Is This Me?

It's Sunday and I am in Vegas at my local Starbucks. Hi my name is Jazmyn and I'm an addict. Caffeine addict that is. But I am mainly here because my wireless connection at my house went out. Hi my name is Jazmyn and I am also addicted to my wireless connection. I know this probably sounds like too much personal information, but it is relevant I promise! Relevant to the Michael Wesch videos I finally got around to watching - - thanks to my best friend that is T Mobile Wireless.

According to the argument made in his videos, "Web 2.0 links people - - we are the machine."
I agree and disagree.
At times I feel myself completely connected to the world by the fact that I can converse and see friends who are miles, countries and sometimes just rooms away, talk to strangers who I will never see let alone hear their voice on the phone, and post blogs that people I don't know can read.
But at other times, I miss hearing/seeing/being with the people I know, and I sometimes wonder if it would enhance my life if I actually met the people I talked to over the Web. That's not to say I want to meet the creepers who pop in and out of my inbox on myspace or facebook - - I'm talking about the people you converse with on sites like Creative Cow - - colleagues of sorts, creators.

But I suppose every good thing has its shortcomings. And in this case, I think the Web has in fact connected me to so many things that the classroom can not. The message in a Vision of Students Today was very interesting and pretty much hit home for me. Out of pure curiosity and because I finally have some wireless connection, I did some inventory.

In the past month:
-I have written 51 pages for school papers
-I have written 613 pages of email
-I have posted about 150 wall posts on Facebook
-I have spent on average 5 hours in front of my computer a day. Keep in mind I'm usually awake for only 10 hours or so during the day.

O and my roommate pointed out a very peculiar habit I have. As soon as the alarm goes off in the morning I do not run to the bathroom, I do not make my coffee, I do not stay in bed and I do not brush my teeth right away (ya kinda gross). I get up and go STRAIGHT to my laptop and check my email. I never even realized this habit of mine, it seemed so normal to me. The first thing I see in the morning is my inbox. The first thing I hear in the morning is "You've got mail." Am I sick?

I suppose I'm a product of my culture. Or at least that's what I am going to tell myself for now. The machine has not taken over my life, I've made my life part of this machine. Nearly everything I do in a day is contingent on whether or not I have received some sort of data that was sent to me over the wonderful friend which is the Web.

In terms of College and the Web and Technology
If I could reimagine my college experience I'd change many things. I would want everything to be interactive. Even if that meant that there were no computers involved, I'd want more hands on experience. And if I was fortunate enough to have computers in every class, well,I'd bascially throw out the idea of the class and sit in front of my computer from wherever I was and watch class through a screen and interact with other students and my professor through the Web. This would have many advantages. I could travel and be anywhere in the world and still get a degree. I wouldn't have to pay for housing if I was simply moving about all the time. And maybe, just maybe that would mean that tuition costs from great universities weren't so extravagant. All books could be posted online and that alone would cut out a significant portion of costs.

But there are problems with that. Problems that would become mine. In this ideal college setting - - as a student, I win. As a person trying to make a living in the media industry in the future - - I lose. Authorship flies out the window and nearly any publication or media tool becomes free to the public. It has its perks, but at the same time, it's stealing in a way. It's reaping the benefits of one person's work without them getting any entitlement to it.

The Web is a confusing area-no black-no white-just grey. It's getting messy and it is our problem, whether we create it or not, we've surely inherited it.

Revisiting the Web interface of the LasVegasWeekly.com

A little History
This past summer I was an intern for a local magazine that was in the beginning stages of going Web. Our Web site's interface pretty much sucked in terms of aesthetics/user-friendliness. So I made it a point to revisit it this past weekend and little has changed...

The LasVegasWeekly.com is run by the Greenspun Media Group which subsequently runs pretty much everything that makes big money in Vegas. So they have the means to hire the best people to design a Web site and the experience to make it look good. So why am I left with a critical eye and that gut feeling of dissatisfaction? Why isn't the Web site as chic looking as its competitors and enemies? I'm not quite sure.

Design Metaphors

"For the same reasons that schemas and metaphors give us power to conceptualize and reason, so they have power over us. Anything that we rely on constantly, unconsciously, and automatically is so much part of us that it cannot be easily resisted, in large measure because it is barely even noticed. To the extent that we use a conceptual schema or a conceptual metaphor, we accept its validity. Consequently, when someone else uses it, we are predisposed to accept its validity. For this reason, conventionalized schemas and metaphors have persuasive power over us." (Lakoff and Turner, 1989)

Ah yes, the power of metaphor, very important and very effective. When browsing through the LasVegasWeekly.com, I found little to no display of this. I am no sure if I am just slow and am not getting it, or if they think their users are slow and won't get it, or if it is there and I am just that slow user that they did not intend to get it. Either way this is what I see:

1-Too much text
2-Still too much text
3-The text itself is plain and scattered. It does not lead me to think about the nightlife/arts/culture of Vegas. It is plain blue and boring and nothing screams glitter/partying/booze/drugs and debauchery. Maybe Vegas has changed since I've lived there and it is a simpleton suburbia like the Web site suggests. WRONG.
4-Perhaps the busy text and little reliance on user interactivity and imagery does try to set up a metaphor for the content of the Site. Maybe its supposed to represent how busy and fast-moving this city actually is. And if this is the intent of the designers, they really need to get out more and display this more effectively.

Navigation System

Take a look at the Site Map

Does it catch your eye? Are you in the slightest way intrigued to click on the 70+ links?
My guess is probably no, but that's understandable, I mean how many Web designers really put a lot of their sweat and blood into the site map? That's supposed to be left for the actual Site.

Take a look at the Homepage

Granted there is a lot of content, but I feel as though the Site lacks organization. There are so many links, that if a user was not familiar with the magazine, they wouldn't really be pulled in any one direction. Perhaps the videos would catch their attention because it features a huge Play button and the only thing on the homepage which has moving images. Beyond that though, I don't feel the Site pulls the user in any one direction. This could be advantages because the user would not be "controlled" by the Site and have some freedom to browse around. However, I feel the navigation is so overwhelming it detracts users rather than keeping them going from 1 to 2 to 3 to hopefully 20 page views in one visit. Although I find the homepage a bit scattered, I suppose navigating it wouldn't be too much trouble. There are some new added icons for the Beautiful People contest and some pictures next to the feature stories. In terms of aesthetics, it still suffers for me.

Who is the intended audience?

The color scheme of this Site doesn't necessarily scream 18-35 year olds looking for good nightlife, fun, culture and arts in Vegas to me. But I feel the magazine has a broad audience, reaching kids as young as 14 and maybe adults as old at 50. However, if it is going to be competing with other Web sites which offer hundreds of newly uploaded pictures from the nightclub scene and videos of all the hot stuff going on in the city, then they really need to up their anti. Maybe this means using some black, some gold text, glitter - - jazz whatever. Vegas entertainment screams sex to me. And that doesn't mean that a barely clothed woman makes the cut. If its aim is to reach a broad audience but keep the prominent Web users coming (16-35 year olds) then I think the design interface is in need of a makeover.

Why I keep coming back
It's ashame to me that this site isn't designed effectively. The content of the articles, the impressive video editing, the interesting blogs are all great factors. However, the medium is everything. To me, this magazine is the best one in Vegas, they have a good message and they have talented people working behind every word you see. Perhaps as time goes on the actual design and medium will compliment the content rather than inhibit it.