Week IX: Bottlenecks

After we tried the Wix.com, we felt getting on an express line.No need to worry about design,visual effect, social control, etc but in this way, we found the bottlenecks, with no surprise,which would potentially prevent us to being successful. Here is my thought.

First,Donggil gave us a question, "Who is your SME?" We never really thought about this question, though we talked about this at the beginning of the project and we all agreed that we ourselves would be the SME or we can ask alumni of IST to be the SME but Donggil said they just experienced their time in IST with the career plan but what we should do is to follow a general process,so we still need to find the real "authority" in our content.We had two options, one is to ask IU/SoE career development centre but we tried this already but received mere ordinary information and they claimed themselves as "providing career service for undergraduates mostly." Another option is to do some literature review. Though it sounds funny, but it would be the only solution. Dear, Hoosier Buddy, what do you think?

Next, Donggil also criticize our draft website as "feeling nothing to learn". We have not put some draft content in the website but it sees no potential to beat other unsuccessful career websites I found on the Internet,no attraction, no clue of sequencing, lack of motivation. Though we had a huge plan but the website is too big a information container which is wildly beyond our expectation. Seemingly, little did we prepared for this website. We have to either enrich our content or narrow down the scope to make the website look neither crowded nor empty.

Thirdly the pre-made website is hard to make it flexible as we wished to design some pop-up windows to give scaffolding for first time users, no, not here.But we have no way back since we would spend too much time on learning html codes if we chose to start from a blank page.

Anyway, it is not the time for frustration. Guess we will be fine after further discussion and literature review(I thought we should do it before but it is still cool to do it now.)

Week VIII: Know your topic, and keep it

As the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates said, "Know yourself", a good instructional designer should also know your audience, your environment and the most important of which is to know your topic.

People wouldn't speak without a topic in most cases but just sometimes forget the topic during the middle of speaking. It is just not good for instructional design as well since your topic could be your basic story line, your target and where you enter the instruction process and exit.Once you get in the topic, you'd better stick to it.

This is like what I felt when I reviewed my infographic work. When I was designing the "College entrance test for Chinese" I wasn't so clear about my topic at the beginning, so I spent lots of time to explorer the facts, digits and dreamt to create a greatest picture ever being. But, in the end, I was exhausted and the outcome was not that ideal. Why?

First,the topic should be as small as possible as I still put up a huge topic for a mere graphic. I found a lot of digits about enrollment points,admission rate of something but they don't match up well with each other in a single picture. The surplus information wouldn't bring you as a designer the feel of fulfillment but the opposite. You would feel like being chasing by a hound when you catch up with more than enough information.

Second,once you got the topic(which should be do-able at first),come to the desk and sit down, say to yourself,"I won't run away this time." None of the topic would save the disturbance, believe me. You may want to change the topic all the time but the audience don't expect to see all of them. They have somewhat pragmatic nature, which would be translated as critical, outcome-oriented, or anything you just don't like but hey,no one would pay for your changeable mind, your discarded work or your abandoned dreams. So, it is good to keep it up and fight to the end. Don't run away from a potential master piece easily.

Third,know your topic means know yourself.Warning: You must make sure you are not Leonardo Da Vinci's reincarnation. Ok, proceed. I have to concede masters are around us but, you should know Leonardo and his alike were not born to be great painters.You need the patience to make yourself to be a great figure. So, now, please work on this tiny,little, humble topic for a while.(BTW, Leonardo couldn't speak English, right? And is not an ISTer?Great!)What I learnt from the infographic work is, you should know the limitation of your ability.Don't ask yourself what you can't do even after you spend time to learn. It is not bad to hand in a smaller, shallower work, never mind but once you decide to have a huge one, please remember, you should also make it as good, or it would leave worse impression to your audience.

Last but not least, check the details carefully. color-match,font,spelling. In a word,if you want to be perfect, please define the perfection, remember it and have fun!

Hope I will be fine in the Job aid work!