I attended the workshop of "Edge: The Product Family" at Ballantine Hall Room 117 on Thursday, February 28th, at 1:00PM-3:00PM. This time, not a staff of IUB library but a guest from Adobe, Tim Plumer Jr., provided the workshop.
Don't worry even if you don't know what Edge is. You are not alone! Edge is a quite new product series of Adobe. That is why the company sent out somebody to tell us about the products. The good news is that most of the products are, for now, free!!! You can download them from here: http://html.adobe.com/edge/
I really began to love the Edge series. I especially love Edge Animation. I will explain why it is so attractive for me and would be attractive for many other people.
Before talking about the main point, let me talk little bit about my background. I know how to code. I created this website, http://mypage.iu.edu/~ktomita/, without using Adobe Dreamweaver. I can create websites just with a simple text editor such as Notepad. Oh, and I used Photoshop to change the size of the picture :)
I actually use HTML for this blog too!
However, if you ask me to create an animation, I need to use Adobe Flash to create a flash animation. Or I can use another software to create a gif animation. My point is, I don't know how to code flash.
For some reasons, I really don't love Adobe Flash. Actually, I don't like flash itself very much. It is ugly technology in some respects. Probably that's why Steve Jobs decided not to show flash in iPhone or iPad. Adobe and Apple were in a bad relationship because of his decision!
However, now Adobe began to shift from flash. The beginning of the new story is Edge. The technology is amazing. Edge Animation creates animation without flash. Only with HTML and Javascript!!! How did they do that!!!
I was about to update my knowledge of Adobe Flash by watching Linda.com videos as I'm not confident with the current version. Especially if the software is in English! Yet, I decided not to learn Adobe Flash anymore. It will be waste of time. I now decided to learn Adobe Edge Animation.
No one have to install flash player to play Edge animations. You do not feel stressed by the loading time! In the future, no one would use flash. It will disappear from any environment just like iPhone or iPad does not show it. Steve Jobs predicted the future? Or he might be the inventor of the future.
The series of story reminds me of my favorite quote from Alan Kay. "Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do… The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Really smart people with reasonable funding can do just about anything that doesn't violate too many of Newton's Laws!" (Kay, 1971).
I love the quote not just because his family name sounds like my first name :)
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
[Week 8] Layout Design
I attended the workshop of "Page Design & Layout Basics" at the IUB Library Information Commons (IC103) STEPS Classroom on Tuesday, February 19th, at 1:30PM-4:30PM. As an individual who likes to create websites such as http://dossier.hannnari.com, and as a individual who hopes to start a business of good looking learning materials, both electronic and paper-based, I was really excited about the workshop.
Here are things we need to consider in order to create a good looking and user-friendly layout and I would introduce examples from each category:
Although it would not be easy to consider everything above, it is still good to be careful about the elements when we think about the layout design!
Here are things we need to consider in order to create a good looking and user-friendly layout and I would introduce examples from each category:
- Contrast: Black is the first place the reader looks.
- Repetition: Headers and footers should be consistent on all pages.
- Alignment: Misaligned elements look unprofessional and break up the flow
- Proximity: Putting several clusters on a page makes reading quicker and more navigable.
- Direction: Our eyes tend to follow lines.
- Proportion: Choose what is important and make it dominant.
- Restraint: Too many typefaces confuse the design.
- Detail: Tighter tracking works for larger type sizes.
Although it would not be easy to consider everything above, it is still good to be careful about the elements when we think about the layout design!
Friday, February 15, 2013
[Week 7] Decision on Tool Selection
I attended the workshop of "Illustrator CS6: The Basics" at the IUB Library Information Commons (IC103) STEPS Classroom on Tuesday, February 12th, at 1:30PM-4:30PM. Although I have used Photoshop for more than ten years, this was the first time for me to learn how to use Illustrator. While Photoshop could be purchased separately as a single product, Illustrator is always set with something else and the set of the products is really expensive. Anyway......
The workshop was really interesting. It was most interesting that while Photoshop draws pictures with dots, Illustrator draws pictures with path. Path consists of points and angles. While pictures created from dots have absolute sizes, pictures created from path, or points and angles, are flexible in terms of size. In other words, pictures drawn with Illustrator can be enlarged or shrunk without losing the quality.
Our group agreed that we hope to convey professional atmosphere throughout the lesson. Also, it was pointed out during the group meeting that one of the key components of professional atmosphere is the consistency of visual design. In order to keep the consistency of visual design, using the same pictures for different parts of the lessons might be one strategy. If so, it would be safer to draw pictures using Illustrator because we can freely change the size of the image according to the size of the space.
