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