Wendy White

Last time I posted here, I critiqued the concept that we should all become programmers. Instead, I suggested that interface literacy was the key to giving people the power they need to make informed decisions about current technologies.

Today, I've come across this article - Teaching Digital Literacy - which includes a video featuring Douglas Rushkoff talking about the subject of his new book Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age.

I'm currently trying to purchase a copy of the eBook to get a better understanding of the arguments Rushkoff is making (the vendor, OR Books, keeps 404-ing when I try to pay - nice work*). I still have issues with the terminology used, but the point he makes that the digital medium is just as full of bias as television, print and radio is really valuable. And that bias is not made up only of the content itself, but the actual method in which the content is shared.

Will post a follow-up here when I've had a chance to sit down and spend some quality time with the book. (If OR Books manages to fix their website.)

*UPDATE 29th Jan: I emailed them regarding the payment issue; still unable to pay via PayPal, and their non-PayPal payment method is not handled with a sufficient level of security, so I won't be purchasing the book for a while longer. Still, I have found this free sample chapter. And ooh, ooh. I have something to say about this. Next time.

We use technology to create content. Literacy is a measure of how well you can create, contextualise, and accurately interpret content.

That content could be updating your status on a social network. It could be your SmartRider card logging your daily trips. We are all generating data, telling stories, leaving imprints with our technology - be it pens and paper or binary code in a machine.

In his article Programming is the New Literacy, Marc Prensky postulates that knowing how to write programming code will become an essential skill. You will not be considered literate without it.

It is an interesting argument. But I think he is somewhat confused about the nature of programming.

A computer is a tool requiring both hardware and software. This is where the confusion lies. Prensky confuses the language of software with the language of human thought. But software, while written using a 'language', does not communicate human ideas. It communicates machine ideas. Software itself is a construction - it is a tool made out of code. And just as we are not required to build a telephone to be considered capable of holding a discussion, we will not all be required to build software to be considered literate in computer interfaces.

The author also seems to confuse interface literacy with programming. Examples provided of programming performed by teens are things like "downloading a ringtone" or "customizing your mobile phone or desktop". This is not programming. This is understanding how to use a tool - much like understanding how to change the ambient temperature of your refrigerator.

I love programming (well, on good days) but do I think it will become a required skill? No. Do I think interface literacy will become an essential communication skill? Yes! Eventually. Just as we are required to understand how to use pen and paper in order to write essays in Year 10 English Literature.

You might think I'm being pedantic. Listen, this is me being pedantic: Flash is not a programming language! It is a piece of software! Actionscript is the 'programming language' used by Flash. That said, you may hear  old-school programmers refer to it as 'scripting' rather than 'programming' due to it not needing to be compiled amongst other things (Okay, one of the 'other things': True programming languages usually let you write any sort of utility you want. While I could make a game or short animation with Actionscript, I could not write a boot loader with it - hat-tip to Pixelseeker for the example).

Yes. Now I am being somewhat pedantic.

Towards the end of the article Prensky re-defines programming as 'the ability to control machines'. While the semantics make me cry (oh, fine, not really, at most they add another micro-twitch to the nervous tic I'm working on to increase my nerd cred) I agree completely with the message. The abillity to control our society's current, predominant technologies is vital for any individual.

Once upon a time, our latest technologies were zippers and velcro. Today, computer interfaces. We need to understand these in the same way we need to understand how to use a zipper; if we fail, we'll end up looking like a bit of a dunce.

Reading this;

The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers—conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear. Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.

The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.

All our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed through one of the senses—the tactile when we touch keys, the oral when we speak or listen, the visual when we read. Is it not possible that some day the path may be established more directly?

Is there a difference between the way an organisation and an individual should conduct themselves on the internet? Both are projecting an identity. Both are aware of how they want to be seen, how people see them, and how their actions can influence the latter. Should they behave differently online?

Yes. They should. But don’t stop there. The distinction isn’t between whether you are an organisation or an individual. The distinction lies in the difference between what is successful, and what isn’t. And we all have different factors which determine our success.

