Message Design and Content Creation

9 January 2007

Kathy E. Gill

Agenda

Introductions Syllabus, assignment review WWW History/Culture Teams Team exercise UWICK

Introductions

Pair up“Interview” each other

Something you’re interested in learning this quarter A skill/area you have that you’re willing to try as a

“stretch” to help your team this quarter A skill/area you have that you feel is a strength

(less of a stretch)

Introduce the other person

Syllabus review (1/2)

Proposed scheduleWorkshops - ?

Assignments Individual and Team WorkReadings

Blogs Discussion Leaders

Syllabus review (2/2)

Submittal procedure Anonymous e-mail Structured feedback (online surveys)

Thinking about this course …

Please complete the following sentence: “In my opinion, message design means …”

You have one minute to “think and write” Share in groups of 2-3 Share with large group

Course Introduction (1/2)

Message design is the art of creating verbal and visual messages Both the words and how the words are

presented and perceived (connotation) affect the message

See The Elements of Text and Message Design and Their Impact on Message Legibility: A Literature Review

Course Introduction (2/2)

Premises:Our medium is “digital”Content creation rests on sound designSound design rests on planning and

articulated assumptions

Design

The use of higher thought and systematic process to achieve objectives

Seeks a balance between science and art, clarity and expression, truth and beauty, aesthetics and function, emotion and rationality …

Quote: designer

A designer is a visually literate person, just as an editor is expected by training and inclination to be versed in language and literature, but to call the former an artist by occupation is as absurd as to refer to the latter as a poet.

Douglas Martin, Book Design,

quoted in Designing Visual Interfaces (8)

WWW history and culture (1/2)

Hypertext Platform, software independent Increasingly “social” (web 2.0)

Watch YouTube clips

WWW history and culture (2/2)

Standards How relate to diffusion?

Quote: culture

“Anyone who slaps a ‘This page is best viewed with browser X’ label on a web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network.”

Tim Berners-Lee in Technology Review, July 1996

Digital Storytelling

History of the Tube Map USA Today Mars Landing Journey To Paris

Implications for design

No control!BrowserPlatformOutput device

Cross-functional teams

Team-building

Definition Characteristics Skills Resources

Definition

A group of people working together to achieve a common purpose that cannot be achieved as effectively by individuals working alone

Characteristics (1/3)

How does a “group” become a “team”? IOW, what are the characteristics of an effective team?Small groups : characterize an ideal team

member

Characteristics (2/3)

Focus on developing and accomplishing common goals and purposes

Expect and exact participation of all: consciously inclusive

Focus on impact of behavior rather than intent

Allow and expect members to discuss differences that impede full participation

Characteristics (3/3)

Do not shoot messengers Establish agreed-upon boundaries Recognize that conflict which has been

suppressed, concealed, or avoided is likely to be destructive

Team Building Skills

Personal team player style:Collaborator, Communicator, Contributor,

Challenger Assessment tool:

http://www.onlinewbc.gov/docs/manage/team.html

See also http://www.mgmt.utoronto.ca/~baum/mgt2005/valuable.html

Resources

Seven keys to building great workteams, http://www.teambuildinginc.com/article_7keys_zoglio.htm

Planning a project, http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art8.html

Groups that work, http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art0.html

Teams as Networks:Using Network Analysis forTeam Development, http://www.humax.net/teams.html

Next Week:

Digital Design Team MembersRoles

UWICK Why Project Management?