Extreme Makeover: "Wired for Writing" Edition

As previous visitors to this blog have undoubtedly noticed, I've made some drastic changes to its appearance recently.  After using my own variations of a basic Blogger template for almost a year, I've decided to update my blog's layout with Blogger's new Template Designer feature.

(image source)

Template Designer comes preloaded with an assortment of layouts, background images, and color schemes.  While I would like to one day create my own images from scratch, for the time being, I'm content to work with what Blogger has given me.

Originally, I tried to find a background image that was directly related to writing, technology, or psychology, but I couldn't find one that really fit the tone and subject matter of this blog.  I like the energy of the current background image, and it coordinates nicely with the color scheme of my portfolio.

Looking for a job, taking a course in Social Psychology (fun stuff), and finishing up my graduate work have taken much of my time recently, hence the lack of blog posts in recent months.  But I do enjoy blogging (and writing, in general), so I will try to stop being an absentee blogger.  In fact, I have just written a post, which will be published later today after I proof it.

I really like what I've done with the place, but what do you think?  Leave some feedback below.

Prepare to Merge: Streamlining My Interests Into One Blog

 
You may have noticed that I've added some posts to this blog that relate, in one way or another, to communication theory.  I want to take this opportunity to explain why I'm including them here and why I'm adding these posts now.

(photo: found here and used in accordance with a Creative Commons license)

My interests are many and varied, and when I can draw connections between them and share them with others, I'm thrilled.  However, when I first started this blog, I wasn't sure of the exact direction I wanted it to take and what kinds of topics I wanted to cover (apart from usability and psychology).

My original idea was to create two separate blogs: one for me to talk about usability, psychology, and related topics, and another for me to write about communication theory.  Then, one of my potential readers suggested that I try to incorporate my communication theory posts into this blog, a practice that would allow me to focus my energy on one blog and one readership rather than two.

I liked this idea, but then I wasn't sure how I would blend the two topics together in a way that really made sense and didn't seem forced.  Thus, for the past few months, I have kept notes on what I've wanted to say about communication theory and held off on finalizing and posting them until this week.

I think (or hope?) that I've done a good job of integrating communication theory and usability/psychology.  I've posted them according to the corresponding dates of my notes, and I've given them the label "theory" for easy retrieval.

I hope you enjoy my postings (and maybe even learn as much as I have during the process of writing them).  I also hope that you will continue down this road of the blogosphere with me.

As always, comments and questions are welcome.

Thank you.

Change is Good: How I've Revised My Blog Layout

 
As you can see, I've changed many of the attributes of my blog.  In this post, I will explain how and why I made these revisions.

First, let's look at how my blog looked before the changes were made.

When I first created this blog, I spent a considerable amount of time going through the templates and decided that the simplicity of Blogger's Minima template would allow the reader to focus on my content rather than extraneous graphics, and I thought that most of the other templates could be too easily identified as being Blogger templates.  Being the non-conformist that I am, not only did I want a template that didn't look so "ready-made," but I also wanted to change the default fonts and colors right away.  I thought that the titles and links should stand out, so I chose bold colors that would look particularly vibrant against the black background.  My original typeface choice was Trebuchet because it's clean and simple, and it also isn't as commonly used as typefaces like Times and Arial.

Then I looked at the possible edits that I could make from the "Page Elements" section of the "Layout" settings page in Blogger.  Here's how it looked after my changes:

 

I was thrilled to find a gadget that made a cloud out of my labels, and I thought that the "Search" functionality and "Subscription" buttons would increase the usability of my blog.  I also changed some of the titles of the sidebar gadgets in order to make them sound like something I might say (as opposed to generic titles), and I added a little blurb about me so that people have some idea who's writing these posts.

In addition, I moved the default location of the attribution, time posted, and labels for the posts to the bottom of the posts to the top.  This way, the reader will know, upfront, who wrote the post, when it was written, and the topics it covers. 

Next, I decided that something had to be done about the column width of my posts.  In my search for guidance on this matter, I found an article called "Displaying Text on the Web: Are Narrow Columns Better?" that detailed a study on people's preferences for things like column width and typeface.  The writers found that people strongly preferred 400pt. and 640pt. column widths and that there was no significant difference in preference/readability between the Times and Verdana typefaces.  With that information in mind, I changed the column width of my posts to 640pt. by changing the appropriate CSS settings.  The result is shown below.

After that, I decided to play around with my color scheme and add a header graphic to my blog:

 

In my Visual Design class, I learned that you should aim to have no more than two colors (aside from black and white) in your website design.  I had three: green, blue, and purple.  I thought that, while I liked this color combination, it would be better to eliminate the green because it didn't go as well with the other colors nearly as well as blue and purple looked together.

When I designed my header graphic, I wanted to convey the idea that traditional ideas about communication and text were being reevaluated in the context of New Media and the Internet.  To accomplish this goal, I took old-style text (similar to that created carefully by hand in the Middle Ages and Renaissance) and made it appear as if it was being viewed on a CRT monitor.  After I uploaded the image, I edited my CSS settings to remove the light gray border that formerly appeared around the blog's title.

Finally, I decided to change the default font in my blog to Times:

 

I changed my font to Times because I wanted to continue the theme of "the old being viewed in the context of the new."  Times has been a standard font in newspapers and magazines for decades, and I wanted to see how the "feel" of my content would change when presented in this typeface.  Right now, I think it helps to establish a sense of authority that helps to balance the light-hearted nature of many of my posts.  We'll see how I feel as time goes on.

As I learn more about HTML and CSS, I may test out my new skills by making some more changes to my blog's code.  Stay tuned!

What do you think of my changes?  Let me know!

Why am I here (in the blogosphere)?

The technology we create -- whether it's a website, a computer program, or an electronic device -- is invariably a reflection of ourselves. Some pieces of technology resonate with their users and stand the test of time, and they are refined as the science behind them becomes more advanced. Others, however, fall by the wayside shortly after their release and are ultimately forgotten.

In this blog, I will attempt to go "through the looking-glass," as it were, to analyze what lies behind such technically-based reflections of ourselves. In particular, I am looking to determine what makes the design of technology effective from a usability standpoint and what such characteristics say about human psychology. As I feel that I, psychologically, am "wired" to write (and since I am also "wired" in the digital sense), I have chosen to take to the blogosphere to share my views and findings.

In my postings, I will be drawing from my educational background in English, Computer Science, and Professional and Technical Communication, as well as from my readings and coursework in the field of Psychology. As I am an avid user of technology, I will also undoubtedly be inspired by my own day-to-day experiences. If you leave comments on my postings, perhaps I can use some of your thoughts as springboards for postings, as well.

See you "on the other side."

(Image: public domain)