05

Week 5

Today, Wednesday 3rd February 2016

1. Formative presentations

• Tutorials on Sharing is caring

Your homework and blog!

Formative presentations

Here's the collaborative feedback Google doc.

WTF should I present?

Your progress on Sharing is caring so far:

1. What is the cause your are working on? What are some reasons people are not talking about or acting on your chosen cause?

• Who is your target audience?
• What is the first key reaction you want your audience to have?
• What is your call to action? In other words, what do you want people to do once they have experienced your page?
• What contexts, symbols or situations can be used to represent your issue visually?
• How can your page open up debate, controversy or curiosity rather than reinforcing a single answer or perspective?
• What story does your page tell?
• How are you translating your ideas into code?

How long should my presentation be?

Ideally 5 minutes (max 10 minutes) with another 5 for Q&A.

Tips for the presenter

1. Don't start with an apology.

   Whatever you have is what you'll present.

• Don't read a script, or read from your presentation.

  We can read ourselves.

• Don't be defensive.

  We're not attacking you.

  Instead of putting up a defence wall, try to listen for the feedback that can make your ideas better.

• Be confident.

  You know your work inside out, so speak about it with confidence.

  Stand up and get your hands out of your pockets.

• Tell us a story, not a features list.

• Ask specific questions.

  Not What do you think? or Do you like it?.

• Smile.

  It makes people pay more attention, and it makes you sound more engaging. Simple 😄

Many more tips here!

Tips for everyone else

1. Be kind.

   Your comments can be challenging, but make sure the creator of the work understands that your feedback is about their work, not about them.

• Be constructive.

  Include suggestions, which the creator of the work can simply take away and use.

  Also consider how you frame suggestions. Saying Why didn't you make XYZ so and so? may make the creator of the work feel like you think they're dumb or haven't done their work. Instead, try with What do you think about making XYZ so and so?

• Be specific and say why.

  Rather than saying / writing I don’t like XYZ be specific about what you have an issue with, and why. Try saying / writing something like I don’t think tXYZ reflects the user needs, because...

• Focus on needs, not opinions.

  Instead of a personal statement like I hate the red button! consider a user-focused question such as Would users dislike the red button? It could be confused with an error message., which is much more effective, and also testable.

Project

Sharing is caring

This project is about using code (HTML, CSS and a dash of JavaScript) creatively to communicate and advocate a cause you care about.

All the project material is here.

In small groups:

1. Review the feedback you received after the formative presentations.

• Draft a plan of action: what needs doing (to finish this project) and when can you do that? I suggest using Trello for this task.
• List the technical issues you need help with: we'll start troubleshooting them today.

Homework

Sharing is caring

Collect your research for this project into a Google document.

You will have minimum 5 research sources, including:

• articles that explain your cause, or the issues around it
• organisations that already campaign for your cause
• websites that advocate a different cause but are inspiring either visually or for the communication strategies they use to draw attention to their cause

For each source include:

1. The link to the source online

• One or more quotes from the source
• One or more screenshots
• A paragraph summarising in your words why this source is relevant to your project

Share your research GDoc on the #web-dev-workshop on Slack for everyone to view.

Blog

Compare these two infographic stories by Angela Morelli (who will be our Skype-guest later in this unit):

1. Food is for eating

• Virtual Water

Consider them both from an information design and a Web development point of view and write about:

• target audience(s)
• aims (eg: is it to raise awareness or change behaviours?)
• calls to action
• storytelling: what are the ingredients of these stories (eg: time or place markers, more or less unexpected events, more or less direct references to your own daily experiences)?
• data visualisation (what information should be remembered?)
• technical issues (how would you improve them?)

Learn more about these two projects and Angela's work:

• Angela on Medium
• Virtual Water, the making of
• Let me tell you a data story on YouTube