ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing » November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements

November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements

Announcements

Tonight’s Plan

Don’t get too excited. We’re mostly going to discuss tables as our important extra-textual elements. I’ll show you how to do a table like this one (time permitting). Although forms are important, they’re really just big tables if you think about it, so we won’t be creating them, but we’ll be discussing them from rhetorical and cultural perspectives.

Perception, Culture, Rhetoric

Before we get too far into perception, culture, and rhetoric, let’s focus on data. Design for Information had pretty radical ways of displaying data. What are some fundamental things to remember when providing data effectively to users?

Perception

  • I don’t know another fancier way of saying this, so here it goes: Users in Western cultures like lists.
  • Users in Western cultures read lists top to bottom (horizontally).
  • What one principle of design (think of Robin Williams) probably captures the essence of perception with regard to tables?

Culture

  • What purpose do lists serve culturally?
  • What does it say about a culture that uses pre-printed forms?
  • How do extra-textual elements fit into our overly information-saturated society?

Rhetoric

  • What rhetorical strategy do lists, tables, and forms employ?
  • Ethos, pathos, logos…
  • What constitutes an open, friendly visual style?
  • What “list” principles did I violate with these bullets from the perception, culture, and rhetoric categories?

Parallel Entries and Headings

This is really just a quick note about being parallel in your designs and prose. Below are some items on a list; are they parallel?

  • Go to the store
  • Find bread, eggs, and cheese
  • What time is dinner?
  • Check tire pressure

Below are headings; are they parallel?

  • Uploading Your Webpages to the Internet
  • How to Create Hyperlinks
  • Make Your Visuals Sing
  • Be Consistent in Your Page Layout Design
  • When it’s Time to Access Your Public_HTML Folder

Being parallel also means you have similar grammatical structure for sentences.

For example, what’s wrong with the following sentence?

  • Guglielmo Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy, attended the University of Bologna, and was an eater of bologna sandwiches.

Making a Table

InDesign and Dreamweaver have some interesting table features. I say “interesting” because, well, they aren’t as intuitive as one would hope. I’m going to demonstrate how to create a table like this one (time permitting).

I’ve used InDesign CS2, CS3, and CS 5.5, and you can make a table the exact same way. However, with InDesign CS6, there’s an alternative way to create a table with data: check out this video on creating tables in InDesign CC 2015.

Your Turn (The Tables Have Turned…)

(We might move this to after the “Forms” Section)

Now it’s your turn. I want you to have a table on your web site. I’d like you to create one in InDesign. Have a link to the PDF of your table created in InDesign–don’t make the link for the actual .indd file. Include the following:

  • Bold font for headings
  • Sans Serif font throughout the table
  • “Properly” aligned text
  • Border
  • Shading (fill) of some kind (alternating rows or columns or haphazardly–just have shading of some kind).

So what do you put in your table? You can replicate a table from the book (pretty difficult), or try to create a table based on data from the following web sites:

Save this as a PDF and link to it from your home page or post it on Moodle.

Forms: Products of Bureaucratic Cultures

Remember, there is NEVER a nonrhetorical use of language when one tries to create usable documents. Additionally, documents exist for purposes, but they are also cultural repositories mediated by ideology. For instance, what does this table on marriage licenses in NC say about the culture from which it comes? What about this Civil Action Request?

More Documents (time permitting)

What ethos do the following documents evoke:

All open as PDFs.

Presentation Discussion

Time permitting, let’s talk a bit about what to do and not do during presentations. Your “Theories Presentation,” which is what the syllabus calls your portfolio presentation, is worth 5% of your grade. Below are the criteria I’ll use to base your grade:

  • Appearance of preparation
  • Eye contact
  • Voice Projection
  • Relevance
  • Time—don’t go over five minutes and don’t go under four minutes (practice so you get it just right)

Your final presentations will be next week,but, if we need extra time, we’ll have to carry over to the final exam period. Because the final exam won’t take very long, we’ll do the overflow presentations during the final exam time on Dec. 11th @ 6:30 pm. Don’t worry; it’ll be easier than the midterm exam.

I’ll ask for volunteers to go first on presentation day, and then we’ll go alphabetically.

5182 Presentations

As I’ve mentioned before, I give the students enrolled in 5182 bonus assignments. The projects are due next week, 11/27. Also, you’ll do a bonus presentation on your projects.

Portfolios

Don’t forget to review the Portfolio Revision requirements. Look them over before you leave and ask questions if you’re not sure.

Next Week and Beyond

Well, that’s it for your reading this semester. You’ve done so well, that you should take the rest of the week off…starting Wednesday. When you return on 11/27, we’ll have a presentation discussion and portfolio workshop. Again, make sure you review the portfolio requirements, including reflecting/reflection requirements.

Don’t forget these special dates:

Portfolios DUE: 12/04
Final Presentations: 12/04
Final Exam: 12/11/2017 @ 6:30 pm
If you have a conflict with the above exam time, have you e-mailed me? Have you discussed it with me?