Assignment 9

The Information Environment (IE) is a term used to refer to JISC's work to develop and provide services which enable people to find and manage information efficiently and effectively in their learning, teaching or research. The information resources which people need are very varied - books, journals, research papers, teaching resources, videos, maps and more - and while they might be in any format they are increasingly digital.

Reference: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/informationenvironment/overview.aspx


Combining the two definitions involve which are the Information and environment it entails that just to come up a definition that will suit for the related definition and meaning. Information is the result of processing, manipulating and organizing data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the person receiving it, while the environment is the workplace where the data is process, and a nature where the information is taken care and put in a certain container that exclusive for the certain data. The information does have an environment because as time goes by information change, it is either reduced or improved. In order to manage the information, it must have a system to taken care of it.
Today, the term information technology deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store protect, process, transmit, and securely retrieve information. It has ballooned to encompass many aspects of computing and technology, and the term has become very recognizable. IT professionals perform a variety of duties that range from installing applications to designing complex compute networks and information databases. A few of the duties that IT professionals perform may include data management, networking, engineering computer hardware, database and software design, as well as the management. With the use of technology the information is being manage, talking about management there the following information how information being management using a concept.

In regards to the assignment, the environment of information is defined broadly that is why I just can’t choose just one. Actually, I want to involve myself as many IT related works and activities. I really do like the course IT I just have difficulty in programming aspects, but still I don’t want to stay on that side, I know that there is something that really suits my ability and interest in Information Environment. I know that their place for me and I am looking forward to discover it.

This is the following reasons why I involve myself in IT. I thought that involving into information technology will be my gate pass for me to be competent in technical things in this generation. I really want to involve in animation. Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion picture or video program, although several other forms of presenting animation also exist Even before I am really fascinated about how the anime works and do an amazing animations and transitions. I love to learn how their visual effects are performed and how to make one. This is first encouraging me to get into here to live in information environment. I know that someday if I really involve myself in technology I know I will have this ability to be the best in it, it might not today, not in this place or not in this time but I know it will come and I am very near on it.

I like technical things. I love to know more about hardware and software. I love to know more about computer hardware and software which helps me to fix my pc on my own. I really want to be computer technician too. I want to enhance and optimizing my own pc. Computer hardware, upon which can be installed an operating system and a multitude of software to perform the operator's desired functions. While the Computer software is often regarded as anything but hardware, meaning that the "hard" are the parts that are tangible while the "soft" part is the intangible objects inside the computer. Software encompasses an extremely wide array of products and technologies developed using different techniques like programming languages, scripting languages, microcode, or an FPGA configuration. Software usually runs on underlying software operating systems such as the Linux or Microsoft Windows. Software also includes video games and the logic systems of modern consumer devices such as automobiles, televisions, and toasters. I really love dismantling and assembling gadgets and equipments just to find out want are inside of it.

I really want to learn about networking and be good on it. I want to understand all this terms below and be good on it. I want to be good at networking, method of network connection and network technologies. Computer networks classification according to the hardware and software technology that is used to interconnect the individual devices in the network, such as Optical fiber, Ethernet, Wireless LAN or Power line communication. Ethernet uses physical wiring to connect devices. Frequently deployed devices include hubs, switches, bridges and/or routers. Wireless LAN technology is designed to connect devices without wiring. These devices use radio waves or infrared signals as a transmission medium.

Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation

1. Squash and Stretch - defining the rigidity and mass of an object by distorting its shape during an action
2. Timing and Motion - spacing actions to define the weight and size of objects and the personality of characters
3. Anticipation - the preparation for an action
4. Staging - presenting an idea so that it is unmistakably clear
5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action - the termination of an action and establishing its relationship to the next action
6. Straight Ahead Action and Pose-to-Pose Action - The two contrasting approaches to the creation of movement
7. Slow In and Out - the spacing of the in-between frames to achieve subtlety of timing and movement
8. Arcs - the visual path of action for natural movement
9. Exaggeration - Accentuating the essence of an idea via the design and the action
10. Secondary Action - the action of an object resulting from another action
11. Appeal - creating a design or an action that the audience enjoys watching

Reference:
John Lasseter, "Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation", Computer Graphics, pp. 35-44, 21:4, July 1987 (SIGGRAPH 87).

