To round out a project-filled semester, my digital portfolio is complete! My portfolio includes information about myself, my career aspirations, work samples, and my resume.
http://amyclawrence16.wix.com/amylawrence
Bloggin' It Like It Is
Monday, December 16, 2013
Monday, December 2, 2013
The Ultimate Branding Tool
Branding is a familiar and necessary marketing tool in the communications world. But perhaps the most important thing to brand is oneself. A website provides an effective and simplistic format for an individual to brand oneself and that is what I'll aim to do in my webpage.
I seek to create a digital portfolio with the hopes of
achieving many future goals I have set.
My site objectives are to produce a searchable website that showcases my
communication skills necessary for a career after graduation. I would like my site to display writing
samples, my resume, and work samples from previous courses and internships to
display my proficiency in communication studies.
With aspirations to be a press secretary on Capitol Hill, my
audience is any potential employer in a Congressional office in Washington,
D.C. They, as the user, will need
to be able to easily navigate my site in order to quickly determine my
potential as an employee. My
audience would need to know a little about myself, including education level
and previous experience, in addition to what programs and platforms I am
capable of working with. Most
importantly, I will need a way for users to contact me with questions (and
potential job offers!).
The scope of my website is important as I begin to build it
from the ground up. I could embed
a professional Twitter account, Instagram, and LinkedIn page to showcase social
media skills. A contact form and
my resume are definite necessities for a successful webpage. I also would like to include writing
samples from previous internships, which include public relations blog posts,
social media posts, and press releases.
Other work samples would include papers written on the topic of
government from my political science classes. Digital media can be provided from the slideshow created in
Digital Communications in addition to photos taken while on a study away trip
which visited 13 countries in 108 days.
Displaying photos can show my abilities to use Photoshop professionally,
as well as capture important moments.
Here are a few website designs that were really aesthetically pleasing to me!
I like this Pilates Site's social media icons in the top left corner. |
The simplicity of Stapleton's site exudes class and creativity! |
Jason James's portfolio displays his subcategories uniquely. |
The design of A Naturally-Aged Story invites their audience warmly. |
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
People, People, Lots of People!
People are good for a multitude of things. One of those things is intelligently
reading webpages for their needs. Redish
describes how “Writing Web Content That Works” is crucial in creating a
webpage. The audience is hands
down the most important part when making a webpage so you must understand them
before you start.
Seven steps to understanding your audiences: (3)
- List your major audiences.
- Gather information about your audiences.
- List major characteristics for each audience.
- Gather your audiences’ questions, tasks, and stories.
- Use your information to create personas.
- Include the persona’s goals and tasks.
- Use your information to write scenarios for your site.
Above is a homepage from Epic PR Group based in Alexandria,
Virginia. Originally, I sought the
webpage because it wasn’t very functional, was difficult to navigate, and was
extremely hard to find what you were looking for. But to my surprise, the website has completely been redone
since I have interned for the public relations firm. The navigation bar at the top of the page provides shortcuts
titled ‘Who We Are,’ ‘What We Do,’ ‘What We Think,’ ‘What You Need to Know,’
and ‘Contact Us.’ Overall, I think
the redesign is mainly positive. What else does the site do well?
Despite a redesign, I still think their website could use a
bit more of a user-friendly interface.
There is no search bar and it isn’t obvious at a first glance that Epic
is a public relations firm. They
do provide a unique ‘Stay Informed’ form at the bottom, but who knows what you’re
really signing up for? What other improvements do you think Epic
could have made?
Monday, November 18, 2013
The User Experience
The Elements of User
Experience, written by Jesse James Garrett, explains how to best build
technology with the user in mind.
The first chapter focuses broadly on “The Elements of User Experience”
and the second chapter narrows its view to display the details behind the
specific elements.
Garrett begins with defining user experience as “the
experience the product creates for the people who use it in the real world,”
(6). A bit obvious, I know, but I
felt it necessary for the audience to understand the central focus of the book:
the user.
