Portfolionism…

Phew, it’s finally there. My portfolio, on the internet. It certainly doesn’t look very fancy, but I think it has all the essentials. And I actually like the colour gray! I don’t add the link just yet, I’ll have to build up some courage first.

Furthermore, I also managed to take some photos for the Virtual Physical Mobile task and send them to the Binder application. I still need to write the wiki article.

I wish I could go to the spring wrap up tomorrow… But since it’s impossible to be in two places at the same time, I’m afraid I’ll have to stay at work. It’s the final week before my holiday and it’s getting more and more chaotic there by the minute, so it looks I’ll have to do long hours this week.

If only I’ll remember to do everything before the holiday… I’ve made so many mental notes already that I’m bound to lose at least one or two. One mental note that I made is to buy some post-it notes. I need to write some of the things down on paper before I forget too much!

What happened?

I can hardly believe it’s May already. Where did the time go? The past few months have zoomed past and here’s me wondering what has actually happened during that time. There’re probably too many things going on in my life right now, so I have serious difficulties keeping track of all the comings and goings.

There have been some developments in the studying part of my life too, luckily. It seems that I’m in the brink of getting my candidate’s degree (or is it bachelor’s degree..?) this spring! Now some people might say it’s about time too, but I’m just happy I’m finally getting there.

As for Technical Communication, the first thing that comes to mind at this very moment is Vuosikello, or in English, The Annual Activity Calendar. But maybe I should try and think back in time and say something about the project thas has already been completed. It’s the one we started already before Christmas, the Facebook application project. In my team I was in charge of studying the technical aspects of a Facebook application. I’m very proud of the final deliverable and very happy how it all turned out in the end. My technical study is not something to boast about, but I’m not exactly a tech wizard, quite the opposite really. But still, the experience was interesting to say the least and the concept itsel is something that is rare amongst the actual applications that are found in Facebook today. It’s filled with all sorts of dodgy applications and recently I’ve developed a serious irritation against most applications that come my way. I suppose I’ve grown a bit tired with Facebook all together, but that was to be expected, I spent too too much time there earlier. But the concept that was created in this project is interesting and maybe worth putting into creation.

Vuosikello project was (and is!) the next big challenge. After initial shock I actually feel quite optimistic about it now. I’m in the group that is responsible for delivering the content for the calendar and translating the Finnish content into English. At first it seemed almost impossible to get any information for the calendar and it was extremely frustrating to realize that we didn’t really have much to work with. But we did what we could and I’m quite happy with the material we now have. We have translated the text, now it needs checking and finetuning. But I know we’ll get it done.

There is also the Virtual Physical Mobile project. It’s always nice to get new phones or cameras to play with, but I’m still a bit unsure about this one. I’ve succesfully logged in to the internet application and I’ve taken some pics, but that’s all the progress I’ve made so far. I tried sending the pics to the application, but something went wrong, and the pics are still safely in the phone. I’ll try again, hopefully it was only some network problem or something… We’ll see.

The portfolio is a task I should’ve started working with much earlier. I have some thoughts about it, I know what I want to include in it, only the actual creating part of it is daunting. Luckily there’s still some time before I need to panic about that.

So all in all, many things are still in progress, but I’m getting there. Slowly perhaps, but still, I’m sure it’ll all get done.

Half way there

I suppose this is the time to think back and do some contemplating (now there’s a word I’ve never used before… but I think it suites this particular occasion). Life has been busy during the last three or four months, but it’s been very rewarding too. I can honestly say I’ve learned a lot. I’ve also been overwhelmed at times (mainly because of all the work required), but at this point it doesn’t feel that bad. Of course there are many things to improve during the spring term and the first thing that comes to mind in that category is blogging, surprisingly. To tell the truth, I don’t know what it is that makes it so difficult for me to write down my thoughts and experiences. I did have a real diary once, maybe even two or three diaries, but I stopped writing in those too. And I don’t know why.

One more thing about technical communication. The last task before the Christmas break was to have a searious look at Facebook and try to categorize different applications it has, based on their purpose and nature. Finally I had an actual reason to spend time facebooking, something that I’ve become seriously addicted to during the last couple of months. It is a fountain of different ways to communicate with your friends or just spend your time doing absolutely nothing sensible or even slightly educating. My team had a brainstorming session at the Habbohotel regarding Facebook and in the end it turned out very succesfull (once we managed to overcome some technical issues; at first, habbohotel seemed reluctant to let us speak at all). In my opinion, already during that brainstorming discussion we discovered many different aspects of Facebook applications or more precisely, what is special about a specific application and what is the intention of a person using that application (i.e. what s/he plans to gain by using that application). After brainstorming we have finetuned our wikipage, which contains the results of our thoughts on Facebook applications.

Still, I have a strange feeling that there’s something I should do, but my brain refuses to give me any idea what that something might be. If there is something, hopefully I’ll remember it in time.

Be that as it may, it’s almost Christmas and I plan to rest and probably eat too much chocolate. See you next year!

Use case

It’s suprsingly difficult to accept that in order to learn one has to make mistakes. Or at least come to terms with the fact that if you get it right the first time, you haven’t really learned anything. It was extremely frustrating to try and do something without having any clear idea of what you were supposed to be doing. Now I believe I (at least somehow) grasp the idea of writing use cases but personally I guess the most significant part of this task was to be reminded of reality. It’s true that in life we hardly ever get specific instructions on how to do anything. So we do things the best way we know how and after that we are a bit wiser on how well we succeeded. And hopefully learn something in the process.

ps. The Dilbert comic in the slides was brilliant. I pinned it to my notice board at work, maybe I’ll even show it to my boss one day…

User study

Doing a user study seemed interesting although I had some worries about finding a suitable person for interview. Our Expert Team was to interview “young” people or in another words, people from the age of 15 till 35. After almost desperate brainstorming I realized that a friend of mine would be the perfect person to be an interviewee. Luckily she agreed and I was able to carry out my part of the interview process.

