of Web pages, each followed by a short questionnaire. Please take a minute or two to look over each Web site. You may quit at any time. Also, the next button is a little hard to find. You may want to do something to make it more obvious. I had to look for it. “
The other friends who helped me test the survey were caught by surprise by the fact that the survey took them to an outside Web site, when they clicked Next.
I followed Lewis’s advice in adding a page of instruction and changed the color of the button Next on my Web sites to red, so that it will attract attention. This is what I have after the changes. I will ask some other people to run the survey to make sure that it is as user-friendly as possible.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=bP_2blR_2f2MQRi7GvsVry2H1g_3d_3d
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Week 9
This week, I updated the map for the World Watch section.
I also recreated the maps of Italy and Tunisia, using the data sets from the Web site which I found last week. I was not happy with my earlier versions, as they were too simplistic and felt that I needed to make them look better.
I tried to draw the map of Mumbai to add to the map of India in the article about Mumbai terrorist attacks, but failed, as the data I had about the areas of Greater Mumbai were confusing and not reliable. There are borders for certain areas but there are no names for them, and I had a hard time guessing what these areas were from the maps of Mumbai I could find on the Web. I will get back to this if I manage to get hold of better data.
I created maps of the United Arab Emirates,Iraq, and Bolivia for the articles about these countries. With the new data sets, I could easily make the maps of these small countries look interesting, as they are rich in details.
RESEARCH:
I finished preparing the questions for my research and the survey design.
The survey questions were mostly based on different studies about the audience’s attitudes towards ads and Web sites and on the hypotheses which have been supported in these studies.
I signed up for the website Surveymonkey.com and put the questions I planned for the survey on Web site ads. In previous discussions between me and my committee chair, we concluded that I needed to create a survey in a way that the audience could not go back to a Web site while answering the questions about it. The reason is that I need to make sure that they answer the questions based on their momentary impression of each Web site.
This proved to be a technical problem for me. Normally to create links in Surveymonkey, one has to put the link in a statement or a question. And then, there will be a new page outside the survey. This means that the audience could look at the same time at the questions and the Web site, which was not what I wanted.
Also all the pages of the questions share the same link. So it is impossible for me to make a link from one of my Web sites to a particular page of questions.
I consulted Mark Lewis, whose survey design on online news originally helped me form ideas about how to do my own survey. It turned out that his survey was made up of different surveys which explained why he could make links from a Web site to a particular page. This is because each page was actually a different survey, and therefore each has a different link.
This knowledge helped me to complete my survey design exactly the way I wanted it.
I also recreated the maps of Italy and Tunisia, using the data sets from the Web site which I found last week. I was not happy with my earlier versions, as they were too simplistic and felt that I needed to make them look better.
I tried to draw the map of Mumbai to add to the map of India in the article about Mumbai terrorist attacks, but failed, as the data I had about the areas of Greater Mumbai were confusing and not reliable. There are borders for certain areas but there are no names for them, and I had a hard time guessing what these areas were from the maps of Mumbai I could find on the Web. I will get back to this if I manage to get hold of better data.
I created maps of the United Arab Emirates,Iraq, and Bolivia for the articles about these countries. With the new data sets, I could easily make the maps of these small countries look interesting, as they are rich in details.
RESEARCH:
I finished preparing the questions for my research and the survey design.
The survey questions were mostly based on different studies about the audience’s attitudes towards ads and Web sites and on the hypotheses which have been supported in these studies.
I signed up for the website Surveymonkey.com and put the questions I planned for the survey on Web site ads. In previous discussions between me and my committee chair, we concluded that I needed to create a survey in a way that the audience could not go back to a Web site while answering the questions about it. The reason is that I need to make sure that they answer the questions based on their momentary impression of each Web site.
This proved to be a technical problem for me. Normally to create links in Surveymonkey, one has to put the link in a statement or a question. And then, there will be a new page outside the survey. This means that the audience could look at the same time at the questions and the Web site, which was not what I wanted.
Also all the pages of the questions share the same link. So it is impossible for me to make a link from one of my Web sites to a particular page of questions.
I consulted Mark Lewis, whose survey design on online news originally helped me form ideas about how to do my own survey. It turned out that his survey was made up of different surveys which explained why he could make links from a Web site to a particular page. This is because each page was actually a different survey, and therefore each has a different link.