George Maestri, "Digital Character Animation", New Riders Press, 1996.
Introduction

I know that incline with this principles will be key tools to make my own animation be successful and effective. All this guidelines will the things I must basically follow and apply some of the principles that still available that help me makes as one good animator.



10 Principles of Effective Web Design


In order to use the principles properly we first need to understand how users interact with web-sites, how they think and what the basic patterns of users’ behavior are.

1. How do users think?

Basically, users’ habits on the Web aren’t that different from customers’ habits in a store. Visitors glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they’re looking for. In fact, there are large parts of the page they don’t even look at. Most users search for something interesting (or useful) and clickable; as soon as some promising candidates are found, users click. If the new page doesn’t meet users’ expectations, the Back button is clicked and the search process is continued.

• Users appreciate quality and credibility. If a page provides users with high-quality content, they are willing to compromise the content with advertisements and the design of the site. This is the reason why not-that-well-designed web-sites with high-quality content gain a lot of traffic over years. Content is more important than the design which supports it.

• Users don’t read they scan. Analyzing a web-page, users search for some fixed points or anchors which would guide them through the content of the page. Notice how “hot” areas abrupt in the middle of sentences. This is typical for the scanning process.

• Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification. Very simple principle: If a web-site isn’t able to meet users’ expectations, then designer failed to get his job done properly and the company loses money. The higher is the cognitive load and the less intuitive is the navigation, the more willing are users to leave the web-site and search for alternatives.

• Users don’t make optimal choices. Users don’t search for the quickest way to find the information they’re looking for. Neither do they scan web-page in a linear fashion, going sequentially from one site section to another one. Instead users satisfice; they choose the first reasonable option. As soon as they find a link that seems like it might lead to the goal, there is a very good chance that it will be immediately clicked. Optimizing is hard, and it takes a long time. Satisficing is more efficient.

• Users follow their intuition. In most cases users muddle through instead of reading the information a designer has provided. According to Steve Krug, the basic reason for that is that users don’t care. “If we find something that works, we stick to it. It doesn’t matter to us if we understand how things work, as long as we can use them. If your audience is going to act like you’re designing billboard, then design great billboards.”

• Users want to have control. Users want to be able to control their browser and rely on the consistent data presentation throughout the site. E.g. they don’t want new windows popping up unexpectedly and they want to be able to get back with a “Back”-button to the site they’ve been before: therefore it’s a good practice to never open links in new browser windows.

1. Don’t make users think

According to Krug’s first law of usability, the web-page should be obvious and self-explanatory. When you’re creating a site, your job is to get rid of the question marks — the decisions users need to make consciously, considering pros, cons and alternatives. If the navigation and site architecture aren’t intuitive, the number of question marks grows and makes it harder for users to comprehend how the system works and how to get from point A to point B. A clear structure, moderate visual clues and easily recognizable links can help users to find their path to their aim. By reducing cognitive load you make it easier for visitors to grasp the idea behind the system. Once you’ve achieved this, you can communicate why the system is useful and how users can benefit from it. People won’t use your web site if they can’t find their way around it.

2. Don’t squander users’ patience

In every project when you are going to offer your visitors some service or tool, try to keep your user requirements minimal. The less action is required from users to test a service, the more likely a random visitor is to actually try it out. First-time visitors are willing to play with the service, not filling long web forms for an account they might never use in the future. Let users explore the site and discover your services without forcing them into sharing private data. It’s not reasonable to force users to enter an email address to test the feature. Ideally remove all barriers, don’t require subscriptions or registrations first. A user registration alone is enough of an impediment to user navigation to cut down on incoming traffic.
3. Manage to focus users’ attention

As web-sites provide both static and dynamic content, some aspects of the user interface attract attention more than others do. Obviously, images are more eye-catching than the text — just as the sentences marked as bold are more attractive than plain text. The human eye is a highly non-linear device, and web-users can instantly recognize edges, patterns and motions. This is why video-based advertisements are extremely annoying and distracting, but from the marketing perspective they perfectly do the job of capturing users’ attention. Focusing users’ attention to specific areas of the site with a moderate use of visual elements can help your visitors to get from point A to point B without thinking of how it actually is supposed to be done. The less question marks visitors have, the better sense of orientation they have and the more trust they can develop towards the company the site represents. In other words: the less thinking needs to happen behind the scenes, the better is the user experience which is the aim of usability in the first place.

