The Magwitch View

So officially, Microsoft owe me one mouse. They can have the remains of the one I hurled across the room in total, utter and complete frustration. Why? I spent some time creating a quiz in Quizmaker, and I don't mind saying myself it was truly a thing of beauty. Illustrated, animated, and superbly designed (at least I think so, and I think the dogs liked it too). But then it all started to go wrong. After finding both video and written instructions on how to import such a creation in to Storyline 360, which I followed to the letter, I found that some of the formatting in the quiz did not come through, some of the questions disappeared and some of the responses were changed. On top of that,  some of the formatting in the unrelated content also seems to have been changed. Putting it right took the better part of the day, I even started to manufacture the quiz within Storyline before realizing that doing it that way excludes some of the functionality and formatting I u...

After an extended sabbatical, I am happy to return to this blog. Work, TW5212, EL6072 and a dissertation take a toll, and let's not forget a gaggle of children suddenly permanently at home. Question, how do you convince children that this is not a holiday? In any case, after making fairly ludicrous promices in my EL6072 proposal I set about Storyline 360 this week in an attempt to rescue some credibility. First impressions, on a Lee & Owens scale of touch and feel, this is a delicious software package. It's colouring, typeface and delivery are all non-challenging, welcoming, genuinely good. There are help buttons and videos on constant and massive supply. The interface is typical Microsoft, it will be very familiar to anyone who has switched a computer on. OK, some of the concepts are a little alien, but that is true of any new thing. I'm not keen on masses of instructions, except when it comes to flat pack furniture, and it was good to be able to jump strai...

Claro Read Pro I installed Claro Read Pro yesterday. I have a selfish interest in this programme as one of my family has dyslexia, and I have witnessed him struggle desperately to make sense particularly of written maths questions. He's a bright boy and yet words become jumbled and meanings lost. In contrast though, if he sees and hears something on YouTube he grasps the meaning immediately. His use of vocabulary is some years ahead of his school bracket. Still he struggles with the written down word. We have tried various apps on his ipad, but these seem to be either (a) short lived, or (b) cease to work following one of the many updates. We are also aware that schools tend to run on Microsoft based programmes and these are not always compatible with an ipad. Turning to Claro Pro Read, this is a simple enough programme and it looks a little basic to be honest. I think though that the simplicity is likely a help to any individual with dyslexia. The ...

Twitter I am by any definition a bit of a stick in the mud. Yet here I am propelled in to the world of blogs and most recently Twitter, in to forms of media that in private I would steer far away from. On a personal level I am not interested in the musings of other people, and from what I can see, a lot of what is published generally on Twitter, to me, is absolute nonsense. There are an increasing number of reports and analysis that comment on how social media is bad for us, that is, the whole human race as opposed to just sticks in the mud. A 2019 article in the Washington Post https://wapo.st/3219DnX headlined "Twitter is eroding your intelligence" explains it all. Is it then counterintuitive to ask students to sign up to Twitter as part of their course? That is perhaps for another day. In any case, the Washington Post article cites Italian research which reached the conclusion that "blogs and social networking sites actively impair performance, rather than sim...

Flammia 1993 So I finally got round to reading this properly and appreciate that the article itself is quite old and things may have moved on. The article provides a useful structure, and it emphasises the importance of good quality questions and good quality research. It is a little prescriptive but nonetheless very useful and informative. I was struck by a few points. When conducting a face to face (FtF) interview, the interviewee has little time to consider their response.  As such, the interviewer should be conscious that the initial response may not be as full or as accurate as the interviewee would ultimately like. If accuracy is desired then the interviewer should be prepared to clarify, or even seek later clarification. As such, an end of interview comment might be "If I need to clarify a point, do you mind if I call you, and if you want to add soemthing please contact me". A FtF interview allows the interviewer to observe social cues. How these are...

Neilsen Norman Group Some months ago I read an article by Jakob Neilsen concerning usability studies, which lead me to research him and to arrive at the website for the Neilsen Norman Group. The website and indeed the company deal with all things UX and more, and for any student of technical communications it is a must see. The website is a mass of thought provoking articles, even when they may not be directly related to your primary area of study. So today, for example, the website listed an article concerning dark mode vs light mode, and another on "how users decide where to go next". The articles are usually no more than a 10 minute read and are properly referenced and illustrated. There is also a newsletter, which includes the latest articles, that can be subscribed to and which arrives every week or two, without any associated sales pitch. That in itself is refreshing. Why is this such a good resource. Even a scan of the article titles generates a checklist of f...