Maybe your company considers success to be a ten percent increase on web subscriptions after changing the way you promote your videos online. Maybe you consider your personal interactions on a social networking site successful if at least 80% of the updates you see from your network are interesting or useful to you.

It is that end result, what you are online for in the first place, that should determine your approach – not your classification as an organisation, individual, animal or mineral.

I’m always leery when I hear advice that provides a single strategy for a single communication technology.

No matter where you are, there are only two rules to follow;

1. If it isn’t worth reading/watching, don’t post it, and
2. Don’t be a jerk

Success on Twitter

1. Is worth viewing, and
2. Isn’t being a jerk

Cop-out ending

When you link to an event via blog post or Facebook, will it matter to you if that link ceases to work a few weeks later? How about a few years?

Is the description page for an event that happened in 2005 going to be worth preserving in 2020? Is it data glut or a useful historical resource?

Today I received a message along these lines from our web content editor;

"There's something wrong with our website - Google searches on our events turn up ones that have happened as well as ones we are planning!"

We're in the really exciting stages of re-developing the museum's information architecture at present. I haven't written much about it until now just because I've been so busy organising all of the testing sessions and co-ordinating the volunteers and full-time staff who are helping out with the project, but here's a little background. I'm hoping I can share some useful information about our research process when things are a little quieter.

The background
Our website has evolved over the many years it has existed - in the early days, staff would come to the web developer's desk, dump a large stack of paper in front of him, and then ask if he could "put these on the internet, please".

The stacks of paper tend to be emails and PDFs these days, and the website has moved from a pure HTML and CSS implementation to a nifty open-source CMS. The stacks of information just keep on coming, though, and over the last 10-15 years sections and categories have been tacked on as needed.

So, early last year as part of my web training and documentation role I began to educate museum staff about the basics of usability and IA in a series of lectures and training sessions. This grew into the Web Advocates group, comprised of about 15 staff members across different parts of the organisation, who meet regularly to learn new technologies and keep communications open between IT and the rest of the company.

We're about to begin the user testing stage now, which I will be leading though some of the Web Advocates group will sit in on the sessions so they can get a better idea of how 'real' visitors use the museum's website. I'm really looking forward to it as this will be my first opportunity to test out the Silverback software, which we won a free license for at the last Edge of the Web conference courtesy of Matt Balara (thanks, Matt!)

Once those finish, then the team will move to building new navigation prototypes based on my analysis of the results of the testing sessions. Then, we start testing the prototypes. Most likely we will be using Balsamiq for this part.

The process has gone smoothly so far so hopefully we'll get some great results from the testing. Thanks to all those who will be participating in the sessions. I'm going to have fun running Silverback - I'm a PC (and Linux) user, and while I know my way around the command line on a modern Mac thanks to my Linux experience, the GUI itself makes me twitchy. So this should be interesting.

I’m currently reading an article on a social media ‘expert’ blog. Very catchy name, this blog has. Very hip. Very now. There’s even assonance.

The author mentions that someone recently asked them what percentage of Twitter accounts were commercial businesses. His next paragraph begins with something akin to “So I had a think about it for a minute and then told him it was X%”

You had a think about it.

You had. A think. About it.

Sometimes I celebrate those who have been successful without going through the expense of tertiary education and have achieved great success through self-education and dedication. Those able to succeed without having the processes of academia drilled into them. Sometimes people prove that they can use their own initiative to make observations about the world that contribute to human understanding and progress in ways that delight and intrigue us.

Sometimes, people pull things out of their posteriors.

Beware the man with the Social Media Stick who begins to rock back and forth whenever he hears the words “scientific method”.

Originally posted at Fish Out of Order: Daily Edition

I will be taking two weeks off from work starting on the 24th of December, and I intend to do a lot of blog house-keeping.

I've already started, in fact - I have moved my daily posts over to a subdomain run on Posterous. Have a look at the postings so far - look at how lovely and minimalist the layout is. I'm growing rather fond of Posterous.

More changes in the works. Maybe I'll even get time to code the layout I designed six months ago. Who's to say. Who's to say.