This knowledge helped me to complete my survey design exactly the way I wanted it.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Week 8: May 4, 2009 to May 8, 2009
This week, Xiaoxian Ye and I worked on a slideshow about Demonstrations for Press Freedom. Ye chose the AP photos and I used Soundslides to make the slideshow. It is supposed to be put on the Web site after our print magazine comes out.
http://www.bengal.missouri.edu/~cn9dd/nguyen/publish_to_web/
For Soundslides, to create a non-audio slideshow, one needs a silent audio file. The available silent audio-file used by the Missourian is only 30 seconds long, while we had as many as 14 photos. Taking into account the fact that readers needed to read captions also, I used Audacity to extend this silence file to 45 seconds long.
I also took the initiative in writing to Huyen Vu, a Vietnamese reporter whom our reporter Jake Stokes wanted to interview for another slideshow of the magazine, to persuade her to agree to answer his questions about press freedom. She agreed despite her own personal security risk.
I created some more maps for the stories on the Web site. Here are the maps of Italy, Kosovo and Serbia, and Tunisia
As I mentioned in the last week, to make maps, I needed to incorporate different layers. These layers are different data files which cover different geographical aspects. The ones I had were for the world’s geography. They were shapefiles for ArcGIS, but I converted them into tab files for the user-friendly program MapInfo.
The biggest limitation of these files is that they do not provide as much detail as I want for small countries such as Sri Lanka or the United Arab Emirates or a new country e.g. Kosovo, as the files date from 1998.
I did a lot of searching on the Internet. There is an excellent free Web site for outlines of maps http://histgeo.ac-aix-marseille.fr/carto/index_en.htm, but I was prevented from using them due to copyrights. They are ready for use and supplied for non-profit and educational purposes only.
On the other hand, many sites which provide data files for map-drawing tend to only focus on certain countries such as the US. Some others which cover every country all the world only have the national boundaries of these countries and not of their administrative regions. Nor do they give room to such aspects as rivers and lakes, which would help to make maps more interesting.
It was not until the last day of the week that I found this site: http://biogeo.berkeley.edu/bgm/gdata.php. Its data files cover a wide range of aspects of geographical information about most countries in the world. This is what I managed to create thanks to the Web site: the maps of Kosovo and Sri Lanka.
Next week, one of my tasks will be making improvements on some maps to make them look better and more informative.
Here are the articles I made maps for this week.
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/03/31/kosovos-fresh-start/
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/03/02/sri-lankan-editor-killed/
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/05/05/the-tunisian-illusion/
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2008/12/01/cozy-relationship/
RESEARCH
I created the three versions of the animated ad for three different placements on the Web site. Thus, I finished my re-creation of the Global Journalist’s Web site with two ads, each in three positions: top, middle, and right.
http://www.bengal.missouri.edu/~cn9dd/nguyen/global2.html
http://www.bengal.missouri.edu/~cn9dd/nguyen/publish_to_web/
For Soundslides, to create a non-audio slideshow, one needs a silent audio file. The available silent audio-file used by the Missourian is only 30 seconds long, while we had as many as 14 photos. Taking into account the fact that readers needed to read captions also, I used Audacity to extend this silence file to 45 seconds long.
I also took the initiative in writing to Huyen Vu, a Vietnamese reporter whom our reporter Jake Stokes wanted to interview for another slideshow of the magazine, to persuade her to agree to answer his questions about press freedom. She agreed despite her own personal security risk.
I created some more maps for the stories on the Web site. Here are the maps of Italy, Kosovo and Serbia, and Tunisia
As I mentioned in the last week, to make maps, I needed to incorporate different layers. These layers are different data files which cover different geographical aspects. The ones I had were for the world’s geography. They were shapefiles for ArcGIS, but I converted them into tab files for the user-friendly program MapInfo.
The biggest limitation of these files is that they do not provide as much detail as I want for small countries such as Sri Lanka or the United Arab Emirates or a new country e.g. Kosovo, as the files date from 1998.
I did a lot of searching on the Internet. There is an excellent free Web site for outlines of maps http://histgeo.ac-aix-marseille.fr/carto/index_en.htm, but I was prevented from using them due to copyrights. They are ready for use and supplied for non-profit and educational purposes only.
On the other hand, many sites which provide data files for map-drawing tend to only focus on certain countries such as the US. Some others which cover every country all the world only have the national boundaries of these countries and not of their administrative regions. Nor do they give room to such aspects as rivers and lakes, which would help to make maps more interesting.