4. Strive for feature exposure

Modern web designs are usually criticized due to their approach of guiding users with visually appealing 1-2-3-done-steps, large buttons with visual effects etc. But from the design perspective these elements actually aren’t a bad thing. On the contrary, such guidelines are extremely effective as they lead the visitors through the site content in a very simple and user-friendly way. Letting the user see clearly what functions are available is a fundamental principle of successful user interface design. It doesn’t really matter how this is achieved. What matters is that the content is well-understood and visitors feel comfortable with the way they interact with the system.

5. Make use of effective writing

As the Web is different from print, it’s necessary to adjust the writing style to users’ preferences and browsing habits. Promotional writing won’t be read. Long text blocks without images and keywords marked in bold or italics will be skipped. Exaggerated language will be ignored. Talk business. Avoid cute or clever names, marketing-induced names, company-specific names, and unfamiliar technical names. For instance, if you describe a service and want users to create an account, “sign up” is better than “start now!” which is again better than “explore our services”.

• use short and concise phrases (come to the point as quickly as possible),
• use checkable layout (categorize the content, use multiple heading levels, use visual elements and bulleted lists which break the flow of uniform text blocks),
• use plain and objective language (a promotion doesn’t need to sound like advertisement; give your users some reasonable and objective reason why they should use your service or stay on your web-site)

6. Strive for simplicity

The “keep it simple”-principle (KIS) should be the primary goal of site design. Users are rarely on a site to enjoy the design; furthermore, in most cases they are looking for the information despite the design. Strive for simplicity instead of complexity. From the visitors’ point of view, the best site design is a pure text, without any advertisements or further content blocks matching exactly the query visitors used or the content they’ve been looking for. This is one of the reasons why a user-friendly print-version of web pages is essential for good user experience.

7. Don’t be afraid of the white space

Actually it’s really hard to overestimate the importance of white space. Not only does it help to reduce the cognitive load for the visitors, but it makes it possible to perceive the information presented on the screen. When a new visitor approaches a design layout, the first thing he/she tries to do is to scan the page and divide the content area into digestible pieces of information.

8. Communicate effectively with a “visible language”

In his papers on effective visual communication, Aaron Marcus states three fundamental principles involved in the use of the so-called “visible language” — the content users see on a screen.

• Organize: provide the user with a clear and consistent conceptual structure. Consistency, screen layout, relationships and navigability are important concepts of organization. The same conventions and rules should be applied to all elements.
• Economize: do the most with the least amount of cues and visual elements. Four major points to be considered: simplicity, clarity, distinctiveness, and emphasis. Simplicity includes only the elements that are most important for communication. Clarity: all components should be designed so their meaning is not ambiguous. Distinctiveness: the important properties of the necessary elements should be distinguishable. Emphasis: the most important elements should be easily perceived.
• Communicate: match the presentation to the capabilities of the user. The user interface must keep in balance legibility, readability, typography, symbolism, multiple views, and color or texture in order to communicate successfully. Use max. 3 typefaces in a maximum of 3 point sizes — a maximum of 18 words or 50-80 characters per line of text.

9. Conventions are our friends

Conventional design of site elements doesn’t result in a boring web site. In fact, conventions are very useful as they reduce the learning curve, the need to figure out how things work. For instance, it would be a usability nightmare if all web-sites had different visual presentation of RSS-feeds. That’s not that different from our regular life where we tend to get used to basic principles of how we organize data (folders) or do shopping (placement of products). With conventions you can gain users’ confidence, trust, reliability and prove your credibility. Follow users’ expectations — understand what they’re expecting from a site navigation, text structure, search placement etc. (see Nielsen’s Usability Alertbox for more information)

10. Test early, test often

This so-called TETO-principle should be applied to every web design project as usability tests often provide crucial insights into significant problems and issues related to a given layout. “Test not too late, not too little and not for the wrong reasons”, that means that you can’t universally answer whether some layout is better than the other one as you need to analyze it from a very specific point of view (considering requirements, stakeholders, budget etc.).

This is all consideration and principles of how to satisfy user and customer ton the web design you offer to them. This might I use in the future if ever I will be good at making wed designing but as of now, I’m hoping and looking forward that it will be done. This principle is taken from the experience of others, which must be considered by most web designer.

