The second problem a user will run into is the lack of video services provided. Users are limited to just YouTube clips when creating their story. YouTube does have almost everything you are looking for, however, Meograph does not allow you to use your own video clips or other services such as Vimeo. I would like to see the ability to upload a video or the ability cross-reference other video websites other than YouTube. You can see in the picture below that YouTube (left) is the only way of gathering video.

One more constraint that Meograph has are the links to external websites. When you click on a tab at the top of the homepage, it takes you to the website of whatever company you clicked on. It is understandable to do this, especially if the partnership calls for it, however, creating a link to another page within the Meograph website is more beneficial for users to stay on their page. I would recommend adding another page that shows examples of the companies that use Meograph, while staying in the Meograph website. Directing users to another website often results in loss of purpose and the user will not return back to the Meograph site while browsing.

Today I began drafting my web essay using the Writer/Designer analysis questions as a guide. I decided that I was going to break up the essay into four different sections: General Overview & Rhetorical Analysis, Design Choices & Modes of Communication, Affordances & Constraints, and Presentation & Conclusion. I took all of my information that I had compiled through my exploration of Meograph and began to put it into a coherent essay form.

Why I Did It…

I think that breaking the web essay up into different pages is a good way to make it more organized and less overwhelming. I didn’t want to make a separate page for each category because I think that would make the project way to broad and all over the place, so I attempted to combine categories in a way that flows and makes sense and makes the web essay more concise. It was difficult at first to take my basic bullet point notes and turn them into an essay, but once I got into the swing of it it started to come naturally. The one thing that I was afraid of was repeating information in different sections, so I know that I will have to do some extensive editing to ensure that I don’t repeat myself or make the essay too wordy.

My Writer/Designer analysis questions

Navigational Structure: 

Yay

On my interrogation, I want to include navigation tools to help my audience read through my essay easily. I want to include hyperlinks so that there are multiple ways to figure out what I’m talking about and to provide extra assistance. I also really want to include my own experience with Masher on the page so the audience can see what I did with it and refer to it as they’re trying to figure out the application as well. It’s also important to include some contrast so the essay isn’t completely boring and deters my audience from reading my essay. I can do so through the use of color, headings & subheadings, bullet points and images.

Nay

I really don’t want to write huge blocks of text because it’s not easy to read. I also want to avoid overusing pages and images so that the whole document becomes confusing and distracting.

For example, now that smartphones are very prominent in society today, many people are using auto-correct and auto-complete based on the app they’re using at the time. When I’m texting, it can be infuriating to have to type something six times in order for my phone to understand that the auto-correct way isn’t the way I want to type. Auto-complete can also have its complications when I’m ordering food or clothes online and it auto-fills my information that is no longer correct so then I have to go back and fix it all. But then it catches on and fills in the incorrect information again if I press the enter button.

I see this problem in texting all of the time. My boyfriend and I send multiple texts back-to-back because we don’t take the time to complete our thoughts in just one text message. So he could be sending me up to eight messages at a time because he’s trying to fix a word but auto-correct keeps changing it to the wrong word by the time he presses send again and thinks he has it right. (I do this a lot, too).

The problem is, we still use our auto-correct because it’s better than having a bunch of mistakes that you made on your own. If we’re being honest, we would rather blame a technology than ourselves. Really think about it: the reason we keep auto-correct is because it’s easier and there are less problems to fix than if we just typed on our own. It could be because our thumbs are too big for the keyboard or we type too quickly and miss the right letters or we’re simply too lazy to write it all out.

So I guess I’ll settle for the constraints that come with auto-correct because it’s a pretty convenient tool that I definitely would love to keep around than get rid of.