It was not until the last day of the week that I found this site: http://biogeo.berkeley.edu/bgm/gdata.php. Its data files cover a wide range of aspects of geographical information about most countries in the world. This is what I managed to create thanks to the Web site: the maps of Kosovo and Sri Lanka.
Next week, one of my tasks will be making improvements on some maps to make them look better and more informative.
Here are the articles I made maps for this week.
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/03/31/kosovos-fresh-start/
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/03/02/sri-lankan-editor-killed/
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/05/05/the-tunisian-illusion/
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2008/12/01/cozy-relationship/
RESEARCH
I created the three versions of the animated ad for three different placements on the Web site. Thus, I finished my re-creation of the Global Journalist’s Web site with two ads, each in three positions: top, middle, and right.
http://www.bengal.missouri.edu/~cn9dd/nguyen/global2.html
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Week 7
This week, I created three maps for the three stories of the web site. I used the map drawing program MapInfo to create the maps and make further changes in Photoshop. As the content management system of the Web site shrinks the photos for the Web site to 400 pixels wide, I couldn’t make the maps any larger than this and needed to make sure that the letters on the map are legible at that size.
Another popular map drawing program is ArcGIS. But this program was much more complicated than MapInfo and took much longer to master. Also, the main advantage of ArcGIS is that it is better for geographical analyses, while all I need is drawing maps.
For the maps, I incorporated different layers in MapInfo, depending on what the story was about: a layer of country shapes, a layer of cities, a layer of rivers, and a layer of administrative regions (i.e. state or provinces).
Here are the three maps I created for a story about the media state of 5 Central Asian countries, a story about Mumbai during the terrorist attack, and the one about how the tainted milk scandal was covered in various provinces in China.
My efforts to embed a Google map on our Web site still hit the dead end, as the IT trainers said that they themselves never tried embedding maps and therefore could not explain why I failed to use the Google map key.
RESEARCH:
I completed my copy of the Global Journalist’s Web site with 3 positions of the same ad. This work took me much more time than I expected, as instead of straight-forward table layout, I had to design a DIV layout which I was previously unfamiliar with, to be able to recreate the same appearance of this Web site.
Another popular map drawing program is ArcGIS. But this program was much more complicated than MapInfo and took much longer to master. Also, the main advantage of ArcGIS is that it is better for geographical analyses, while all I need is drawing maps.
For the maps, I incorporated different layers in MapInfo, depending on what the story was about: a layer of country shapes, a layer of cities, a layer of rivers, and a layer of administrative regions (i.e. state or provinces).
Here are the three maps I created for a story about the media state of 5 Central Asian countries, a story about Mumbai during the terrorist attack, and the one about how the tainted milk scandal was covered in various provinces in China.
My efforts to embed a Google map on our Web site still hit the dead end, as the IT trainers said that they themselves never tried embedding maps and therefore could not explain why I failed to use the Google map key.
RESEARCH:
I completed my copy of the Global Journalist’s Web site with 3 positions of the same ad. This work took me much more time than I expected, as instead of straight-forward table layout, I had to design a DIV layout which I was previously unfamiliar with, to be able to recreate the same appearance of this Web site.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Week 6: April 20, 2009 to April 24, 2009
This week, I created the last three advertisement for the Global Journalist.
In the ad for the World Editors Forum I I combined both the logos of the World Editors Forum and their owner World Newspapers Association. At first I had trouble putting the elements together in a harmonious way. In my first version, I put the logo of the World Newspapers Association next to its full name. But I later decided to put it in the middle of the page, so that there would be a consistent central axis for the whole ad layout.
With the ad for the Freedom House, I created a bar for the explanation of the Freedom House with a triangle extended, so that it is associated with a roof as a word play with the name of the organization.
With the ad for the ad for the Inter American Press Association, I created a structure of the Z letter for the eye movement.
My efforts to find a way to embed a Google map on the magazine’s Web site still got nowhere. I talked with an IT trainer about this and she said I needed to change the way I put my Google API key. I did, but nothing changed. I wrote to another trainer to ask for his help and I’m still waiting to hear from him. I believe that it is a matter of time before we need to find a way to embed the map on the Web site of the magazine. The current map is put a Web site of a third party and they put ads on the site which often cover parts of the map.
