Web Design Class' Blog
October 14, 2004 | 
36 Comments
The other day, via my referrer script, I stumbled across the class blog of Lois Breedlove and her Web design students. I thought, “what a great idea!” A collaborative blog for the class—awesome! I’ve since been following along and have got Lois’ permission to share it with y’all.
Aside from the fact that I think it’s a great use of blogging technology, the comments and observations her students have on Web design are interesting, entertaining and enlightening. For example, they were most recently asked to review a few well known Web designer’s sites (mine included) and comment with their reactions.
I find it useful and somewhat eye-opening to see how they view these sites. Keep in mind they are getting their first taste of Web design, but note they seem to see things in ways many experienced Web professionals never would have. In reading the comments I feel I’m learning something from their experience.
Filed under: News
Comments
1. Abel R. said:
Definitely a great idea! One thing I noticed is they focused more on content than delivery. A very common trend for newcomers in the world of design. Once they get past that, I think many of them will start to understand/develop their own process for web design.
Something else I noticed, they seemed more interested in trying to answer ‘Why’ they liked/disliked each sample. Instead, they should be trying to answer the ‘Why’s’ of web design. (Ex: Why did he place that image there?)
Posted on October 14, 2004 01:52 PM | #
2. Kyle said:
Wow, that is a great idea, and the comments are fun to read. I agree with Abel that the students seem to really talk about why they liked or disliked something, but that was the assignment maybe?
It’s hard (and I know) when you are new to Web design to sort out why a designer has made a particular decision. I mean many of the students were a bit confused to the purpose of your and other sites. This is 100% understandable, but at the same time your audience knows right away what it’s all about, so it’s not like the decision was bad.
Thanks for pointing it out! And to those students out there – keep up the good work!
Posted on October 14, 2004 01:59 PM | #
3. chuck said:
very cool idea .. I loved reading the comments of these students to get a totally different perspective …
my first thought was to be critical, like “Oh, they have no idea what they are talking about; what do you mean you don’t know what the point is - its a blog, hello! have you ever heard of a blog?”
then, the more I tought about it, they reacted just as they should … we all I think just make alot of assumptions about what we do and why we do it - getting a total outsider’s view is great … kinda like explaining to your Aunt Mildred why you have a website …
really makes you question things, doesn’t it?
Posted on October 14, 2004 02:11 PM | #
4. Michael Pierce said:
Very interesting to read! Some lessons in what it takes to reach an audience in the meat of their comments.
Just made me chuckle. What’s next? “Don’t trust a web designer over 30?” “Grumpy Old Desingers”? :)I did find it interesting that only one person took advantage of the medium to actually *link* their comments back to the site being observed.
Anyway, thanks for the link. Being new to all of this myself, I’m hoping I can learn a thing or 2 from the class.
Posted on October 14, 2004 02:44 PM | #
5. Matt Heerema said:
Haha!
“Zeldmen.com: I really enjoyed their natural colors. The use of the large picture on the home page was intriguing. Again, I didn’t really know what the point of the site was”
I guess I’ve never really been to Zeldmen.com, but I’m don’t really know what the point of his site is either… ;)
Posted on October 14, 2004 02:47 PM | #
6. Michael Moncur said:
Wow! The thing I noticed more than anything is all of the comments about weblogs. Apparently the blog backlash is in full swing.
Posted on October 14, 2004 02:50 PM | #
7. Keith said:
Michael P. – Yeah, they just had to visit during a huge semantical debate on Web standards…argh! ;)
Matt – No doubt, that “Zeldmen” thing cracked me up. There are people who don’t know who Jeffrey Zeldman is, imagine that! I don’t blame them though, I know lots of people who think I’m a total geek for knowing stuff like that.
Michael M. – I think the average joe has a pretty skewed, somewhat warranted negative view of blogs. The backlash isn’t that new really…but yeah.
I’ve got to say it’s exciting to see people actually learning and taking a class on Web design. I remember the old days when you *had* to teach yourself.
Posted on October 14, 2004 02:54 PM | #
8. Britt said:
The comments made it plain for me to see how myself and others take for granted the sites the students visited. I never stopped to think if I knew what these blogs were about or what their point is.
Part of the uncertainty might spring from the lack of “selling” something on these blogs. Some people might not be used to the free exchange of information that many of us frequent visitors expect.