One of the more important points he makes in the chapter
proves that product design matters. The product must be functional, or who
would want to use it? There are
far more companies who could perfect a mediocre idea and turn it into a million
dollar business before you could even blink. Therefore it’s most important that the product be user
friendly and easy to operate.
Another important factor in webpage design is a company’s
success in gaining capital. In order
to be a good business, your users have to have a positive experience. If you want a good ROI, or return on
investment, the product design must warrant customer support (13).
Ultimately, the user-centered design is a simple idea, but one
that is more complex in execution (17).
Can you think of a product that
was design with the user in mind? What about one that needed a remodel after customer feedback?
Garrett’s second chapter touches on The Five Planes. “These five planes…provide a conceptual
framework for talking about user experience problems and the tools we use to
solve them,” (21).
- The Surface Plane
- The Skeleton Plane
- The Structure Plane
- The Scope Plane
- The Strategy Plane
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
The iPhone Rises
For my video project, I chose to focus on the climb of the iPhone to success and how Furman students utilize social media on a daily basis. In a world where iPhone has become synonymous with cell phone, I set out to determine how our generation sees the digital world differently.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Online Editing for Dummies
Brian Carroll’s Writing
for Digital Media devotes an entire chapter to “Getting It Right: Online
Editing, Designing and Publishing.”
The chapter opening proclaims, “online publishing is not at
all like editing for print, at least in terms of job responsibilities,”
(120). Luckily for us, Carroll
lays out eight key points to step-by-step edit online.
- Identify the readers and the purpose of the content: Focus mainly on the needs of the reader
- Define document structure and links: Make sure the website is easy to navigate
- Define the style: Use templates and keep it consistent
- Edit: Editing chunks of randomly spread information is more effective than reading start to finish
- Copyedit: Search diligently for typos and misspellings
- Copyedit (again!): Utilize other sources this time, such as dictionaries, stylebooks, or encyclopedias
- Write headlines: Headlines are necessary for quick skimming and finding useful information
- Test usability: Navigation should be easy and make sense for your content
Another concept Carroll dives into is multimedia
storytelling. The two necessary
skill sets for editors include XHTML coding and being proficient in multimedia
(128). These two ar
e most
important when it comes to telling your digital story, but the Poynter
Institute’s Eyetrack studies reveal four succinct characteristics of first-rate
multimedia presentations (129).
1.
Short is better.
2.
Interactive is better.
3.
Personal (or local or hyperlocal) is preferred.
4.
Navigability is central.
So, can you think of
any well-designed webpages? Which characteristics make it that way?
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Do You See What I See?
John S. Douglass and Glenn P. Harnden focus on “Point of
View” in their work, The Art of
Technique: An Aesthetic Approach to Film and Video Production. The authors meticulously explain the
perspective of the storyteller and the best approaches to telling a story. Decisions must be made to determine how
to best display a perspective in the most effective manner and Douglass and
Harnden walk the reader through it.
First Person
First person is most useful in narratives. “Presenting the ‘truth’ about events is
probably most credible as a first person, eyewitness account” (32). When telling of an event that a
character witness himself, a “direct, personal expression,” works best (32).
The technique used most often is a voice-over narration. A first person narrative lets a viewer
know what a character is thinking or feeling at a moment in time. It also allows viewers to more easily
characterize the narrator in their role.
How does a first person narration
enable the story line to progress more quickly?
Second Person
The second person in productions is often deemed “you” as
the viewer in the audience. The
authors elucidate on their point with examples such as, “This is how you do such-and-such. This is of concern to you and you and you,” making the
plot significant to the audience (34).
Cinema verite operates on a platform somewhere between first
and second person. Its unique
style introduces the camera as a participant in the story, rather than an “invisible
observer” (34). Can you think of an example where cinema
verite is used?
Third Person
The majority of productions are made in third person. “The actions of characters and people
on the screen are rendered from an observer’s point of view, but this point of
view is not omniscient,” (35). There are still things left unknown for
both the audience and observer to uncover.
The authors end the section with a powerful, although
seemingly obvious message. “When
choosing a point of view, the best choice
is the one that tells the story in the most compelling way,” (38).
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