Seminar Notes 3-7-08

Attendance: Mollie, Pete, Jeremy, Maria, Prof. Forester, Ashley, Michelle, Eric

 Ashley:

• oberlin.edu—model for a good online source for sustainability on college campus
• Campus Resource Monitoring System tells what’s going on in terms of energy use in buildings on campus.
• Provides direct information and feedback on energy use in dorms in real time
• Site links to sustainability projects, reports, info
• LEED green buildings well monitored, building systems, interactive features
• Int. features such as energy, with animations. Shows how energy is produced and used on campus, such as solar.
• Has a webcam, links to media on what’s going on with this.
• Accessible website with tabbing, well designed

 Michelle:

• thehighline.org
• Converting a railway line into a park
• NYC raised railway line to become a park—west side of Manhattan from downtown meat-packing district to 30^th-ish street
• Design competition for the park. The website shows design finalist representations
• One in Paris is already completed
• Not open yet…damn
• Also a blog: blog.highline.org
• Links to similar projects, one in Atlanta (beltline.org), pictures of the one in Paris, something in Philly, Germany, Chicago…
• Many of these projects aren’t built yet
• The websites don’t mention what people think about these projects, such as local businesses, how it will affect the surrounding neighborhood, etc.
• Too much text on the beltline website, says Pete..gets “muddy” after homepage.
• “Less is more?” Pete likes things clear and simple. Thinks text will detract from images
• Eric mentioned barackobama.com  –likes the layout.
• first image, first sentence must grab people, keep them interested!!
• Someone in marketing told Pete that if the person can’t get to a piece of info in three clicks, it’s too confusing and you can lose the person’s interest.

Pete:

• http://ubu.com/aspen/intro.html
• aspen magazine–multimedia magazine that was originally mailed out in a box before internet
• essay, images and text, films, phonograph recordings…
• from about aspen section on the website: “This is a web version of Aspen, a multimedia magazine of the arts published by Phyllis Johnson from 1965 to 1971. Each issue came in a customized box filled with booklets, phonograph recordings, posters, postcards — one issue even included a spool of Super-8 movie film. It’s all here.”

 

Eric:

• had a webpage in which he posted links for series of videos/episodes he created.
• Using it as a hook to grab people to come back after they’ve seen his work already
• Tried to build a network of fans so they would follow his work from one project to another
• Can relate this to Placemaker if we wanted to do something similar
• Google page creator —pages.google.com

 

Prof. Forester:

• Web 2.0—about interacting
• “The Machine is Using Us (Final Version)” on youtube
• Done by an anthro prof at Kansas studying the web and how it is connecting people.

 For next week think about your own ideas, how they’re evolving and what you want to create. What you like/dislike about webpage