Nielsen on Usability

Nielsen has many different aspects to which he distinguishes a website as "usable". A website needs to be both design friendly AND easily usable in order to be successful. Unfortunately the balance of both is difficult and there are many websites that contain one or the other and difficult to use.

One website that I find extremely hard to navigate through is my class website for Typography. There is very little telling you where to go, what to click, etc. The design process is there and it is meant to be interesting but for a class site that should really focus on informing the student its confusing. To get into the actual website you have to know where to click in the design without any instruction. It’s accessibility is failed.

Once you find a way into the site it is easier to navigate through with clear headings, titles, labels, etc. Text appearance is good and images are nicely displayed. The main flaw to these pages is the lack of a back button. To get back to the “home page” is a hidden secret that I Just discovered when writing this blog. There is a tiny circle that highlights yellow and if you decide to click that you will be brought back to the mysterious light bulb “home page.”

The website looks creative and appealing but not as a site that I use to get my class assignments. If this were a website that was not as essential to my success in the class then I may not be so concerned. It is also a nuisance that every time you want to open something it opens an individual tab. By the end of finding my assignment I have 3 to 4 pages open, it is annoying and not useful. Overall, its intent to being a modern class website is there, but it is not as useful as intended.

Cyberdrama

I do not play as many games as I used to. That is not to say that there are not exciting games out there, I just do not have the time. However, when I did have time I enjoyed playing Rock Bank/Guitar Hero.

This game functions as both a puzzle and a contest. It is a puzzle because you need to match the buttons on the controller to the buttons on the screen at the same moment. You also need to strum at the correct time, as well. Three elements need to be done simultaneously in order to play the game correctly. While it is less of a contest it still has some elements that give it that form. While playing in “story mode” you are a rock star that needs to get a certain level on the songs to pass and continue. Both the puzzle elements and the contest elements make for a fun and competitive game.

In this game you are not very limited by the creator of the game. You can play the songs you want, when you want in “free play mode” or you can be more limited by the creator in “story mode.” You can also play online against real people if you want to. Depending on what mode you are playing depends on who is the person of the narrative.

The player is immersed in the game through the controller. By having a physical instrument in front of you that interacts with the game gives the player much more control and makes them feel as if they are IN the game. It seems so real, I even think that I can actually play the instruments, god knows I have no real musical talent though. It is nice to feel like I can play, which proves how immersed and transformed you can get.

What is Anime?

Having a little brother means there was always a lot of cartoons playing on the television in my house. Most of these were Japanese anime shows that I hated watching. I had always thought that the style of animation looked cheap and most times there would not be good stories. It seemed like a giant waste of time watching.

For the purpose of this blog, I watched a newer episode of Pokémon and noticed that not much has changed in the 10 years since I had last seen it. The characters still looked the same, the animation was still not crisp, and the story was still the same as it always was. This type of animation is known in Japanese anime. Each artist has there own style that is portrayed through subtle differences. It is very difficult to find two anime cartoons that have the same visual styles.

Most of the characters carry human like proportions but have exaggerated eyes and facial expressions. Anime eyes are usually much larger then the normal human eye and their facial expressions are always exaggerated. This can be seen through the use of veins, stress marks, sweat marks, sigh poofs, etc. By using these techniques they are changing less of the actual face expressions themselves. It is almost an easy way out of doing extra animation work.

I see no resemebleance to Disney/Pixar AT ALL. Disney has always prided its animations are take extra care when making them. One thing that Disney always has is a great story and anime stories tend to be weak and lack character emotion. Pixar movies especially carry this trait. Having only one produced movie a year means that it needs to be a great one. It takes years and years to animate a Pixar a movie (and you can bet their characters facial expressions don’t include stress and sweat marks) so the story needs to be good enough to draw in the audience so all those years are not put to waste.

To apply this to my own techniques I need a good story. Without a good story there is not way to save the animation, no matter how great the animating is. Due to the lack of animating skills I have I may want to use some techniques that anime uses for facial expressions. It is much easier to add in a mark or action to a facial expression because then there is less you need to change on the face. While it does not look as good on screen; I, sadly, do not possess the ability to animate on Pixar’s level.