How users and recruiting editors approach your web site

How we approach and seek to understand websites has much in common with deciphering many artifacts or art forms. We approach with a level of expectation, and thus we have readily preconceived ideas.

theimpressionist.co.uk

For instance, if you expect to see a website, such as these student websites from our Masters program and you see an advertisement, you immediately switch off and leave the page. Your expectations have not been fulfilled.

So for most users it's the form and what scholars like David Bordwell refer to as "style" - an intrinsic quality - which interchanges with form that attracts you.

Form is dependent on style as much a style defines form. Nike's tick is its form, and also its acquired style. The iPad is a great example of form and style merging.

A Western film's style defines its form; it's genre. The BBC's relatively new website is a new style that defines the form of websites cohering to the iPad screen.

And style can also be shaped by the content. Take a fashion website, it's defined by its photos; the photos (the content) make up the style.

Similarly, with reference to form, if your website doesn't cover the whole screen then invariably people make a judgement.

In the 1990s, websites were 800 pixels wide, because 15-inch screens were the norm, so small design websites are often associated with the 1990s, unless an inherent design concept is provided. Here style is defining the form.

This is all fine, but what does it mean?

Why Form Matters

Offbeatlondon.co.uk and WhereisLondon.co.uk - which do you prefer and why?

It means when the user comes to your website, in the short amount of time, they've made up their mind. Our user was an editor, someone you could send your link to open your site and conclude on the strength of what they see how competent, brilliant or mediocre you are. 


The form matters deeply; the shape, the size, the way you have arranged the elements, your content and how it's styled. The more harmonious the site, the more aesthetic an impact is has on the user. The form should also exude functionality. 


Good design is about solutions to a problem, such as how do I sell myself. Harmony also comes from your colour scheme, your use of negative or white space, how uncluttered the site is. 


The colour "white" is often associated with minimalism, elegance, and informational sites. The colour "black" is a reference to chic, boldness, and focusing the viewer's attention, which is why fashion magazines often used black backgrounds.


So in that first impression, that important behaviour for the next step is being considered – albeit subconsciously – that is whether the user will engage by clicking further on the site. 


They have NO notion who you are, your strengths, and in spite of your e-mail to them, or the "Hey, check out my website" at a party (a phrase to be avoided at all costs, unless you're applying to work for the Disney Chanel), they approach your website cold. 


Your site must inform the user who you are, what they see, its relevance perhaps, the experience they are likely to get on the site. Remember you're not quite the brand yet! 


To that end, if you haven't stated on your front page who you are or what your website is about, then you are denying the editor crucial information. 


So far I have talked about cognitive behaviour; any user does not need to be skilled in semiotics to read your site, but we can evoke semiotics to ascertain some of the thoughts the user is entertaining. 


What is apparent is one thing, what isn't is that a user constructs, which on occasion I have referred to in lectures as "connotation", using your data to build up secondary and tertiary meanings. 


They do this where you are ambiguous and from the manner in which you have used elements. That's why it's important, as we have discussed in lectures to search out exemplars, how gifted individuals have designed. 

Why Annotation Matters 

theskintflint.co.uk

Everything, all assets, need annotation. If you have pictures on your site and there is no indication what the picture is, what its context is, what it means, then you might as well be showing the editor your family album. 


In fact, I know many senior editors who will reject the picture or video if there is no information attached. Firstly, it's not journalism, which is about information; secondly the presumption is someone else could have taken this. 


And the minute they are met with these inadequacies, their expectations dip. Mostly anyone today can take a picture, but not many people know how to annotate and edit, which you should as a journalist, and we've mentioned this. 


If they have clicked a link, and it is text-based, then all our research tells us people engage more with the site when it's made out according to the rules of Jacob Nielsen. 


Aesthetically, the text easier to read, easy to digestive, and is the contents is strong will make that impression. 


You cannot afford to follow Jacob Nielsen. rules, in articles, and ditch them elsewhere. If the user gets through the experience of your first link, and that first link is often the link on your navigation bar, then they may click elsewhere. 


It's important then that you have a consistent navigation bar and that you're aware of your information architecture hierarchy. 