Posted on October 14, 2004 03:15 PM | #
9. Dave Marks said:
I found it funny that no-one really understood the point in blogs - did they not realise that they were posting to/interacting with a blog and what that was achieving….
doh!
Should be interesting to follow though
Posted on October 14, 2004 03:20 PM | #
10. Mike said:
Funny, I never thought this was a new concept. Here at RIT, we’ve been using weblogs for class discussions for the past year or more. What always cracks me up is the professor saying something like this:
“Class, your weblog posts are due Friday. And make sure to leave comments on your classmates’ posts!”
Ooooh, classic.
Posted on October 14, 2004 03:24 PM | #
11. Mike said:
<plug>
And at Business Logs, we can help teachers and students set up their own weblogs.
</plug>
Had to do it ;)
Posted on October 14, 2004 03:25 PM | #
12. Dave Marks said:
Yeah, I’m surprised/impressed that the tutor got them to review the websites of people that are leaders in the field, and that advocate standards etc… I hope this refects how/what they are being taught!
…I’m still getting over the shock of my x-tutor trying to tell us that a paragraph tag wasn’t part of a pair!
Posted on October 14, 2004 03:26 PM | #
13. Keith said:
Mike – You owe me a couple hundred bucks for that “ad.” :0)
<plug>
Really, though, I do have advertising slots available…
</plug>
I guess I’m not surprised by the idea to use a blog for a class like that, it’s just I’d never thought of it. It’s very obviously a great idea!
Posted on October 14, 2004 03:35 PM | #
14. Greg said:
One of the harder things to realize as a new designer is that it’s not all about you. What you like is irrelevant if you’re not the target audience. Most of my work is in academic faculty-oriented stuff, and I have no experience in that. I had to ask what the people wanted. Hint: Medical types (doctors, nurses, etc.) prefer clean design with lots of whitespace. And they LOVE content.
I myself find this kind of design boring and dull, but it doesn’t matter what I like.
Posted on October 14, 2004 03:43 PM | #
15. Jason Marble said:
I love it. But I must confess, it kinda makes me want to start teaching even more.
Hmm… never thought a die hard entrepreneur like myself would actually be thinking about being a part time web design teacher.
Posted on October 14, 2004 04:44 PM | #
16. Dave P said:
haha:
This guy must have been reading the post about validation from the other day! :-)
In all seriousness, This is a pretty interesting idea for Ms. Breedlove to undertake, and I agree Keith that the comments are worth thinking about.
I wonder about the ages of the students though; is this a University course? While they’re definately not shy about expressing their opinions (which is great - especially in this day and age!) a lot of the students tend to digress into “It’s boring” or “It’s confusing” or “I just don’t get it” style comments.
Perhaps it’s the limitation of the medium, but a little prodding (which I’m sure is reserved for class) would be needed to really understand what the student is trying to convey.
meh, maybe I’m just old.
Good find!
Posted on October 14, 2004 05:19 PM | #
17. Matt H said:
Dave:
The site mentions “Central Washington University, in Ellensburg, WA”.
Posted on October 14, 2004 06:18 PM | #
18. Matt H said:
Maybe I should have read more, a course description is available at http://www.cwu.edu/~breedlov/Com306/online.html
Posted on October 14, 2004 06:20 PM | #
19. Eric TF Bat said:
The perennial complaint that this-and-this is “boring” is probably just typical teenage angst. We all went through it; thankfully my seven-year-old daughter shows no indication that she knows how to be bored. The reason? She’s home-schooled: she’s already learnt that saying “I’m bored” would be tantamount to saying “I’m too dumb to figure out how to entertain myself”. Whereas kids who’ve gone through the muggle school system are used to being told to sit down, shut up and be as average as possible, so the teacher doesn’t get headaches. (But that’s a zealotry of a different kind, so never mind.)
ObBlogs: it’s a fascinating insight into the world outside the (ugh) blogosphere. Needs to be more of it. Don’t worry tho, Keith; we don’t think you’re boring!
Posted on October 14, 2004 10:49 PM | #
20. kiji said:
At my Alma Mater, the Japanese Studies department of the Catholic University Leuven (akira.arts.kuleuven.ac.be) has used a blog for a while now, to create a community of current students and graduated “old boys”. It is used for communication between students and academic staff and doubles as educational tool…I wish I was younger..
