After an interseting day learning a few new things about computer technology, web 2.0, and current thinking relating this to higher education, I decided to try to create a blog.
Well, I may have finally got here - but what a frustrating process !!!! It has taken 45 minutes for me to figure out what was needed in each of the prompts! The problem is, that the FIRST page needs to be user friendly to the novice. If you have never seen a blogger page before, it should spell out in simple language what is being asked for. Now that I have succeeded, I know what to enter next time. But, if I wasn't doing this for an assignment, then I would have walked away in disgust. First impressions are important, particularly if you're wanting to market a product. And the internet is a product! Even in education, this is so. If we don't recognise that these e-tools need to marketed to make it easy for our students to learn to use them, and to successfully use them, then they will not persist. Especially the younger generation, who want instant gratification. Add to that the adult learners (& so much of our uni education is now post-grad) - these learners need to have success in their ventures, to reinforce that the investment of time is worthwhile. Otherwise they won't persist.
So, for everyone apart from the 'already hooked computer nerd' - the web designers need to stop, and think how their web page would be approached by a complet novice. The ones they want to hook. The ones like me.
How easy was it for you?
No comments:
Post a Comment