Seven Principles of Software Development

The First Principle: The Reason It All Exists
A software system exists for one reason: to provide value to its users. All decisions should be made with this in mind. Before specifying a system requirement, before noting a piece of system functionality, before determining the hardware platforms or development processes, ask yourself questions such as: "Does this add real VALUE to the system?" If the answer is "no", don't do it

The Second Principle: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid!)
Software design is not a haphazard process. There are many factors to consider in any design effort. All design should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. This facilitates having a more easily understood, and easily maintained system. This is not to say that features, even internal features, should be discarded in the name of simplicity. Indeed, the more elegant designs are usually the more simple ones. Simple also does not mean "quick and dirty." In fact, it often takes a lot of thought and work over multiple iterations to simplify. The payoff is software that is more maintainable and less error-prone.

The Third Principle: Maintain the Vision
A clear vision is essential to the success of a software project. Without one, a project almost unfailingly ends up being "of two [or more] minds" about itself. Without conceptual integrity, a system threatens to become a patchwork of incompatible designs, held together by the wrong kind of screws. Compromising the architectural vision of a software system weakens and will eventually break even the most well designed systems.

The Fourth Principle: What You Produce, Others Will Consume
Seldom is an industrial-strength software system constructed and used in a vacuum. In some way or other, someone else will use, maintain, document, or otherwise depend on being able to understand your system. So, always specify, design, and implement knowing someone else will have to understand what you are doing. The audience for any product of software development is potentially large. Specify with an eye to the users. Someone may have to debug the code you write, and that makes them a user of your code. Making their job easier adds value to the system.

The Fifth Principle: Be Open to the Future
A system with a long lifetime has more value. In today's computing environments, where specifications change on a moment's notice and hardware platforms are obsolete when just a few months old, software lifetimes are typically measured in months instead of years. However, true "industrial-strength" software systems must endure far longer. To do this successfully, these systems must be ready to adapt to these and other changes. Systems that do this successfully are those that have been designed this way from the start. Never design yourself into a corner. Always ask "what if ", and prepare for all possible answers by creating systems that solve the general problem, not just the specific one. This could very possibly lead to the reuse of an entire system.
Abusing this principle is where I see many developers go wrong. One of the benefits of having both years of experience and many of them on a single project is that you learn the virtues of You Arent Gonna Need It. As developers, we often guess wrong on how a system is going to change unless we are also domain experts. Further, systems do change but often converge so the generalized solution becomes baggage. -- Sal Mangano

The Sixth Principle: Plan Ahead for Reuse

Reuse saves time and effort. Achieving a high level of reuse is arguably the hardest goal to accomplish in developing a software system. The reuse of code and designs has been proclaimed as a major benefit of using object-oriented technologies. However, the return on this investment is not automatic. To leverage the reuse possibilities that OO programming provides requires forethought and planning. There are many techniques to realize reuse at every level of the system development process. Those at the detailed design and code level are well known and documented. New literature is addressing the reuse of design in the form of software patterns. However, this is just part of the battle. Communicating opportunities for reuse to others in the organization is paramount. How can you reuse something that you don't know exists? Planning ahead for reuse reduces the cost and increases the value of both the reusable components and the systems into which they are incorporated.

The Seventh Principle: Think!

This last Principle is probably the most overlooked. Placing clear, complete thought before action almost always produces better results. When you think about something, you are more likely to do it right. You also gain knowledge about how to do it right again. If you do think about something and still do it wrong, it becomes valuable experience. A side effect of thinking is learning to recognize when you don t know something, at which point you can research the answer. When clear thought has gone into a system, value comes out. Applying the first six Principles requires intense thought, for which the potential rewards are enormous.

Reference:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SevenPrinciplesOfSoftwareDevelopment


For now, these are my ideas. I know this is subject to change as time comes. However, I am certain that I always dreamed of seeing myself in the future working in a big and top company here in the Philippines as a business intelligence analyst wherein my role would be to design and develop company data analysis and report solutions; review and analyze data from internal and external resources; communicate analysis results and make recommendations to senior management. I will provide a bridge between the business and IT, working with both sides to propose changes to processes and systems to meet the needs of the business. I will act as a liaison between functional areas such as HR, finance, marketing and technical areas, like development. I know I will encounter challenges, that is why, as of now, I'm slowly practicing myself so that I will become a competent applicant after I graduated. The world is all about competition and lucky are those who start to prepare early. Also, I have to apply the principles of information organization and representation so that I can perform my role effectively.

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