As far as spiders and cobwebs are concerned, I have always liked the idea of making a spiderweb pattern from spiders themselves. Just, er, not personally. Some of the spiders would take offense, I imagine.

Read this short piece on the nature of the social group.

And if you watch one thing today - watch this man in a chicken suit play "What is Love?" It is truly the pinnacle of 2009.

That and the "surpised kitten" video, naturally.

Dear Ask Wendy,

I have a problem. You wouldn't think of it to look at me - I've nearly paid off my mortgage on my 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1 en suite house (now I just need the family to fill it!) I've got one hell of a hot car, and I'm just about to put in my own home theatre system.

You'd think I would be happy, but instead, I am sad. I am very sad, Wendy.

You see, I have heard that our government is spending my tax dollars to create new policy about climate change. I hear Kevin Rudd and representatives from the other states of Australia are FLYING over to Copenhagen to discuss a policy for reducing carbon emissions. Can you BELIEVE it? FLYING.

How can they be serious about climate change when they are sending so many people over there to discuss it? Surely, the 0.00000000000000000001 cents I am contributing to this flight could be spent better elsewhere!

Don't they know that FLYING in a PLANE creates a huge amount of carbon pollution whatsits?! They are clearly only doing this so that they can have a holiday with Climate Change as an excuse. In fact I think the entire thing was created just so politicians could take holidays.

You see, I believe everyone in the world is as self-serving, greedy and scheming as myself. I have also read a study that when human beings see others being blamed for something, they are more inclined to blame that thing too, regardless of how sensible it is!

And I think the Australian people are being blamed, Wendy. And now we are suffering - if they introduce new taxes to help reduce emissions, I will get hit more heavily than poor people because I earn more! Which doesn't seem fair at all. And it might set me back on that new barbecue I was going to have installed at my place.

Sacrificing even the smallest amount of my own curious living standards for the good of others is inherently repulsive to me. What can I do to stop KRUDD and his cronies from ruining my life forever with their climate change policies?

- Trouble in paradise

1. A Kit Kat
2. Two Kit Kats
3. Three Kit Kats and some pickles

Back in the mid to late 90s, my search engine of choice was InfoSeek.

As InfoSeek never returned any relevant hits for my favourite film of all time, I decided to make a website for it. I spent hours after school using their computers to take screen captures from a VHS copy of the film I had taped from broadcast TV. If you wanted high res (640*480!) captures, wave files from the film, or if for some odd reason you wanted to read a teen's take on how an artificial intelligence might think, my website was the place to go.

Even the Wayback Machine wouldn't bring it back now, but far better things have come along since.

More than a decade later, I have this website. So far I have just been using it to get myself into the habit of writing regularly, regardless of how inspired I feel. The public nature of it makes me less inclined to slack off.

But what am I doing here? Other than navel-gazing, of course.

I miss the bad old days where every site I hit was either academic in nature or a great storytelling experiment. Or an 'under construction' page. Marketers hadn't really gotten the hang of the web, then.

That said, in those days most organisations I searched for didn't have a web page, and instead I had to wait to call them during office hours to find out what I needed. And the ability to buy anything online was still a ways off.

I don't miss the blink tag, either.

So.

There's a lot to be said for the current state of the web.

My nostalgia still drives me, however. I hope that eventually I'll be able to capture some of the unfettered weirdness, some of the great stories, that seemed to be easier to find back when bevels were cool. The stuff that used to get put up before people started fretting about whether Google knew who they were.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin.

Today I was able to sample four different kinds of Japanese Kit Kats. Rose, Ginger Ale, Red Bean, and Baked Sweet Potato. I purchased them from J-List.

Red Bean was the clear winner by a mile. If they had used dark chocolate for that flavour, I'd have to add an extra few miles onto that. A nice rich flavour that definitely captured the taste of red bean amidst the chocolate.

Rose takes second place. It was like eating potpourri covered in milk chocolate - should bring back memories of your grandmother, if your grandmother liked to feed you her perfume bottles.