I had only one choice of tool, Photoshop, to draw a picture. However, now I have two choices, Photoshop and Illustrator. Drawing a picture from a scratch would be appropriate to be done with Illustrator more because of the reason above. Photoshop, of course, is better at modifying photos. If there is the availability and choices of tools, we can decide which tool would fit for certain purposes.
What I feel now is it would be smarter to acquire skills of how to use tools as much as possible as time allows. I'm still 24, although I would be 25 on March 4th!, and I would have plenty of opportunities to use the skills. Time to be used for the learning of the skills would be payed off easily for the rest of my life!
Now, I'd like to conclude this post with a favorite quote of this week: "Emotion drives attention, and attention drives learning" (Robert Sylwester, 1995).
The workshop was really interesting. It was most interesting that while Photoshop draws pictures with dots, Illustrator draws pictures with path. Path consists of points and angles. While pictures created from dots have absolute sizes, pictures created from path, or points and angles, are flexible in terms of size. In other words, pictures drawn with Illustrator can be enlarged or shrunk without losing the quality.
Our group agreed that we hope to convey professional atmosphere throughout the lesson. Also, it was pointed out during the group meeting that one of the key components of professional atmosphere is the consistency of visual design. In order to keep the consistency of visual design, using the same pictures for different parts of the lessons might be one strategy. If so, it would be safer to draw pictures using Illustrator because we can freely change the size of the image according to the size of the space.
I had only one choice of tool, Photoshop, to draw a picture. However, now I have two choices, Photoshop and Illustrator. Drawing a picture from a scratch would be appropriate to be done with Illustrator more because of the reason above. Photoshop, of course, is better at modifying photos. If there is the availability and choices of tools, we can decide which tool would fit for certain purposes.
What I feel now is it would be smarter to acquire skills of how to use tools as much as possible as time allows. I'm still 24, although I would be 25 on March 4th!, and I would have plenty of opportunities to use the skills. Time to be used for the learning of the skills would be payed off easily for the rest of my life!
Now, I'd like to conclude this post with a favorite quote of this week: "Emotion drives attention, and attention drives learning" (Robert Sylwester, 1995).
Thursday, February 7, 2013
[Week 6] Motivation and Visual Design
My research interest is the effects of perceived visual attractiveness of learning materials on learning motivation. So, motivation is a keyword of my research interest.
Because of the research interest, the section of "II. Text and Graphics" in Keller and Burkman (1993) attracted my attention most. However, the second paragraph of the section made me really depressed.
This section is based on the assumption that the careful use of text features such as type, graphics, page design, and language can help influence motivation to learn, although primary emphasis remains on teaching methods and the content to be taught. Since the research base regarding motivating learners via the courseware media (whether print, video, computer, or other means) is not adequate, we must draw upon the experience and opinions of expert practitioners for principles relating motivation to text and graphics. Such experts include writers, graphic designers, and designers of print instructional materials. (Keller & Burkman, 1993, p. 30)
Even the famous Keller depends on non-researchers!!!
What makes me even more depressed is the fact that there is no agreed way to measure motivation. My adviser suggested me to read an article because it measures motivation. The tool the study used to measure motivation was the Technology Acceptance Model. However, I'm not convinced the validity of the method.
Anyone knows about research on the relationship between motivation and visual design? Or on how to measure motivation?
There seem to be enough motivational strategies. I'd like to learn about research on motivation not practices!
Because of the research interest, the section of "II. Text and Graphics" in Keller and Burkman (1993) attracted my attention most. However, the second paragraph of the section made me really depressed.
This section is based on the assumption that the careful use of text features such as type, graphics, page design, and language can help influence motivation to learn, although primary emphasis remains on teaching methods and the content to be taught. Since the research base regarding motivating learners via the courseware media (whether print, video, computer, or other means) is not adequate, we must draw upon the experience and opinions of expert practitioners for principles relating motivation to text and graphics. Such experts include writers, graphic designers, and designers of print instructional materials. (Keller & Burkman, 1993, p. 30)
Even the famous Keller depends on non-researchers!!!
What makes me even more depressed is the fact that there is no agreed way to measure motivation. My adviser suggested me to read an article because it measures motivation. The tool the study used to measure motivation was the Technology Acceptance Model. However, I'm not convinced the validity of the method.
Anyone knows about research on the relationship between motivation and visual design? Or on how to measure motivation?
There seem to be enough motivational strategies. I'd like to learn about research on motivation not practices!
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