FINALLY! I’ve completed my blog assignment. This is my first time doing an academic blog. It’s an interesting way of grading an assignment. Initially, it was mind-boggling about the topics that I was going to write about. But as the days passed, ideas just flowed. In addition, I had to be careful of the tone I was using. I couldn’t write like how a personal blog would sound like. I had to be more objective than subjective. But I had fun doing assignment.
While doing my assignment, I put into practice what was being taught. In Parker (2003, pg. 273), there were a few several design suggestions which I applied to my blog.
• Avoid Multi-column Layouts: As seen in my blog, there is only a single column. This prevents the reader from scrolling up and down if the blog was written in a multicolumn layout. Additionally, there is sufficient line spacing to compensate for the resulting long lines of text.
• Reduce Line Length: There is white space build up on the left and right margins my blog. This is to ensure that the readers won’t have to make as many left-to-right eye movements as they scan each line of text.
• Using Typographic Constrast: The titles are larger and more noticeable than the body text.
• Add Text Hyperlinks: On the left margin of the blog, there’s a hyperlinked table of contents to help the reader navigate around the blog.
• Background and Visuals: I kept the design of my blog as simple as possible. This is because I don’t know the resolution or size of my reader’s screen.
I also made sure my blog followed Nielsen’s (2005) list of top ten design mistakes. I avoided most of them, except for first two top mistakes – ‘No Author Biographies’ and ‘No Author Photo’. These restrictions were also compulsory in our assignment requirements.
