Dear Art, Design, and Communication Educators:

The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire campus will host the national/international Conference “Cross-Cultural Perspectives of Visual Communication” on April 20-21, at Davies Center.  The conference is sponsored by UW System and UWEC Academic Affairs Office.

You are welcome to join your national and international artists and designers in sharing, discovering and exploring new ways of using visual communication to: bridge diversity, communicate different perspectives, expand horizons, and evolve with global advancement.

This CCPVC conference offers both theory and practice, presented by 35 respected educators, artists, and designers, as well as three Keynote speakers: Roger Baer from Ames, Amy Basic from Chicago, and Joe Duffy from Minneapolis.

Conference location: University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, April 20-21, 2007.

The deadline for registration: March 31, 2007.

For additional Information visit <http://www.uwec.edu/art/ccpvc.htm> .

Registration Fee:

Professionals:  $55.

Students:  $15.

For secure online registration, or for detailed information, please log on: <http://www.uwec.edu/ce/crosscultural/index.htm>

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Centrax Corporation, a leading e-learning solutions provider, is looking to add several instructional designers to support our rapidly growing client base. This is a fast-paced environment that requires self-starters who can hit the ground running.

Responsibilities include:

• Meeting with clients to determine needs and gather content
• Designing engaging, instructionally sound e-learning programs
• Creating e-learning storyboards used as product specifications
• Working with production team to ensure high quality product delivery

The ideal candidate will have:

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Job Title: Interactive Designer
Description: Class on Demand, Inc., a world-leader in video-based training for digital content creators and enthusiasts, seeks a full-time INTERACTIVE DESIGNER. Our ideal candidate is a special mix of left-brain/right-brain thinking with a strong portfolio. The INTERACTIVE DESIGNER should be a recent grad or prospective graduate with the ability to work in a professional, friendly and deadline-oriented environment.

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CenterstageChicago.com (the city's oldest online city guide and the hippest division of the Sun-Times News Group) is looking for a full-time Media Production Coordinator. We're in need of a digital media master who can skillfully manage Centerstage's regular production, whip the site's design into shape and help develop compelling new products and features for Centerstage Chicago and other STNG Websites.

Duties include: manage our process for constant improvements in website usability, Information Architecture and Interface Design; coordinate with our editors to maintain regular, fresh content on websites thru use of automated tools and manually produced code; work with cross-departmental teams as well as contractors developing designLogin or register to post comments Read more news's blog

2/8 MacArthur Foundation: DO VIDEO GAMES HELP KIDS LEARN?

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation will host a panel discussion on video games and learning on Thursday, February 8, 2007 at 5:30 p.m. at the Newberry Library, 60 West Walton Street, Chicago. A reception will follow.  The event is open to the press and public.  In October, MacArthur announced a $50 million initiative to support research and innovative projects focused on understanding the impact of the widespread use of digital media on our youth and how they learn.

 

WHAT:           A panel discussion on “Do Video Games Help Kids Learn?”  

WHEN:           Thursday, February 8, 2007 at 5:30 p.m.

WHERE:         Newberry Library, 60 West Walton Street, Chicago

WHO:            Sasha Barab of Indiana University will demo his latest project, Quest Atlantis, an immersive online world designed to help teach science to junior high school students.

Nichole Pinkard, Director of Technology at the University of Chicago’s Center for Urban School Improvement, will share her experience creating an innovative digital media after school program.

David Williamson Shaffer, a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of How Computer Games Help Children Learn, will discuss his latest research on games and learning.

Jonathan Fanton, President of the MacArthur Foundation will present an overview of the Foundation’s digital media and learning initiative.  

 

CONTACT:     Andy Solomon, (312) 726-8000, asolomon@macfound.org <mailto:asolomon@macfound.org>

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I visit Pitchfork (www.pitchforkmedia.com) fairly often to keep up with indie music news and album reviews (less so now that all the editorialists and reviewers became egotistical pseudo-literati fools). Their navigation is laid out in the same logical manner as the different sections of content in the site. The information is only presented one way. It seems odd, but the navigation isn't presented in the same hierarchy as the content columns flow on the page. This begs the question; "What does Pitchfork want to convey as their hierarchy of information?" This is the only qualm I have with the layout of information. It is mostly simple and well organized. With only six sections, I'd be difficult to screw that up, that is without the oversight about the navigation and the visual layout hierarchy discrepancy.Login or register to post comments Read more abunker's blog