RESEARCH:
I began recreating a Web site for my research on ad placements. I followed my committee chair’s advice on choosing a real news Web site, so that the reactions to the ads are more realistic. I chose the Website of the Global Journalist, as its structure and content more simple than other news Web site. I hope to finish it by the end of this week.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Week 5: Apr 20, 2009 to Apr 24, 2009
This week I made the changes to the ads for the Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) and International Press Institute (IPJ), following Pat Smith and Brian Schraum’s suggestions. I also finished the changes for the other 3 ads for the Committee of Concerned Journalists (CCJ), International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
With all the ads, I created a hyperlink for the Web sites and a small triangle which looks like a play button, so that the readers are tempted to click at it and be taken to other Web sites.
For the RSF ad, I added the bullet points for the explanation of their mission. All the bullet points would lead the eye to the triangle, that is the play button sign.
With the CPJ’s ad, I made the triangle red, the same color as the fire of the torch on the logo. This made the two stand out of the black and white of the rest of the ad.
With the IFJ’s ad I changed the colors of the ad to make the color contrasts work better. I also used the name of one of its campaigns “Stand up for Journalism” as its explanation.
I did a video with Jane Kellogg, covering our editor Stuart H. Loory’s lecture. When I shot his answering the audience, he moved around, so I decided to take the camera off the tripod. This explained why the footage was not as still as it could have been.
While Kellogg was a magazine student and said herself that she hardly had any video experience, I learned from her the importance of perspectives in telling a story. When we edited the part in which Loory mentioned that the bloggers should have the right to say what they wanted, even when they might make it up, I intended to leave it at that. But Kellogg said: “I wanted to include his shrug” after he said that. That shrug escaped my notice. So while I was too attentive to what was said, she paid more attention than me to what was seen. And that’s very important with videos.
As for my research on the map for World Watch, I tried to find a way to embed the Google map on Global Journalist’s Web site. To do this, I first tried embedding it on my Web site but got into trouble with the coding. The Web site gave this notice: “The Google Maps API key used on this web site was registered for a different web site”. I will ask my IT trainers about this.
RESEARCH: I finished the set of questions that I wanted to use for the layouts and send them over to my committee chair for his opinions.
Here is how my questions looked.
There will be in total 50 questions for the survey.
1/Are you male/female?
2/How many hours do you spend reading online news a week?
These questions are for each of the six websites
For the following questions, there will be a 5 point scale, 1 for “Totally agree” and 5 for” Totally Disagree”
1/ Do you find the Web site credible?
2/ Do you find the Web site competent?
3/Do you find the Web site trustworthy?
4/Do you find the Web site annoying?
5/ Do you find the ad intrusive?
6/ Do you find the ad irritating?
7/ Do you find the ad enjoyable?
8/Do you find the ad pleasant?
Professor Daryl Moen pointed out that the questions needed to be structured in a way to measure the different degrees of audience’s reaction rather than just to get them to answer Yes or No. I will also need to work on the layouts to make them more realistic and focused on one Web site layout with three ad positions for two different ads. This will help me to control better other factors and just focus on measuring how people will react to the ads when the content is changed and the placements are changed.
With all the ads, I created a hyperlink for the Web sites and a small triangle which looks like a play button, so that the readers are tempted to click at it and be taken to other Web sites.
For the RSF ad, I added the bullet points for the explanation of their mission. All the bullet points would lead the eye to the triangle, that is the play button sign.
With the CPJ’s ad, I made the triangle red, the same color as the fire of the torch on the logo. This made the two stand out of the black and white of the rest of the ad.
With the IFJ’s ad I changed the colors of the ad to make the color contrasts work better. I also used the name of one of its campaigns “Stand up for Journalism” as its explanation.
I did a video with Jane Kellogg, covering our editor Stuart H. Loory’s lecture. When I shot his answering the audience, he moved around, so I decided to take the camera off the tripod. This explained why the footage was not as still as it could have been.
While Kellogg was a magazine student and said herself that she hardly had any video experience, I learned from her the importance of perspectives in telling a story. When we edited the part in which Loory mentioned that the bloggers should have the right to say what they wanted, even when they might make it up, I intended to leave it at that. But Kellogg said: “I wanted to include his shrug” after he said that. That shrug escaped my notice. So while I was too attentive to what was said, she paid more attention than me to what was seen. And that’s very important with videos.
RESEARCH: I finished the set of questions that I wanted to use for the layouts and send them over to my committee chair for his opinions.
Here is how my questions looked.
There will be in total 50 questions for the survey.
1/Are you male/female?