The sweet potato flavour could have been awesome but the sweet white chocolate made it difficult to discern the potato taste. Ginger Ale was pleasant, but again, needed dark chocolate.

This is what happens when I am out of inspiration for my daily blog post. You get chocolate. Or I get chocolate, and then tell you about how I ate it all and how you aren't getting any.

Oh, stop looking at me like that.

Search engine friendly titles are for wimps.

I say this with a grin, but you clench your abdominal muscles in fear, because you have heard the rumours; that I trained under the secret Web Master centuries ago to learn the ultimate web-fu style: Double Death Ultra Dragon Mega Menu Killswitch Combo Harvesterscript.

After besting my master and completing my training, I have wandered the land taking stock of all I see, casting judgment on none, but always watching... always waiting. Some say that when I cross over the earth on a cold autumn morning, that you can see the weight of my feet crystallise tiny floating divs on the ground below.

Others say that when I pass server rooms, LED displays glowing fitfully in the night, all the machines reboot simultaneously, their operating systems replaced with an inscrutable interface that plays like a text adventure with many, many endings.

A single wrong move and you could be sleeping with the grave-fish... but you have come here to learn, and learn you will.

As you kneel in the snow, balancing two servers on either shoulder, a support manual dangling from your teeth, I sit and sip my tea on the cold rocks above you, and secretly, I smile.

Every day, that urge to just drop everything, grab a backpack, withdraw all my savings and travel around the world (or at least to Japan, Turkey and NZ) gets a little bit stronger.

I want to explore, but how do you do that when you're in front of a screen in a windowless room 5 days a week and public transport slows to a halt on the weekends?

Everything is just so easy. So unchallenging. Sure, we have problems. Part of our house burned down. The cat likes to chew poisonous things. I've had to deal with two stalkers in the last two years, one of whom is still causing me stress, because he's the stabby-go-postal kind. Given that my partner is a full time student, we're low on income too.

But these problems aren't interesting. Stressful. Strengthening, maybe. But not interesting.

I don't want to be challenged just by how much stress I can take. I want intellectual challenges, social challenges, the chance to use my practical skills.

But the logistics of doing anything else overwhelms me. I just don't know where to begin. I don't even know the questions to ask.

I'm going to keep on asking until I find the right ones.

Today I gave the best birthday present ever. It was a Quenda.

I'm tired of giving things that may or may not be of use, things that end up in landfill or at the bottom of cupboards. I want to give things that mean something.

If you are looking for inspiration on clutterless presents, here are some of my suggestions;

• Adopt an animal at Kanyana Wildlife - When you adopt an animal you receive a certificate of adoption including a photo, an information leaflet and the knowledge that your contribution goes towards the care and rehabilitation of a special kind of Australian animal back into the wild.
• Adopt an endangered animal - Especially the Sumatran Tigers, okay? Okay? *stare*
• Oxfam Unwrapped - buy seeds, literacy classes, start a business...
• Kiva - loans that change lives
  
• Greenpeace Giving - Many animals and conservation projects to choose from
• World Vision Australia - Haven't you always wanted to buy a toilet in your friend's name? Haven't you? Really?
• Red Cross Gifts
• Water Aid Australia
  
• Fund a creative project (Kickstarter)
• Give the gift of life to homeless, neglected and abused dogs and cats in Thailand (Soidog)

I love finding hidden places in websites.

These days most of the hidden 'easter eggs' I find tend to do with the alt attributes of images – the text you see when you hover your mouse over a picture.

But man, back in the 90s, I was finding hidden things all over the place.

I love it when I roll over a seemingly unimportant graphic and I see entertaing alt text. (The SEO-obsessed masses might take offense at hiding non-keyword messages in images, but honestly - shoosh. Anyway, it's better than "left_corner_gaphic_4.jpg"...decorative elements being a popular place to hide 'secret' messages). Obviously a screen reader can make this a little less hidden...

I also love it when I view a website’s source code and see the developer has left comments - relevant or not. Or hidden an extra message in text the same colour as the background. Or a hyplink on an innocuous block of colour that leads to a ‘secret’ bonus page. Changing a URL based on onsite clues to find a bonus directory.

