I have chosen to link to Alanna Carmichael’s Attention Economy Task (the fun one!)

Her task can be found here:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/alannacarmichael540/2020/07/15/task-10-attention-economy/

My task post :    https://blogs.ubc.ca/rebeccahydamacka/2020/07/16/task-10-attention-economy/

The post:

I could really relate Alanna’s post of her experiences with User Inyerface.  She found it “unbelievably ‘tricky’” as did I: yet, we both really enjoyed the task.  She notes it being an “enjoyable experience” was an “unpopular opinion” but I am not sure if I would agree with her – I wonder if we just hear or see the loudest (in this case complaining or angry) voices.

I really thought it was interesting that we shared this “unpopular opinion”  because  of the slight differences in our experiences – she took only 1 attempt of 00:09:05 while it took me 3 attempts, a side trip to Bagaar website, several pleas for help to our prof., Ernesto, and twice as long (over 00:18:00) for the one successful session. A theme of competition emerged in her post which I also felt when I looked at other people’s time. I also could not believe how fast some others completed this evil game. I wondered if they took several attempts to get their scores down and I am a very suspicious individual.  This, incidentally, also interfered with my score as I carefully re-read everything – we both found it an interesting learning experience. 

Alanna’s post, discussion thread and the experience itself really reminds me of the assumptions that we all make. Our ability to navigate the game relied on overriding the many, in Alanna’s words: “techniques interface designers use to help web users know where to click.”  She also nailed it with the difficulty we, or many of us, as humanity, share trying to prove we “are not a robot”  reCAPTCHA.  

The discussion really had me thinking as well as I noticed the assumption of what seemed to be a digital divide opinion. The grandma comment “irked” me slightly being almost twice the commenters” age. But I do not know Alanna or the other grandmas only my own experiences. We should not project out experiences on others but also do need to be careful with assumptions based on age but also  In the thread, 

Finally, I also admire the way Alanna has very succinctly summed up the experience unlike my long, rambling post which reflected the entire experience.  

The authoring:

First, Alanna’s blog uses the UBC WordPress platform which has become familiar and thus easy to navigate. I also use a top menu like Alanna with tabs linking the different categories of “tasks, “linking assignments” and “final project.”  Her chosen theme, Anders Norén theme makes the navigation easy. I have since used this theme for another course and wished I had chosen it for ETEC 540 because of the affordance of ease of navigation and visual appeal.  All post in each category are accessed easily as all appear on the page, and are clearly identified and with dates posted included in addition to the number of comments.  The number of comments feature allows one to quickly see if further comments have been made for both the author and other viewer which is great if it is a particularly hot topic of discussion such as the User Inyourface discussion.  Commenting is also accessible and easy to read. A very clean design. 

The post itself is simple, and succinct which is an affordance in itself for a busy UBC grad student. It mainly relies on text and the ability to read and to relate to the experience. It worked for me! The post also makes use of one visual (which was requested) which adds a splash of colour – incidentally matching the background images – very visually appealing.