2/How many hours do you spend reading online news a week?
These questions are for each of the six websites
For the following questions, there will be a 5 point scale, 1 for “Totally agree” and 5 for” Totally Disagree”
1/ Do you find the Web site credible?
2/ Do you find the Web site competent?
3/Do you find the Web site trustworthy?
4/Do you find the Web site annoying?
5/ Do you find the ad intrusive?
6/ Do you find the ad irritating?
7/ Do you find the ad enjoyable?
8/Do you find the ad pleasant?
Professor Daryl Moen pointed out that the questions needed to be structured in a way to measure the different degrees of audience’s reaction rather than just to get them to answer Yes or No. I will also need to work on the layouts to make them more realistic and focused on one Web site layout with three ad positions for two different ads. This will help me to control better other factors and just focus on measuring how people will react to the ads when the content is changed and the placements are changed.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Week 4: April 20 to April 24
This week the ads on which I worked so far got critiqued by those who work on the Global Journalist magazine. I learned a lot from these critiques. Here are some notable criticisms that were particularly helpful.
The curves that I used for the International Press Institute and Reporters Sans Frontieres were not effective. The one in the ad for the International Press Institute was lengthy and the words were hard to read. The one in the ad for the Reporters Sans Frontieres was not in balance.
For the ad of Reporters Sans Frontieres, instead of having smaller text for the English translation of the French name, I should give equality for the two names. The solution is having the logo changing back and forth between French and English, which is what the RSF did themselves, in French, English, and Spanish. Due to the technical restraints of the site, I should not do this animation in Flash but a Gif animation instead.
The length for the ads should be less than 350 px, as the current ad with that length stretches the Web site.
There should be a way for the ads to tell the audience that if they click at the ads, they will be taken to the sites of these organizations.
The color for the ad of the International Federation of Journalists should be changed. The explanation for this organization should be changed also, as their own claim of being the world’s largest journalist organization could not be verified.
In other words, from the critiques I learned that my efforts to be artistic might not always be effective with the audience, if the type was hard to read. Also, the ads should be as intuitive as possible. For my audience, it might be not obvious for them that they could click at the ads to go to other Web sites.
I changed the first two ads for the International Press Institute and the Reporters Sans Frontieres based on the criticisms and to test whether I should follow suit with the other ads (I include the ads at the end of the entry). The reactions from my supervisor Pat Smith and my colleague Brian Schraum are quite positive and I will made further changes based on their suggestions and finish up the changes for other ads.
During this week, I also helped Sarah Khan in her video story of William Lobdell, a journalist who worked with the LA Times and covered religion. Khan managed to get an interview with Lobdell in the last minute and I shot his lecture.
The lecture however was very personal and not ideal for a global audience, as Lobdell discussed how he uncovered children’s sexual abuse in the Catholic church in the US specifically and ended up becoming an atheist. I also made the mistake of shooting the lecture and my tape ran out before it came to the more interesting part, which included the questions and answers between Lobdell and the audience.
So we decided to use Khan’s interview instead, as it had much better quotes about journalism and religion on a broad sense. I helped Khan in editing the story with Final Cut Express. Khan wanted to use all the quotes, but I said that I believed even though her questions were different, there were a couple of similar answers, and only the one which was more informative should be kept. Also sometimes a quote was lengthy but not of much substance
For some reasons, in my first capturing of Khan’s video, somehow the sound and the images did not match. Thanks to this difficulty though I learned from Lilian J. Kelly how to sync the sound and the images. However, it took us a lot of time and labor and both Kelly and I eventually decided that it would be much easier just to recapture it. To save time, I let Khan capture only the quotes she wanted to use for the video and from these clips, we edited further to the best bits of the interview.
In the byline, I let Khan's name stand as the one who compiled and edited the video, while I was the one who assisted her. I believe that she deserved the credit, as my footage was not usable in the video.
Also the fact that we shot and edited the video together successfuly encouraged two other students, despite having no or very little video experience, to approach me for their potential video stories which I considered a notable success.
Here are the evidences of my work in this week.
RESEARCH
My committee chair agreed with me that 15 Web sites for the survey are too many considering the number of answers the audience are going to have to answer and I decided to reduce the number of Web sites to 6. I finished working on 6 lay outs for 3 Web sites, each Web site with the ads on two positions: on the top and in the middle of the page, as these are the most desirable spots for advertising.