It's the link next to "Home" that may often get the first click, unless you've designed the site otherwise. After one or two clicks of your content, the editor may well then navigate to your "about me". 


Your "about me", is a professional bio, which can show some personality, but must be restrained from being flippant. The "about me" is the clincher if they like what they see. 


An action picture, or profile picture showing detail of you work in all its reflective mode has a far greater impact than the one of you at that party. 


Again, here style, form, content work in the same way as first impressions. Have you made it obvious how to contact you? Is it a link, or a complex e-mail they need to copy and paste? 


The easier it is, the more likely someone will follow through. 


Two additional pieces of info here from two incredible experts. Brian Storm of Mediastorm says the "About me" is the place he goes very quickly on his click through journey of  website, while Ilicco Elias says the most important link is your journalism piece that's been google and indexed.


To that I add, either route, context matters. If you're linking from a report, the piece as much as what it represents and how you went about it provides much needed information. Your piece may never be read, but if you can tell the editor how long it took you, why it matters, the style you conceived - as added info, you'll win brownie points.


Show off your skills 

LondonDiversity.co.uk

Editors today may see many websites. On average building a complex personal site may not take you more than a week, also it's common knowledge that many website owners choose a template. 


So, is there any indication that you created and built this site, or what your competency skills are in CSS/HTML, design or that you designed the site and others following industry-standard. If your work doesn't say these things, an editor won't assume that you undertook all this work. 


Design is about cognitive functionality. Your website must refrain from any assumption that you will have, and which assumes others looking at your content will necessarily understand. 


Non-online journalists can afford to think this way because they're not burgeoning designers. Online journalists can't. Information architecture is about leading people on an experience, sure that you'll get your message across as unequivocally as possible. 


What you don't say will often not be understood. If you manage to send off your user to your blog, note that if the last time you updated your blog was a month ago and then it doesn't bode well for you. 


Also, if they're going to read one post from you, would you not prefer it was one of your strongest pieces. Therefore, provide this as the link from your website and not the generic link to your blog. 


Now, back to style again. Style works on a number of levels, and one of those is about how contemporary your site is. 


No website can afford not to engage in a social network proscenium giving the user the ability to add content via comments, or played with the site. 


This can be done in a number of ways, what it refers to do something called the wow factor. It's that sensibility when you see something you simply say "wow". 


It's what all creatives/scientists aspire to. If you can give the user a bit more, they'll remember you.

These are some of the behavioural patterns that users/editors use to navigate and make meaning out of your website and consequently you. And, that's the approach we adopted to deconstructing your site.


David Dunkley Gyimah is a Senior Lecturer in online and film, videojournalism, and a PhD Researcher using cognitive and literary critique, semiotics, Heidegger's phenomenology and Mass Communication to explicate meaning within websites and film. You can see his work here or contact him here on viewmagazine.tv/training/index.html

The Era of Newspaper and Magazine Journalism Degrees and the AJ ( Academic-Journalist)

Instyle Editor talks to Masters in Journalism students about the need to hire the new generation.

It was bound to happen. The relationship between academia and publishers has been long standing. In the 1970s their relationship manifest itself in a publishing boom.

Where else might it explore? Academia publishing their own books, and publishers offering their own degrees? To one of the party plan A would remain too distant a concept.  

But the centrifugal forces of the dissociative economy are turning those pipe dreams now into concrete channels.

Super brand Vogue magazine's announcement it would start its own journalism degree at the Conde Nast College of Fashion and Design laid the foundation. Competitors, you'd imagine, might either have been falling to the floor with laughter at morning editorials while the more sanguine were trying to crunch the numbers.

Across town Academia was faring in a different way with mutterings: "They're having a laugh, it'll never work! "

Oh but it will ! The writing's been, well, er, slowly taking shape literally on the IPad.

Now in the UK an unspecified number of newspapers are looking to announce their own degrees. At the moment it's Chatham House rules, the equivalent of a super injunction.

Welcome to one future of journalism - brought on by the cause and effect of the Internet / Outernet

Future Watch 

The Internet out of its net- The Outernet from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

But then many outfits have already been offering some form of pedagogy in the shape of higher national certificates. The Press Associations has been one of the major participants with links with skillset or recognisable accrediting bodies.