Posted on October 15, 2004 01:31 AM | #
21. Gordon said:
I think this will be fascinating to monitor. I wonder if the introduction of Zeldman (…men … heh) et al. will be continued throughout the course, with each site being revisited on the basis of a different topic. What I think we are getting is the first pass, initial reaction stuff. When they move on to look at, say, validation will they be revisiting the same sites to look at them from a different perspective?
Have to agree that I think ‘we who have blogs’ have a completely different view of them and it’s fascinating to read the thoughts of people who are still new to this. Do they do a history of the web section? Do they have to code up pages in Notepad with no colours, fonts, tables etc? Kids today huh! ;-)
P.S. Will they be commenting about this post soon?!
Posted on October 15, 2004 01:32 AM | #
22. jake said:
I took a class in college that was half web work half writing. I’m still a terrible writer but the web design was handled well. From learning by myself since high school I knew more than the professor, but she was very interested in learning from me instead of giving me a hard time.
And she forced everyone to code manually. You didn’t have to use Notepad, but if she learned that you used any sort of WYSIWYG development tool you immediately failed the project. I loved that part.
Posted on October 15, 2004 08:00 AM | #
23. Joshua said:
“…I really disliked Zeldmen.com, when I clicked on it I got an odd poem….”
Damn you Zeldman for having a baby. Damn you!
Posted on October 15, 2004 08:35 AM | #
24. Diane said:
Very very interesting stuff. I am very new to reading these blogs, just a couple weeks, and I find them fascinating, entertaining and educational.
Of course, being female, over 30, and a professional designer probably helps. At the same time, I would expect them to be avidly consuming content, asking questions, etc. Boredom and confusion is pretty hard to understand, and doesn’t bode so well for the career prospects!
Posted on October 15, 2004 09:46 AM | #
25. D said:
I am a student in Loiss web design course. It was very interesting to read your comments. It is strange to many of us in the course that professionals in the industry are now critiquing our evaluations of blogs. Many of us are seniors and PR or Journalism majors, looking forward to graduation, and being given the assignment to view and discuss the content of blogs (weekly) becomes somewhat tedious (no matter how graphically advanced one is over another). I know it is an exercise to encourage us to take interest in a trend, but I feel as though having to continually look at blogs gets old (and we are only at midterm).
Posted on October 15, 2004 09:46 AM | #
26. Jenna said:
Good idea. I kept gasping while I read through the comments at how the students were putting well-known writers in their place without even knowing it. Tres funny. :)
Posted on October 15, 2004 09:54 AM | #
27. Diane said:
I continue to be fascinated by this thread. The statement by “D” that reviewing blogs is rather tedious is interesting. As future journalism and PR professionals, I would think there would be some recognition of the fact that this is a significant and serious new communication medium.
There are boring blogs, there are silly blogs, but there are also hundreds of excellent, well-written, useful and entertaining blogs. The quality of the graphic design is only one element, much like the design quality of an printed publication.
How about just a drop of intellectual curiosity?
Posted on October 15, 2004 09:58 AM | #
28. Keith said:
D – I know how you feel. So much information can be a bit over- (or under-) whelming. To be quite honest, for me anyway, the sites you are looking at are more than just “blogs”, they represent the Web sites and methodologies of some pretty well known and high regarded Web professionals. We’ve just been using blogging technology to talk about our profession. In our line of work, this has been very helpful.
As well, as PR and Journalism majors it’s very, very good that you are looking at blogs as they are making a HUGE impact on your chosen field. I work in marketing and communications at Children’s Hospital Seattle right now and I work very closely with PR.
One of the things I’ve done there is set up blogs for them to get news out about the hospital. You can see one in action here.
Blogs can be leverages as extremely effective PR and communication tools. Don’t just write them off as boring, or always personal. There is much more to the story than that.
My guess is that many of you will be better of for having this experience, even if it is a bit mind numbing at times! ;)
Posted on October 15, 2004 09:58 AM | #
29. Diane said:
Keith sounded so nice, I need to soften my writing style a bit, don’t I? :)
Posted on October 15, 2004 10:04 AM | #
30. Coding Elvis said:
I didn’t see where anyone touched on the most important, and obviously overlooked by the students, context of a personal blog. It’s about self-publishing. Just look at WWdN. His blogging was his way, and is for many others, of publishing when the book industry won’t give you a chance.