The curves that I used for the International Press Institute and Reporters Sans Frontieres were not effective. The one in the ad for the International Press Institute was lengthy and the words were hard to read. The one in the ad for the Reporters Sans Frontieres was not in balance.
For the ad of Reporters Sans Frontieres, instead of having smaller text for the English translation of the French name, I should give equality for the two names. The solution is having the logo changing back and forth between French and English, which is what the RSF did themselves, in French, English, and Spanish. Due to the technical restraints of the site, I should not do this animation in Flash but a Gif animation instead.
The length for the ads should be less than 350 px, as the current ad with that length stretches the Web site.
There should be a way for the ads to tell the audience that if they click at the ads, they will be taken to the sites of these organizations.
The color for the ad of the International Federation of Journalists should be changed. The explanation for this organization should be changed also, as their own claim of being the world’s largest journalist organization could not be verified.
In other words, from the critiques I learned that my efforts to be artistic might not always be effective with the audience, if the type was hard to read. Also, the ads should be as intuitive as possible. For my audience, it might be not obvious for them that they could click at the ads to go to other Web sites.
I changed the first two ads for the International Press Institute and the Reporters Sans Frontieres based on the criticisms and to test whether I should follow suit with the other ads (I include the ads at the end of the entry). The reactions from my supervisor Pat Smith and my colleague Brian Schraum are quite positive and I will made further changes based on their suggestions and finish up the changes for other ads.
During this week, I also helped Sarah Khan in her video story of William Lobdell, a journalist who worked with the LA Times and covered religion. Khan managed to get an interview with Lobdell in the last minute and I shot his lecture.
The lecture however was very personal and not ideal for a global audience, as Lobdell discussed how he uncovered children’s sexual abuse in the Catholic church in the US specifically and ended up becoming an atheist. I also made the mistake of shooting the lecture and my tape ran out before it came to the more interesting part, which included the questions and answers between Lobdell and the audience.
So we decided to use Khan’s interview instead, as it had much better quotes about journalism and religion on a broad sense. I helped Khan in editing the story with Final Cut Express. Khan wanted to use all the quotes, but I said that I believed even though her questions were different, there were a couple of similar answers, and only the one which was more informative should be kept. Also sometimes a quote was lengthy but not of much substance
For some reasons, in my first capturing of Khan’s video, somehow the sound and the images did not match. Thanks to this difficulty though I learned from Lilian J. Kelly how to sync the sound and the images. However, it took us a lot of time and labor and both Kelly and I eventually decided that it would be much easier just to recapture it. To save time, I let Khan capture only the quotes she wanted to use for the video and from these clips, we edited further to the best bits of the interview.
In the byline, I let Khan's name stand as the one who compiled and edited the video, while I was the one who assisted her. I believe that she deserved the credit, as my footage was not usable in the video.
Also the fact that we shot and edited the video together successfuly encouraged two other students, despite having no or very little video experience, to approach me for their potential video stories which I considered a notable success.
Here are the evidences of my work in this week.
RESEARCH
My committee chair agreed with me that 15 Web sites for the survey are too many considering the number of answers the audience are going to have to answer and I decided to reduce the number of Web sites to 6. I finished working on 6 lay outs for 3 Web sites, each Web site with the ads on two positions: on the top and in the middle of the page, as these are the most desirable spots for advertising.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Week 3: March 30, 2009 to April 3, 2009
This week I designed three ads: Committee of Concerned Journalists, Reporters Sans Frontieres, and International Federation of Journalists. I also made some changes to the previous ads.
Here are some principles I used to design my ads so far:
International Press Institute:
About the logo: At first, I put the initials IPI under the globe which is what the IPI often do. I then chose another treatment of the logo that the organization sometimes used on their website: putting the initials on the globe and the full name under it. This helped to give more white space. Also with the initials IPI standing separately from globe and the full name under it, a viewer’s attention is divided, as they struggle to decide whether their eyes should fall on the globe or the word IPI.
About the line” The global network is dedicated to press freedom”. I repeated the curve of the globe with curved line of the explanation of the IPI. At first I put the semi-circle upside down. I then decided against that, as I wanted to give the name “International Press Institute” more prominence, and with the semi-circle standing on its belly, it seems to hold up the name.
Committee to Protect Journalists
I put both the name and the explanation under the letters “C” and “P” to balance them out with the letter “J” which extends itself to the lower half of the logo.
The white line is to separate the logo from the explanation and focuses the viewer’s eyes on the upper part of the ad.
