Link #3 – Karen Wang
Linking to Karen Wang’s Task #4: https://karenw0801.wixsite.com/mysite/post/task-4-manual-scripts-and-potato-printing
Karen and I took completely different approaches to task #4. While Karen chose to complete the potato printing task, I chose to complete the manual scripts task. I really enjoyed reading about Karen’s experiences with the potato printing. I followed along as she discussed the failed attempts she made, and I considered whether I would have done the same. In many cases, I feel I would have gone through the same challenges with the process and could relate to how Karen was feeling. I was impressed with how Karen found solutions to her problems and overcame the challenges, attempting the task over again each time. While there were challenges with both of the tasks, there were also some key differences in our experiences. Karen discusses choosing a different font to make her task easier. When manually writing, however, the font can’t change. What can change is the tool used to write – whether that be a pencil, pen, mechanical pencil, flair pen etc. The font in Karen’s task created the tool that was then used to write, so in this way her choice of font was similar to my choice of tool. Another difference in our tasks was the manual labour involved. In Karen’s task, the manual labour was very front-loaded. She had to create the potato “tool” and once it was completed, she could then create multiple prints with the tool. With my manual script, the labour was less, however it was constant. I had to continue using the tool the entire time, resulting in a sore hand. If Karen used the potato print over and over to create multiple representations, then she too may have a sore hand from the repetitive nature of the printing, similar to the manual script.
Karen chose her platform to be a WIX site. When a user arrives at the WIX site, there is a preview of each post that includes an image and a brief intro to the post. This allows the user to navigate to the post they would like to by scrolling through the previews. If the user wants to be directed to a specific post, however, the menu is no helpful for the user. The menu at the top of the site has three options: Blog, About and Top 10. The “About” and “Top 10” menu lead the user to a standard template with no information. There is also a menu on the blog page, which allows the user to choose between “All Posts” and “Education.” The “Education” menu is also a standard template, and “All Posts” leads to the main blog. The down side of all the post being together is that the posts are from courses other than this course and could be hard to navigate as more and more posts are added to the stream. Overall, however, the site colors are beautiful. I was drawn to the site as soon as I clicked on the link to her site with the soothing, Ombre colors. I also really appreciated that there were many visuals of the process of her task present throughout her post, allowing me to see and read her process.