Then again, these days a lot of 404 pages are exciting enough to feel like an easter egg on their own...

Sure, Google can index your easter egg content, allowing searchers to hit it without going through your mysterious web trail (though norobots.txt or other methods can prevent this of course).

I'm not talking about accessibility standards or optimisation or anything you'd expect me to be behind as a developer. I'm just talking about having a little fun.

Yes, I know. Hidden content isn’t appropriate everywhere.

On a personal site, however… I only spent about two hours building this Blogger skin when I started Fish out of Order, and I’ve been meaning to come back and clean it up. I have two weeks off coming up in January… maybe I’ll add some hidden surprises then.

While I'm at it - Dinosaur Comics has some of my favourite alt text messages ever.

Also, this easter egg will cover your website in glitter when a user enters the Konami code. Go forth and Cornify.

Earlier secret places...

I blame my last post and this tweet for the awful, awful joke you see here.



I can't be the only one to make this joke, can I?

Can I?

Oh. Apparently not.

Carry on, then.

I approach mathematics the same way I would approach a shark. I appreciate the raw beauty of it, the power.

And I keep a healthy distance away at all times.

Maths is awesome, don’t get me wrong. Unfortunately the majority of the notes I wrote during my high school maths class were not actually on topic - I’ve been struggling to keep up ever since.

The problem I do have with maths is people using the results of mathematicians’ hard work without understanding it. Interpreting data in ways that on the surface make sense but with a deeper inspection yield entirely different conclusions.

A related gripe is the way increasing numbers is used as an indicator for success without any consideration of human factors. Last week a co-worker read out an article about how video advertising increases ROI. The reasoning behind this is that people tend to stay longer on a page with video ads than they do regular banner ads.

From experience, a lot of video ads force you to watch them before you see the content you want to see. My partner and I both get up, leave the PC to grab a beverage and return when it is time for the thing we actually came to see.

Basing things on my own experience is, of course, not scientific, yet neither is connecting “they were on the page longer” with the perception that this will ultimately increase sales. No actual solid data was given in the article my co-worker read to prove this case – it all seemed to rest on the perception that more clicks, longer pageviews == more money.

To me, it feels like “increasing numbers” is a lazy marketeer’s way out. You’re doing something that might look good on paper, but could ultimately mean nothing without proper investigation.

I’m an emotional shopper. When I feel an emotional connection to a product or seller, I buy.

When they post engaging, personality-imbued, useful tweets about their product – I step closer to buying. When they make an effort to be involved with causes their demographic cares about – I step closer to buying. When they respond in a friendly and helpful manner to messages I post on their Facebook Fan Page, their blog – I step closer to buying.

This all requires an investment of time from the seller – rather than the relatively quick tasks of tallying of numbers of clicks at the end of a month. I can see the appeal of using it as a key performance indicator.

When an ad stops me from watching the show I want to see, or worse, pops up in my face while I’m halfway through reading a blog article – even if I was after the product you are selling – I make the emotional decision not to buy from you. If your video auto-plays… shame on you. Shame. You are uninvited from all of my birthdays, forever. Take that, faceless advertiser!

Postscript…

May have to re-write this article later. The whole one-post-a-day-for-a-year thing means I don’t have a lot of time to edit. In fact, I don’t really edit at all… Just get the ideas out, and move on. I’d be interested to hear how other people go about their purchasing decisions, particularly online ones.

And yes, posting once a day is increasing a number as an indicator for success rather than trying for high quality, infrequent posting – but right now I’m attempting to ingrain a habit, so in this case it is a successful indicator. Take that, faceless readers! (All 14 of you)

Today I walked into the kitchen to make some coffee. I placed the cup down in front of the kettle, stared blankly at it for a moment. Then I turned, left the kitchen, and spent the next thirty minutes working in my study.

Eventually, my partner made the coffee for us.

I don't know if I am a daydreamer because I have so few opportunities to dream at night, or whether it is just an innate part of my mental machinery.

Maybe the answer is at the bottom of this cup of coffee.