Chapter 15: Training

Nothing is more boring than watching training tutorials. The case study of Vital Signs reminded me of that. I do like self-paced rather than live, not for the entertainment value, but so I can finish them quicker. Vital Signs tried to use humor to keep the users attention, but I like the idea of creating a story or game the user can play to learn information. Traditional computer-based training seems difficult to make entertaining. And as the book mentioned previously, if you cannot keep the user's attention, even the best information becomes useless.

Chapter Eleven: T. Rowe Price

This chapter deals with the redesign T. Rowe Price's website. I found the chapter interesting because I will be redesigning a website for my class-project. The designers were challenged because they needed to make changes without losing a portion of their audience. I like how they changed the content organization from product centered to user centered. This enabled their customers to get to information without navigating through stuff they were not interested in. I also learned the difference between custominzation (user picks the content) and personalization (software program creates unique content for users). I liked that the designers made the site changable without programming too.

Chapter Five: Script Formatting

Although scripting is generally used near the end of project planning, if at all, Chapter Five deals primarily with this topic. The chapter shows many forms, in which a project can be scripted depending upon the amount of interactivity involved: Single Column, Double Column, Three Column with Narration, etc. What I gained most from the chapter is the importance of a good outline and flowchart. So long as the client and production team can understand the information and navigation, it does not matter how the information is given to them. I want to check out a program mentioned in Chapter Five: StoryView. The chapter says StoryView is a visual outliner for writers that lets them create and organize ideas. Sounds interesting.