Work in both Home and in Expert Team was quite straightgforward, we didn’t have any major differences of opinion about the main focus of the task or about the questions we would ask. The most amusing part was to compare the answers we received from the interviews; it soon turned out that despite the different situations our interviewees were in life or differences in their background, they had surprisingly much in common. Therefore it wasn’t that difficult to create a persona who would represent all the people we interviewed.

I actually quite enjoyed this task, I felt that we all had a good idea of what we were supposed to be doing and didn’t (at least I think we didn’t) have any major difficulties in any part of this task. Doing this kind of studies could be something I’d like to do more in the future, well, someday perhaps. After all, carrying out a user study provides a lot of useful information when designing products or software, it is an important reminder of the fact that these new products or whatnot are targeted for real people, actual users, not just some potential buyers or consumers.

Usability

Like most people, I’m extremely lazy when it comes to reading manuals but I’m also very impatient, and if it is challenging or even difficult to understand how the product works, I’ll get angry. Suppose that is not very mature, but we’re humans, right? So when thinking about a product with good usability, an iPod is first that comes to mind. I’d never had an mp3-player before, but I can’t think of another product which would be more easier to use than an iPod. All the requirements of a good usability are there. It’s effective (it does what I want it to do, it plays music), efficient (there’s hardly any effort required), satisfying (it’s not exactly wow but it’s still pleasant if not even fun) and intuitive. Yes, I was extremely happy I didn’t have to read a manual before using the player.

I’m sure there are many products or features with a very poor usability, but my favourite one in this category is perhaps LotusNotes. I’ve used the program for months now and I still feel I don’t understand it at all. It does strange things without my contribution (yes it does!) and refuses to do the things I want it to do. I suppose the program surves a purpose, but to tell the truth, I have no idea what that might be. I’ve wondered why we use it at all (and there are many people who share my amazement) and come to the conclusion that we use it, because there is no program to replace it. Or the alternative programs are even worse. Or, it’s a question of money. But in any case, Notes is my choice.

Facebook is interesting when it comes to usability. I’ve only used it for a few weeks, and I still feel I don’t know how to use it. If I try to do something, I can’t be sure that it goes the way I think it will. But it has more wow-features than any other program I know. Vampire-game sounds fun.. It’s a playground for people just like me. Yes, I’ve become addicted eventhough I don’t know how to use it properly.

The exercise related to usability was interesting. At least it proved true what I’ve suspected for a long time now, that is that the web pages of Oulu are very complicated. Or maybe not complicated as such, but confusing. When the page opens, there are dozens of links in a very small, confined space. Many links are quite self-explanatory, but there are just too many of them. I’d like a bit more organising or categorising. The links are all crammed there. I had the impression that there is a requirement that certain links need to be on the first page, they need to be there without a thought if the page has a good usability or not. Also it would be too difficult or time-consuming to organise them, so they are listed in some random order or alphabetically. Not a very likely theory, but that’s the impression I got. Still, it’s clear that there’s room for improvement.

Better late than never

Oops… I’ve done exactly what I shouldn’t have. That is, I have written hardly anything on my blog until now. Well, I am a creature of habit and I guess it would be unrealistic to expect that I would miraculously change all my habits during this course. I can try and at least write my blog more frequently from now on.

This entry may turn out to be an essay, but bear with me. I’ll try my best to remember what we have talked about during our first lectures, luckily there are summaries in the wiki (otherwise this would be much too difficult, at least for my memory). First lecture was mainly about practical matters and that is pretty much all I can remember from it. That and the fact that I got the impression that this course would be very demanding and almost impossible to go through without getting exhausted at one point.

The second lecture was an introduction to technical communication. My home team was assigned to put together a summary of the lecture. This was a good learning experience, at least we got well familiarised with different terms and definitions. The high-light of the lecture was when we learned the skills that a technical communicator should possess. Needless to say really, but I have to confess that I don’t have quite all of those… If I’d say that of course I have an analytical mind, my friends would never let me hear the end of it. The idea… Oh well, nobody’s perfect (one of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite films by the way. Sorry, I just had to say that).

The last part of the lecture was challenging, one had to really think about the different information types. I imagined that I understood the idea behind it, but had forgotten all about it at home. Luckily the summary helped me to grasp the idea again. Thank you!

The third lecture introduced us the concept of Information Design. The importance of information design is becoming more and more important in today’s society where there is an excess supply of information. I for one have been almost exhausted with the amount of information coming from different sources. I should confess here and now that occasionally I’ve neglected to watch news or read newspapers for the simple reason that I don’t want or just can’t process more information at that time. It’s almost depressing to think that something essential or interesting escapes my attention just because I can’t digest all the information there is.

A lot has been done already in the field of Information Design, for example surfing on the internet nowadays is easier than it was some years ago. Especially the organising of information has being done more carefully, the web pages are more user-friendly.

And this topic of user-friendliness and usability brings us to the fourth lecture, which I sadly missed because of the flu (a flu, which apparently refuses to go away…). I need to go through the summary of the lecture and have a look at the slides before I can make any even slightly reasonable comment of it. Apparently, there’s more group work ahead.

I’ll be back with some comments, hopefully sooner rather than later this time.

The wonderful start of my blogging career

It seems that I actually managed to create a blog for myself. Yay!! If we ignore the fact that I don’t have much else to say at the moment, we can all be happy.

On a side note, I can’t figure out wikispaces. Somehow it seems that everything didn’t go quite according to the plan… But I’ll worry about that later. Because now at least I have my very own blog!