Multimodal Documents

source: www.myspace.com/lambofgod

source: www.friendster.com/25341091

What does multimodal mean?
MSN Encarta:
multi - more than one or two
modal - the form in which something exists

Hence, documents that contain more than one or two forms of materials. For example, Internet sites like the ones above (click on the image or link for a better view).

Advantages of Multimodal Documents
Maureen Walsh identifies multimodal documents as those that contain more than one type of mode and allow readers to read in a non-linear pathway. MySpace and Friendster are examples of online networking sites which make use of words, (static and moving) visuals and sounds.

MySpace vs. Friendster
MySpace has been a boon for musicians and artistes because you are allowed you to upload videos and songs (before Friendster allowed so). By messaging you to check out their profile page, they are inviting you to listen to their songs and watch their videos. They are indirectly saying they want you to be part of their community. Click on the Lamb of God MySpace link above and see for yourself.

Friendster is not that different. It's more like networking on a peer to peer level instead. As the name suggests, people want to forge online communities with one another.

Visitors to your profile page can click on a song to play, an image to view or a video to watch. They can read your likes and dislikes. They can visit the links you recommend. They have freedom to choose and not follow in a rigid sequence like a usual novel. The ability to engage was what Walsh deemed important.

But first, how to grab their attention?
If you noticed, Friendster and MySpace use profile templates with the display image appearing on the top left hand corner of the page. Diana Reep described this as the 'Sequence' or reading pathways that people always adopt. Items placed on the top left corner grab our attention first. Additionally, we tend to scan documents from left to right and up to down.

Try it out. Count the number of times you see a provocative headline or attention grabbing picture placed on the top left hand corner of a document.

From print to electronic
Interestingly, the first time I read Rebecca Blood's essay (which I mentioned in the post Much Ado About Blogs, Bloggers and Blogging) was in the book 'Living in the Information Age' edited by Erik P. Bucy. It's now available online and it includes links to the various sites and authors she mentioned. Information is just a click away. That is the much-lauded difference between print and electronic mediums. Interactivity.

Alert! Top 5 "No-No's" in Web Design

I feel ashamed of myself.

I completely forgot some of the basic rules of setting up websites. Read: Search engine friendly. As how Homer Simpson says it, "Doh!"

Hence, the boring but absolutely necessary heading of 'Document Design and Publication'. Makes it so much easier for users to find, yeah?

The notion of bad websites gives me ideas of Internet Police going round giving warnings to those who don't adhere to fundamental web design rules. Well, I came across one site which slams websites which they think are just bad. However, please don't click on the link if you can't stand very straightforward language.

I shall only highlight 5 points from Jakob Nielsen's Top Ten Design Mistakes In Weblogs (mostly for reasons that I actually have something to comment on).

1. Forgetting That You Write For Your Future Boss
This is quite freaky. Freedom of Speech ain't really Freedom of Speech. Someone I know was dismissed from his job because he ranted about his colleague on his blog. I can't say whose fault it was because his colleague did make some wrongful allegations about him to make him frustrated enough to rant. However, it pays to not say anything incriminating. After all, if Neil Swidey says you can Google your date, your prospective employer can Google you.

2. Mixing Topics
I agree that it's easier to get a loyal following if you have a tight focus on your blog. Maybe that's why a friend of mine manages a few blogs from one email account. I can't imagine putting up recipes and technology reviews together on one blog. Makes me kinda worried that this blog focuses on too many different aspects...

3. Irregular Publishing Frequency
I never really found this a problem. I usually visit my friends' blogs when I want to. I'll just read whatever posts they have up. This leads to me to visiting their blogs sporadically. Nevertheless, this is a problem if you're serious about blogging. Sporadic visits won't help increase blog readership, will it? Set aside a day just for blogging. It might even be cathartic after a hectic week at work/school.

4. No Author Biographies
Nielsen thinks it's about trust. I just think most of us are nosey. Like how you google or yahoo a certain actor/actress from a movie you've just watched. Most human beings are social creatures. We crave familiarity. Remember, if people love your blog, people love to know more about you.

5. No Author Photo
This is linked to point 4. It's definitely better to see a face on top of the biography. However, anyone can just save your photo and post it up somewhere else. Or even masquerade as you. Over the weekend, The New Paper ran a story about how some domestic helpers used their employers' pictures on an online dating site to find for prospective husbands.

Maybe those helpers were really lonely and hope for a better life. Not everyone's like them. You got to believe that anyone can just malign you. Remember point 1, your prospective employer/date/in-laws can look you up on the Internet and believe what was said.

Besides, it may be more artistic to show a blurred or cropped image of you.

Lost? Hope this helps.

To my horror, friends without a Communications background are quite lost whenever I mentioned 'document design' to them. Therefore, I've decided to give a bit of explanation based on my own observations as to what 'document design', etc means.

Document Design
Many people would immediately think of MS Word when they see the word 'document'. Scrap that.