Posted on October 15, 2004 11:06 AM | #
31. Lois Breedlove said:
Hello. I’m the teacher who started this –unknowingly, actually. I’m a journalism prof who teaches the intro to online design course here and I’m self taught as well. (Thank God for a book call learn the web in seven days that I bought ten years ago….) These students do code by hand for the first half of the term. I’m adamant that you can’t really learn web if you can’t do basic code. The blog was on a whim to see how this new medium (and I think it is a new vehicle separate from web really) might be used in the classroom. When Keith emailed me, it was the first time that I’d really thought about the fact that he or others like yourselves could view the comments. Duh. It makes it so much more real (and as soon as I find out who D is I’ll give him/her an A for tracking back here.)
If you’d like to return the favor, you can critique their web pages at www.cwu.edu/~breedlov/Com306/dir.html. You can post your comments to the class blog…. Gently please. These are beginners (and you might want to check out the assignments at the class site to see if the page is dumb because of the student or because of the assignment.) For all the hype about computer literate young people, it isn’t really true. Some of these students (juniors and seniors) had never heard of a blog, don’t know how to save a file as text only, etc., etc. And remember that most of it is hand coded, although they are beginning to be allowed to use Composer. (We’ll get a taste of dreamweaver by the end of the ten weeks.)
Enjoyed the posts.
Lois
Posted on October 15, 2004 03:34 PM | #
32. patricia said:
Of all the comments, I most enjoyed this:
I’m self taught (which explains all of my mistakes) so I can appreciate the class blog and would have loved the structure that comes from learning something in an academic setting.
It’s a shame that so many of the students found the sites/blogs boring though. I’ve learned so much from many of the sites that they were asked to visit that it’s hard to imagine being bored by them. Frustrated, yes. Bored? No.
Hopefully once they get more into the class they’ll find the work more interesting. Otherwise that could be a really long semester. :D
Posted on October 15, 2004 06:40 PM | #
33. will said:
I fell off my chair laughing at that one. I assume they are talking about Mr. Usability himself :D
Posted on October 15, 2004 06:54 PM | #
34. D said:
After posting this morning, I thought I would look back to see if any comments had been made to what I said. I HAVE TO SAY THANK YOU (to all who replied)… YOU GAVE ME THE MISSING LINK! I know it might sound strange, that I am just putting it together, but there are MANY professional blogs that really do relate to the industry of PR and Journalism. (Such as using them to publish work or news pieces.) It is a source where news and information can simultaneously come together and be updated for breaking stories. While I may feel frustrated by blindly searching for blogs and coming across personal diaries, there are many very useful sites.
Keith, thank you, I went and looked at the link for the Childrens Hospital in Seattle, and I have previously examined other news-related sources (I concur, these are not only informative, but also very professional.) Many of the sites that we do look at in class, are of this nature.
I must say one last thing… I never would have thought it… but I feel like I am becoming a blogger (oh no!) I could not wait to check back for new comments!!! (I am laughing inside)
Posted on October 15, 2004 09:06 PM | #
35. Keith said:
D – Glad to help out. It’s quite a bit to take in all at once. I’ve been blogging and using the technology for years (not to mention almost 10 years in Web desgin) and I still don’t get it all.
I’ve noticed some of the comments here might seem a bit harsh to the students of your class, but I don’t think in most cases it’s intentional.
It’s one of the risks of allowing comments on a blog – anyone can say almost anything. Free and open communication is a great thing, it’s just a bit dicey at times.
To those of us who are so close to these sites, it’s a bit funny to see the reaction of your class. Funny, but educational and enlighening as well.
I, for one, will be watching what you guys say on your blog – in my own way I’m learning from you also.
Feel free to come back anytime.
Posted on October 18, 2004 07:49 PM | #
36. amyybeth said:
I’ve taken many (and am currently teaching one) blog- centered course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The course I’m currently teaching is an introductory level design course. The students use the blog in place of having in-class discussions. I’ve also taken (and will be teaching in the spring) an introductory XTHML/CSS course completely on-line. The blog is a fantastic classroom addition!
Posted on October 21, 2004 01:20 PM | #
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