In 2005 it successfully launched and sustained an accredited videojournalism programme for it's regional press. I worked with their head of training, Tony Johnston,  devising the inaugural programme.

BBC Camerawoman and film maker Christina Fox took the helm bringing in her rich knowledge for its six years while I played an integral part captured in this Press Gazette report.  Close to some two hundreds journos were trained.

The Daily Telegraph, working with the Press Association,  offers an accredited training regime to 12 young very fortunate journalists, whereby psychometric testing is one of the selection criteria.

Many have gone on to do extremely well. Unsurprisingly they got the integrated form of videojouralism I advocate very quickly.

But a degree, Masters or even, say, a PhD, well that's another matter?  We've an inkling how we've got here; finance, sales and projections, and how seemingly one piece of technology provides hope on the Net.

As the Wall Street Journal commented

...with the iPad they (Magaziine Publishers) feel they have a technology that best marries the splashy look and size of a full-page print ad with the cool interactive features of a digital ad—and the ability to count how many people saw it.

The IPad Movement
The IPad has become the Tabula rasa of the web. In my lectures it's my interactive interface between working new ideas from the student enclose and projecting those ideas on the screen.

With the IPad, I can control the screen, and the raised platform barrier of the them and us - lecturer/ student

And the tech-fest, rights of social networking have never made the link with savvy young journalists more clear.

Last year, I accompanied a group of students (see top) to one of the UK's most successful womens' titles, Instyle.  Its editor, Emily Dean, stressed the importance of the new generation of journalists needed who can see this new future of journalism.

One enterprising students, a diligent blogger, duly pulled her CV from her inner coat and snuck it over to Ms Dean's and won some invaluable work time.

The idea of bespoke universities, and no one has a monopoly on knowledge, seems tangible. If you wanted to play for Manchester United one of your routes as the golden boys of Giggs, Beckham, Scholes et al  proved was to get trained young by attending their academy

Likewise tennis has its grooming for professional status at a tender age. So why not a journalistic output with a degree to boot.

Of course it raise interesting questions:

• What is it worth ?
• What happens if you leave the publisher before you've finished ?
• What would a publication do that journalism schools aren't doing already ?

A lot I might say, but this is the beginning and in spawning a refined area of entrepreneurial journalism, those questions will get worked through.

Significantly though, this won't necessarily spell the end of tertiary institutions, though if this publishers make the figures work, it'll be interesting to see how the adoption of generic journalism degrees do against the bespoke, which might offer generic subject, plus a deeper understanding of the clients workings.

But the winners in this scenario are not just the publishers, or even applicants, but forward thinking institutions who will be offering support in the myriad areas professional learning calls on.

And then, as is slowly emerging, the new AJ ( Academic Journalist) whom balances practical knowledge and heuristics with classic and contemporary theory of journalism.  For the moment though all eyes are on which publishers gets off the blocks.

Masters students - how to get that job

ex-Student site click here

It's one of the most frequent questions, of course, because whatever it is we're learning, the conclusion to that is finding a nicely paid, decent job, and yes YOU can influence the process.

So it's that part of the year again. Exams coming to a head and thoughts of what comes next looming large.

If you found this blog last September and have dropped by on occasion, then one of the posts looked at gearing up for the job. By that I meant the time to look for a job is, or should I say WAS in August last year for the next May, June, July.. which is about now.

If you had it would all make sense now, but understandably you've just joined a Masters programme, with a year to go and the last thing on your mind is the anxiety finding a job. It should, but it doesn't, and each year I talk to cohorts about this plan of action.

I have seen some students put it into practice and it's paying off. They spent the first few weeks engaging with potential employers in a long-tail process of conversations, which put pressure on neither party. Come June they've now developed a solid relationship over a couple of months. It worked for me as well.

Remember no hirer, editor has a job in their desk waiting for you, when you send in that spec email. The best you can hope for is serendipity - right place, right time, but even then, the game of chance comes in.