IMDB.com

This is probably one of the few websites I visit often. I can't quite say the navigation is clear. Along the side the navigation is broken up into categories like coming soon, new DVDs, etc. The search engine is below the main menu bar. I use this more often than I do the main menu. The main menu consists of a series of buttons, new releases, movie/TV news, my movies...etc.  As I said, I use the search engine the most. I suppose I'm not the only person. The search engine will allow you to narrow your search by choosing a category. For those who don't want to narrow their search there is an all option. It's consistent with any other search engine besides this point. You type in what you want to look for, and then click go, it takes you to a page saying is this what you mean, you click it if it's correct, if not you try searching again. Then you are taken to a page giving you a description of the movie, director, or actor you searched with bios, pictures, etc.

How is this organized? Is it clear? I don't think so. I really began using the site, because google used it. I don't ever use anything besides the search engine. However, when I look at it. There are a lot of options. I think the web designers could have simplified the site. Instead of there being a hundred links on the home page, maybe they should include a handful of links. So many links is overwhelming. The search engine is straight forward, but sometimes the exact information I want is harder to get. For instance, if I wanted Tom Hanks birthday, it would appear right next to his picture when I search his name. However if I wanted to know what movies he's directed, I'd have to scroll pretty much half way down the page. Possibly some in-text links in his biography would be nice... or maybe a one sentence description near the top with links like "writer, director, and actor" and I could click on director and it would take me straight to all the movies he's directed.

They do a similar thing at the top of his bibliographies. For instance Actor has links to each decade he's been acting so if you want to find a movie, you don't know the title, made in the 80s you can click (1980s) and get taken there on the list.

It's relatively straightforward, though not always convenient. However if I don't know the name of the movie. Sometimes I have problems finding information on it. For instance a minute ago, I wanted to look into "The Thief and the Cobbler," a horrible animated movie I watched the other day, I typed in "The Theif and the Cobbler" misspelling Thief and got a list of movies that were not what I was looking for at all. Then I typed in "The Cobbler and the Thief" spelling Thief correctly, and getting the movie I wanted right away. The page was wrong however; they should update their database. That's beside the point.

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The website I visit every day (closer to 4 or 5 times a day) is digg.com.  It's weird looking at Digg now.  This is version 3 of their website and they have made a bunch of changes that have in fact created different parts of their site with different aspects of what to "digg".  Originally it was a purely tech. news site, but now that they've branched off into a bunch of other categories, it was necessary for them to include links to pages with content of different categories.  At first I hated it, and in a way I still do.  It didn't really have anything to do with the navigation.  (which is a bit akward at first to get used to) but of how deluted the stories were becoming to reach those pages.  I guess thats a seperate argument though.  I've grown to like how they handle their navigation.  There is only one thing about it that still bothers me, and thats having to register in order to save your preference for the category you like to see come up when you first enter the page.  It's a small annoyance on an otherwise well handled page.
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What I have noticed is that lots of the pages that I go to when I go to a web site, which is rear that I go browsing pages, is that they don’t use drop down menus. A lot of the pages just have some type of tab system were the tab is clearly marked and you click on the tab that you want and it will take you to the page that will have the information for that tab. Some of the web sites that include this is Yahoo.com, Luminomagazine.com, Howstuffworks.com and Amason.com. If they don’t have a tab system then they don’t have anything at all and it’s just a poor design page. They only types of pages that seem like they had a drop down menu are car company’s web sites. One of the sites that I looked at that were car companies was Porsche and Mazda. With there drop down menus there is only one really way that they can sort there information. All they really have is a lift of there cars, which cant be really be organized any other way unless if you group them into a class or type. The other tabs consisted of information about owners, about the company, resources about there products and all this stuff can’t really be sorted another way. So I am beginning to think are drop down menus as useful as one might think?Login or register to post comments ajpowills's blog

I think that organizing is something important to look at in a page that has many clickable items. For our final project, I don’t have many items so I’m not going to organize it in a standard alphabetical order, but I am organizing them by importance. From least to most, with contact at the end. If I had more links, then I would consider other variations of navigation ordering. A site I visit often is: Bradley.edu. Based on the homepage, the information is categorized in the standard alphabetical list, and then broken up into sections for easier navigation. There is the top navigation, then the main navigation off to the left.