Committee of Concerned Journalists
http://www.bengal.missouri.edu/~cn9dd/nguyen/ccj.gif
The J in the ad of the Committee of Concerned Journalists extends both above and below the two C’s. Therefore, I put the explanation and the name on two different halves of the ad. I established clear ranking by making the name Committee of Concerned Journalists much bigger than the explanation.
Reporters Sans Frontieres
I made use of the 3 colors that RFS used black, white and red of the whole ad. Their activities “Investigate – Expose – Support” is made into a curve, to show that these three duties go hand in hand. And they all reflect the motto of the RSF which is put inside the curve.
International Federation of Jornalists
Before coming to this choice of colors I tried using the logo of the IFJ on a white background. I then switched to a pink color with the white outline of the logo, to make it look more interesting, while not sacrificing the necessary degree of color contrasts.
The name is put on a red background to repeat what the IFJ did on their own website. The explanation at first was in white. But the black-white contrast easily overshadows the color contrasts of the white name “International Federation of Journalists” on a red background. So, I switched to the pink on a black background instead. I always want to make sure that the full name of the organization must stand out more than the explanation, even though the explanation must still attract the attention.
During this week, Sarah Khan and I also attended the RJI’s discussion about Walter Williams. We shot from afar, and our camera is a small Canon camcorder (I think Canon HV20 HDV). We shot the whole event which lasted an hour, but it turned out that there was no sound in the footage. The lesson is that we can only use it to shoot at a short distance to be able to record sounds.
I went on with my research for the map for the World Watch. It was fairly easy to create a map and the text boxes fixed at the same places every time the map needs to be updated. The text box could be linked either a TXT or XML file. And another person who doesn’t know about Flash can simply copy the text in to this file.
However, Sean Patron, the IT trainer who I talked with last time and who is an experienced Flash coder, after his own attempts on my behalf , said that to make a map with different spots to be updated each time might need thousands of lines of codes. As not only one needs to create a database for all different countries, one also needs to do the coding so that the boxes for some countries will be hidden, while those of some others could be shown.
Another IT trainer recommended that I could instead make use of the Google Map API tutorial to learn how to embed and make use of the Google map on the website the way I want, without having to use an outside website. That is what I am going to study next.
RESEARCH
I began building up the questionnaire for the survey. In the proposal, I wrote that I would build three Web sites, with ad placements in 5 different positions. In other words, it means that I will need up to 5 versions for each Web site. It means that if for each Web site the readers needs to answer 10 questions, the total number of questions will be 150. I decided to ask my committee chair Daryl Moen for his opinions about this later on.
I got the questions so far based on the materials I had for my literature review, mostly studies on intrusive ads. The hardest part was coming up with questions to link the ad positions with attitudes towards the Web site, as past studies mostly focused on the content of the ads themselves. I decided that if the attitudes toward the same ad are different when the ad is in different positions, and this difference is consistent in different Web sites, there should be a relationship between the ad position and the attitude toward it
Here are some principles I used to design my ads so far:
International Press Institute:
About the logo: At first, I put the initials IPI under the globe which is what the IPI often do. I then chose another treatment of the logo that the organization sometimes used on their website: putting the initials on the globe and the full name under it. This helped to give more white space. Also with the initials IPI standing separately from globe and the full name under it, a viewer’s attention is divided, as they struggle to decide whether their eyes should fall on the globe or the word IPI.
About the line” The global network is dedicated to press freedom”. I repeated the curve of the globe with curved line of the explanation of the IPI. At first I put the semi-circle upside down. I then decided against that, as I wanted to give the name “International Press Institute” more prominence, and with the semi-circle standing on its belly, it seems to hold up the name.
Committee to Protect Journalists
I put both the name and the explanation under the letters “C” and “P” to balance them out with the letter “J” which extends itself to the lower half of the logo.
The white line is to separate the logo from the explanation and focuses the viewer’s eyes on the upper part of the ad.
Committee of Concerned Journalists
http://www.bengal.missouri.edu/~cn9dd/nguyen/ccj.gif
The J in the ad of the Committee of Concerned Journalists extends both above and below the two C’s. Therefore, I put the explanation and the name on two different halves of the ad. I established clear ranking by making the name Committee of Concerned Journalists much bigger than the explanation.
Reporters Sans Frontieres
I made use of the 3 colors that RFS used black, white and red of the whole ad. Their activities “Investigate – Expose – Support” is made into a curve, to show that these three duties go hand in hand. And they all reflect the motto of the RSF which is put inside the curve.