Otherwise if you're applying for a job now, then you and 20,000 other media students are part of the mass migration and less we've forgotten it's a rotten time to be job hunting. For any manager to make a judgement from an intake of 100 down to one, is almost a lottery.

Getting that job
This year one of the world's top broadcasters and hirers, knowing the work load that goes into prepping applications, interviews and selections, asked us to do main selecting for them. It's a difficult task, because we're not in the business of discriminating, so we widen our criteria to show the broadcaster where their work is.......online!

Can I say that again.. we lead them to their work ONLINE.

How to get that job? What I'm about to say is not the definitive. There are no grand theories, but this is one narrative that works, and if any of my students doing docs have done this then they have increased their chances ten fold.

Firstly having an online presence is not worth debating the whys and wherefores. If you haven't then its the next thing you want to do.

Secondly, having a professionally laid out online presence is crucial. Your reputation online is how you are judged in the flesh. Shouldn't be, but the same way you see those shoes, suit, art piece in a shop window and walk in to enquire and buy, is how YOU online works.

The question then becomes: blog, facebook, website or whatever. While all of these work, the website is your manageable, bespoke stylised YOU to a potential employer.

Blogs are great, but there is a reason blogs never usurped the website. The website is both the intro page and direction-giver to any thing else worth knowing about you, including your blog.

If you're intending to be a daily journo then a blog as a front-of-window will suffice. If you're intending to be a polymath, given your many skills, a website.... A WEBSITE.

In some cases blogs mimic websites, that's fine so long as you can control the assets you want everyone to see. In other words if you've written a great post three weeks ago and its fallen below the page fold,  you'll want to find a way to keep it in full view

The other reason why YOU so need a website is this. As a lecturer and on my travels I love bigging up student work, particularly those who have put in the hard grind and are perceived as deserving of that transactional break.

Last month I was with some execs at the world service, the week after that in Cairo and soon I'll be at Sheffield doc. Also like other professionals I tend to to have the odd unplanned conversation with editors who say.. David do you know anyone who does this?  And I instinctively go.... oh yeah here's this person's work.

Being online also means you've a a chance to attract attention once you've sorted your SEO out. My areas of interest include "multimedia journalism" and "videojournalism" and I have a number of conversations with people who want to share an idea or job.

If it's travel writing you're into, Podcasting, or Documentary, make the area your own by engaging with that ecosystem. Makeit your own and then conduct the 5 percent strategy.

[ 5 percent of speculative letters tend to work. It's a numbers game]

There are a number of talented souls, who have also consolidated their space by being online and I bet if you asked anyone of them, firstly there was no golden job, waiting for them; they made their own.

Secondly, it was hard work, but good work,  as they, slowly built up portfolios.

I can't think of a single person, perhaps apart from Nick Clegg, and yes a few more, who made it because the had a shoe-in.

If you want that job, engineer the process. What I talk about to students is geared to that process. Start now, and if you don't, you've only yourself to blame.

People that should inspire you, because as brilliant as they are, they've used the online space to carve out their careers.

• Denisa Morariu  A former westmin Masters grad. Speaks five languages and has an insatiable appetite to learn. Small wonder that when one of Romania's top journalists saw her work, she was immediately invited for an interview and then given a job. If you look at her site, she's presenting from outside downing street. Great Product placement, or as I've told students get the action shot. If you want to look like a journalist, show us a shot of you at work. This is what she wrote about her time going through the mill at the University of Westminster Under 30.

• Adam Westbrook - still under 30, blimey sounds like he's been around for ages, but you could spot the genius in him from his blog ( the only one during his time at City University) four years ago.

• David Lee - In the first few months of his Masters programme, (2006)  his blogs started getting into the Press Gazette. Also under 30.

• Alex Wood. Like the aforementioned another genius, who knows how to work the online space and has designed his own career path. He came to speak to students and the feedback from those that were there was.. "I can see now why you talk about him" Also under 30.

• Murielle Gonzalez  And finally Murielle, one of our Master students. So long as she continues o get this work under the noses of professionals she'll continue to create good work. She made this as part of her final project and has made such projects for others. Also under 30.

There's no reason why you can't be like anyone of the aforementioned.