Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Turf Seeding Directions

  

      I tried to keep directions as simple as possible. I broke it up into a grid. The left side is hot and above 90 degrees while the right side is below 90 degrees. The top is dry while the bottom is wet. This assignment made me realize that symbols for things are not always easy to think of. I had to keep in mind that the audience may not be able to read our language so i had to make images and symbols universal for everyone to understand. I am hoping that by making one side yellow and sunny people will know that it is hot, while the other side being less sunny and dark, people will realize it is cold. Also the rain on the bottom will allow people to know that the turf will be wet. I tried to use symbols that someone would be able to understand no matter what language they speak or what part of the world they are from.
     I found one part of this assignment pretty difficult. Since i knew i had to make it for an audience that did not necessarily speak English I began to think how they would be able to understand A-1 or B-2-2. These were the final steps for deciding which lawn care to use, but it is in English and i could not find a way around using them. I finally just hoped that whoever was reading the directions would see these things as symbols and would be able to recognize them.
    When trying to reduce the cognitive load for this assignment i originally tried to do one large picture of a grass field. From their I split up different parts of the field into the different areas, like having pests or not. This got way to confusing and hard to comprehend so i decided to go with this grid like direction panel. I think it is much more successful than my other strategy would have been.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Collage

Cold, action, orange, things that got my interest, action, water/ocean, no dead spots.

    After reading all the comments from fellow classmates I noticed that a lot of things they posted were on the list I had made. I did not chose a lot of bright colors just because they stand out, but instead i chose things that i was interested in like sports and the ocean. I found this interesting because with such a short time allowed to big out ads I would think that I would just pick things that stood out, like brighter colors. Without even realizing it I was searching for things that were interesting to me in life. That is one of the only patterns I notice when looking at my collage. What i also noticed is that one of the only bright/warm colors on the collage is centered in a position that is almost in a title position. It is like everyone who looks at the collage might start there because it draws attention, and then work their way out.
  After doing this collage I learned some ways to make a successful ad. I got to see what kind of things grabbed my attention, along with other classmates attention. The things that are on the collage's are advertisements that did a good job and get people attention.