International Federation of Jornalists
Before coming to this choice of colors I tried using the logo of the IFJ on a white background. I then switched to a pink color with the white outline of the logo, to make it look more interesting, while not sacrificing the necessary degree of color contrasts.
The name is put on a red background to repeat what the IFJ did on their own website. The explanation at first was in white. But the black-white contrast easily overshadows the color contrasts of the white name “International Federation of Journalists” on a red background. So, I switched to the pink on a black background instead. I always want to make sure that the full name of the organization must stand out more than the explanation, even though the explanation must still attract the attention.
During this week, Sarah Khan and I also attended the RJI’s discussion about Walter Williams. We shot from afar, and our camera is a small Canon camcorder (I think Canon HV20 HDV). We shot the whole event which lasted an hour, but it turned out that there was no sound in the footage. The lesson is that we can only use it to shoot at a short distance to be able to record sounds.
I went on with my research for the map for the World Watch. It was fairly easy to create a map and the text boxes fixed at the same places every time the map needs to be updated. The text box could be linked either a TXT or XML file. And another person who doesn’t know about Flash can simply copy the text in to this file.
However, Sean Patron, the IT trainer who I talked with last time and who is an experienced Flash coder, after his own attempts on my behalf , said that to make a map with different spots to be updated each time might need thousands of lines of codes. As not only one needs to create a database for all different countries, one also needs to do the coding so that the boxes for some countries will be hidden, while those of some others could be shown.
Another IT trainer recommended that I could instead make use of the Google Map API tutorial to learn how to embed and make use of the Google map on the website the way I want, without having to use an outside website. That is what I am going to study next.
RESEARCH
I began building up the questionnaire for the survey. In the proposal, I wrote that I would build three Web sites, with ad placements in 5 different positions. In other words, it means that I will need up to 5 versions for each Web site. It means that if for each Web site the readers needs to answer 10 questions, the total number of questions will be 150. I decided to ask my committee chair Daryl Moen for his opinions about this later on.
I got the questions so far based on the materials I had for my literature review, mostly studies on intrusive ads. The hardest part was coming up with questions to link the ad positions with attitudes towards the Web site, as past studies mostly focused on the content of the ads themselves. I decided that if the attitudes toward the same ad are different when the ad is in different positions, and this difference is consistent in different Web sites, there should be a relationship between the ad position and the attitude toward it
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Week 2: March 23 – March 27
For this week, I began designing the advertisements for some press organizations for the Web site of the Global Journalist. I came out with the drafts of two ads, one for the International Press Institute and one for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
I used the Adobe Illustrator to trace the logos manually to reproduce the effects as accurately as possible. I decided to stick to one size for all the ads 250 pixels – 350 pixels, so that the layout will stay consistent.
In my first two drafts, I only had the logo and their full names in them. My supervisor Pat Smith’s recommendation was that I needed to have a short explanation of what the organizations were about. This is a valid point, although I originally assumed that it is quite clear with their names what they did.
However, as there are as many as eight organizations with somewhat similar functions, explanations will be useful to distinguish them one from the others. Jacob Nielsen * (2004) commented that users appreciate the ad that tells them what would happen when they click at it and presents enough information without making the reader having to leave the page.
On the other hand, I believe I will need to find the shortest explanations possible, because a lot of text on the ads is not helpful to keep a reader’s attention on the ads. I want to make the most of the shape of the logos to bring appeal to the ads.
I personally felt that my first attempts with the ads are a little simplistic. On the other hand, I am guarded against experimenting too much (for example with shapes and colors), as I am not sure how that will go down with the organizations. As I look at their Web sites, the way they advertise is also very simple.
I am also thinking about what I can do to improve the look of the site. One thing I noticed is many stories do not have photos to go with them. What I am thinking is whether I should create a library of maps of countries and territories. This is what the BBC’s Web site often does when they do not have photos, for example for breaking news stories, when the photos have not come in yet. They also use maps for the countries’ profiles.
*Nielsen, J. (2004) The most hated advertising techniques. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20041206.html
RESEARCH
I built my first Web site with 5 different versions for different ad positions. In this layout there is only text for the news stories and the ad is the only picture available on the Web site. There are 5 different positions for the ads: top, bottom, middle, left, and right. Below are the images of the bottom and top positions for the ads:
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