Document refers to:

• any given piece of material that contains information
  
• even paintings can be thought of documents because they contain information that the artist wishes to portray to viewers

Design refers to:

• how the creator positions the elements within that material so that it conveys a certain message.
  
• think advertisements, television programmes, newspapers, books, websites, just to name a few

Electronic Publishing
I'm one of those people who'd rather sit in front of my PC and watch videos on YouTube or Peekvid than watch TV. Since MTV Asia doesn't normally feature the heavy rock/metal music videos I like, I normally download them here.

It's about convenience. It's about being able to do what you want at your own time. Even Jakob Nielsen mentioned how important convenience is nowadays in his website.

New Media Developments and Technologies
CeBIT Germany 2007. Singapore IT Show at Suntec City. 3GSM World Congress at Barcelona. They all feature the latest in Information Technology. At the 3GSM World Congress, we see mobile phones as also cameras, PDAs and walkmans.

Haven't you heard? Singapore's going wireless. Just invest in a laptop and you can chat online with your friends or surf the Internet anytime and anywhere with wireless connection.

It ain't just about the television, radio or newspapers anymore.

Genre Analysis
This is a blog and one of the many genres or categories of published content on the Internet. In turn all media are divided and subdivided into categories for easy identification. We can then immediately process certain information based on the categories such media are classified into.

Happy reading.

Much ado about blogs, bloggers and blogging.

Conveniently, blogs are electronically published media. What is a better way to teach students about a topic than to get them to actively engage in it?

You really have to applaud the powers that be for their ingenuity.

Anyway, back to the post.

For quite long, I had the distinct impression that blogs are just online personal diaries. That was until I came across a Yahoo! highlight last year about the increasing number of personal finance blogs. Admittedly, some blogs contained one-off posts on being debt-free, while others were wholly committed to dispensing financial advice. These just skim the surface of the wide possibilities of current blogs.

What is a blog?
According to Rebecca Blood, there were only a few blogs in 1998. She observed that then, blogs were often a means to update daily happenings for others interested to read them. Since 1998, blogs have proliferated to astonishing numbers. Jakob Nielsen attributed this to the fact that blogs are so much easier to set up than websites. In a March 2006 article of The Observer, Technorati claimed to track some 29 million blogs.

In his online introduction to blog neophytes, David DeJean substantiated such observations when he explained that blogging is still considered a relatively new phenomenon to be thought of as personal platforms rather than for other purposes.

Is that all to blogging?
As the trend goes, personal anecdotes about what happened on your way to work isn't everything that blogs can contain. Blood stated that bloggers have used their blogs to learn; and even improve on writing and analytical skills. DeJean also quoted Lilia Efimova who highlighted other benefits of blogging. Efimova gave the following observations in her blog Mathemagenic:

• Publishing
  A blog is a great platform for public access and wide reach. And get due recognition.
• Managing personal information
  Many bloggers use their blogs as notebooks to capture data and impressions, to document ideas and experiences, and to organise links and references. Essentially, a good information resource - for you and any others out there.
• Dialogue and networking
  Blogs are a place to get feedback on ideas, to initiate conversations, and to make contacts based on common interests. (To get an idea, read point 5 raised by Penelope Trunk's Networking for People Who Hate Networking.)
• Learning
  A blog helps its blogger learn by staying updated, articulating and organising ideas, participating in conversations, and being part of a community, as well as sharpening writing, communication, research, and technology skills.

What does this mean?
Tim Anderson claimed that Blogging is on the brink of a new phase. While still predominantly treated as online personal diaries, many blogs now offer (i) critiques on current affairs presented in the media; and (ii) various industry practices; even (iii) personal advice and; (iv) reviews on just about anything.

Even The Straits Times Digital Life has advised readers on how to set up a blog as you can see below. (Due to copyright reasons, I can't include the full article.)





source: The Straits Times Digital Life Mar 20, 2007

So, what are you waiting for? Get going!

Introduction

I'm uber excited and absolutely bursting for joy to get the chance to deliver my observations on topics related to (i) document design principles; (ii) electronic publishing; (iii) new media developments and technologies; which (iv) genre analysis seeks to encapsulate.

...

I'm glad you didn't fall for that one.

Seriously, I am a student of University of South Australia where the creation of this blog is a required assignment for the offshore program. Here, you will find issues related to the above mentioned topics.

As you know, ubiquitous information is being published before your very eyes every single day. So,

• How did Document A grab your attention but not Document B?
• How did you decide which information to process or dismiss?
• When are you more receptive to certain presented information?
• How are elements from different media categories used to engage you?
• What are the uses for new media such as blogs?

Well, this blog purports to answer all those questions (and more). Hopefully, you will gain more insight into the current information age and what the future may bring. May this blog prove to be a useful link to the vast knowledge resources out there.

p/s: Please comment! Your views are greatly welcomed and appreciated. (: