Comments for Contents Magazine

Comment on Creating for the Brain in the Body by Daniel Eizans

Daniel Eizans — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:19:53 +0000

Laura: Absolutely fantastic point. The ethical issues of anything neurologically based are many. Ethics of strategy and research is one I’d really like to dive into at some point because I’m currently part of a few studies that are investigating the brain’s reaction to different types of digital content.

I’ll touch on that research VERY briefly at Confab, but it certainly warrants a deeper dive.

Thanks for your comments.

Comment on Creating for the Brain in the Body by Laura Creekmore

Laura Creekmore — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:21:54 +0000

Lovely post — thanks for bringing these issues to the forefront. I do think that the ethical issues here are just as interesting as the human-understanding possibilities. We would go on about that side of this for a long time….

Comment on Better Lures for New Audiences by Mary Beth

Mary Beth — Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:19 +0000

I’ve been doing some pre-reading before going to Confab next week, and I like that this article gives specific steps, tips, a case study, and additional resources. I’ve just added “Audience Relevance and Search” to my reading list. Thank you, James!

Comment on Tools for a Revolution by Felix

Felix — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:55:52 +0000

Great topics and ideas. I would caution against the liberal use of revolution particularly in Egypt. Although there has been very popular protest, there has been relatively little change in goverance structures and the controlling elites. As barometer of real social control, I would expect that where there is least democratic change, there is corresponding US’s enthusiasm.

Comment on Better Lures for New Audiences by Georgina

Georgina — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 06:13:00 +0000

Really liked that this piece gave time to the brand language, and the compromises necessary (e.g. at URL level) to bridge the gap between brand and user when the user language research comes after the branding people have chosen their terminology. Really useful piece :) Happy days.

Comment on History and Its Contents by Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:40:58 +0000

Very nice piece…and it makes me feel that as an ex-archivist (and archaeologist, but that’s another story), I should really write a piece on how rare book librarians and archivists are also content strategists, though they may not know it (nor are they typically compensated at a similar level, despite doing some heavy metadata lifting and strategizing when getting primary sources – both text and media – online so that they can be found). The same could be said for many in the digital humanities.

Comment on History and Its Contents by Matt Herron

Matt Herron — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:11:50 +0000

It’s always fascinating to look at someone else’s work process. Published work always looks so complete from the outside, comprehensive, finished… but the creator is there from the beginning and has a different perspective. Glad to know i’m not the only one who feels like my work looks like kindling from the inside :)

Comment on The Audience You Didn’t Know You Had by Karen Mardahl

Karen Mardahl — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 18:32:28 +0000

Thank you for this article, Angela. I first heard about the shocking number from NALS in 2004 at a local STC conference in Vienna. (I forget the speaker’s name – he was also speaking at CHI ’04 in Vienna that same week.)

I have not been able to survey the readers of my documents yet. I am in manufacturing and our products are used by very skilled engineers. However, I keep reminding people of the need for clear, plain language because that super smart engineer can easily be dyslexic. Or, the engineer can be in a hurry or under strain (like your hospital run) and overlook crucial information because you’ve crammed too much highly technical material into the poorly worded and poorly designed document. Or, your material is not written in the person’s first language – or the alphabet of their first language.

My point is that we need to consider literacy and plain language for everything and not just websites for the general public. I know you know that. I am just currently pounding my head against a certain wall and found relief and comfort in your words. :)

Oh, and thanks for the great references!

Comment on The Audience You Didn’t Know You Had by Shannon McDonough

Shannon McDonough — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:30:21 +0000

This article is timely as my Information Services for Diverse Populations course at Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science will be discussing this group next week. The points that you make about “Accommodating low literacy readers” are also great things to keep in mind when crafting content for any audience. As someone who has worked mostly in media/higher-ed, I don’t think of this group as a target. However, it would certainly need to be top of mind for future projects that are aimed at the general public. Thank you.

Comment on First Principle: Disambiguation by Marc Hannum

Marc Hannum — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 19:09:34 +0000

Edit. Oops, I meant the “precautionary principle,” not the “uncertainty principle.”