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I have just finished visiting a site and I have found some things that are interesting. The site is located at the URL http://www.glover.com. You can also click on the icon that will be provided here and

After I got tired of seeing the guy on my screen dance I decided to look at the different pages that author had to offer. I started my journey that the icon link entitled sucky to savvy. I just thought that I wanted to see what made a home page "savvy" as compared to "sucky." The link brought me to a page with author's disclaimer for his work. I couldn't find the link to the next page right off the bat, so I decided to read the text. The after reading the whole disclaimer I found that the picture on the top of the page was the link to the actual list of "sucky" and "savvy" stuff. I really enjoyed the format that he used to show what each different effect or stylistic point was. He had a cool ratings table and in each section he had information on "What it is?" "Why is it sucky/savvy", and "What can you do about it..." These sections on each page help to give the reader an explanation of the problem and how it can be fixed. I thought that this was a great thing because it gave the novice web designer tips and advice on what are cool things to use and what is not. I would give links to each separate page and item, but the author of this site wants all links to be made to his main title page.

After I had looked at all of the pages that related to the topic of "sucky" and "savvy", I clicked on the link to the "Top ten ways to tell if you have a sucky home page." This was just a condensed version of the "sucky" list from the other link. This list didn't have all of the information that the other list contained. I think that this list was a fast stop for people that want a quick run down on the things that make a "sucky" home page. It is more for people that don't want to spend the time reading all of the technical stuff that is elaborated on in the other list.

I then went to the link called "disney disaster." I found this to just be pictures of the author's vacation to Disney World. I found the pictures to be cool and the captions under each picture were funny, but a few were kind of strange. Also, some of the captions seemed to have subtle homosexual references hidden in them. I don't know if I am right or not, but this I just my opinion and I could be wrong.

When I came to the last link entitled "me" I thought that my journey had ended, I soon found that I was mistaken in assuming that this was the end. I found that this link had a main page and three separate pages they were entitled "A Webmaster", "A Nut Case", and "A Bear." I understood just by look at the first two links that he was talking about being a webmaster and that he was a little crazy, but I had no idea what the hell a "Bear" was. As I suspected the first two links were just that, so there was no big surprise there. Things started to get a little strange when I clicked on the "Bear" link. I was surprised to find out that "Bear" stood for gay men that are masculine, husky, and hairy. The rest of that section dispels myths about gay men and explains more about the "Bear" group.

After reading Professor James' article on Social Psychological Principles of Home Page Architecture I have found three points that interest me enough that they need to be discussed further. These points are Home Pages are Loved, Informational Content of Home Pages, and Stylistic Features of Home Pages. In the next few paragraphs I will explain why I find these points interesting, I will be including quotes from each section to help to explain each point.

I feel that everyone loves their own individual home pages to a certain degree. Some people love it like a friend or a companion, but others love it as if it were their child or lover. I know of people that spend hours every week changing their home pages. These people feel that they should add new things like pictures or midi files to help make their pages more attractive to the person that is viewing the page. I don't see it like that, I believe that I make a page one time and it is finished. I might change a few things if it is hard to read or if a link doesn't work, but I don't fuss or primp every little thing on my page. Here is an excerpt from Professor James' article.

Another point is the informational content of home pages. I have seen sites and home pages that are just too cluttered with fancy little things that make the page hard to understand and to read. Here is a little clip from the informational section of Professor James' article.

The last point that interested me in Professor James' article was a stylistic feature.

When I compare the points from Professor James' article and the things that are said at www.glover.com. I start to see a general trend in the thinking of these two people. A home page is something that is loved and cherished, but like all things it can be over loved. When this happens when people start to add more and more things to their home pages. They take longer and longer to load and they become cluttered with things that make the eyes sore or make the brain melt into ooze. The structure or style of a home page is totally up to the mind of the designer, but the designer has to keep one fact in mind. The bottom line is that someone has to read or view this page and the question that you must ask yourself is do I want to look at all of this crap? If the designer continuously asks this question then the crap and eyesores will be reduced on the home pages of future generations.

When I ask myself the question "What is it like to be a web designer?" I have to say that it is an interesting concept to behold. I never would have thought of myself as a web designer before I took this course from Professor James. If I learned these skills in the real world and not in a classroom environment I would have just shrugged it off as one more learned skill. I guess you could say that I am viewing these skills in a different light because I am associating them with a title of "web designer." This is an example of how a person's mind can change how a skill, person, or object is viewed by just learning it in a formal setting. Well, I had better stop rambling on and get to the real business at hand. And that is to tell about the trials and mishaps that I have encountered on the way to becoming a "web designer."

When I first walked into my psychology 409b class I knew that I was walking into some unknown world, but what I didn't know was how far. I thought that I knew enough about computers, so this course would be a piece of cake. When I first received the practice assignments from Professor James, all of the material was a review of the UNIX commands and things that I had already learned. This past knowledge helped to lull me into a false sense of security. I thought that I would breeze through this class without a problem. This mind set or thinking is what led me down the path of misfortune and the wall that I ran headfirst into.

When Professor James handed out the instructions for the first report and went over them in class, I felt like I would have no problem finishing the report in a week or less. All I had to do was write about two newsgroups that I followed by reading messages and posting messages. The reading and writing to the newsgroup took a relatively short time, and I was ready to start my report. The first problem I encountered was learning how to write the html code by hand because I didn't have an html editor that I could use. (An editor is a program that makes writing html programs easier i.e. Front page, Hot dog pro, Internet assistant for Microsoft word...) I found that working in Microsoft word was a pain because I found that I had to look up the html tags in my textbook. This took too long, and I felt that I really had to find an editor to make my life easier, so I wouldn't lose my mind over my report. A friend suggested that I look at the Microsoft home page and get the Internet assistant program. (This is an add-on program that can be added to Microsoft word. It allows that user to edit html programs in Microsoft word just like a word document.) After I downloaded the program from Microsoft I started to play with the program to get a feel on how it worked, I found that it made working with html easier. I took some of the pain out of writing the html code. For example instead of typing all of the code to make a table I used the table command from the toolbar and it made a table for me in a few seconds instead of a few minutes. The Internet assistant helped me to write the program, but after that I encountered another problem. I had to debug my report more then once because I had errors that caused whole sections of my report to just disappear. I also had problems with a few of my absolute links and my relative links. My absolute links were being added to the relative links they looked like this

I am now working on my second report for Professor James. I feel that I have improved and that my knowledge of html language has increased at least fifty times. The problems that occurred during my first report have been taken care of, so this will cut down on the time it will take me to write this report. I know that problems will still arise as I try to add new things to my report I think that with every new challenge or problem I encounter while I am writing my report the end result will be a better report.

I am looking forward to this summer because I will be purchasing Microsoft Front page (Front page is a powerful html editor and can be used for java too). I have heard a lot about Front page from my friends that already have it and all of the things that I have heard have been good. The only thing that can be deemed negative from what I have heard is that to take advantage of all of the features in Front page the user has to use Microsoft's internet explorer. I have not tried it myself personally, I will hold off judgement until I can use the program and form my own opinions about it. After I graduate in the spring of '98 I am thinking about pursuing a master's degree somewhere close to the field of home page design and construction. I have heard of a masters program that is offered in the School of Library and Information Studies and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Or I will be pursuing a masters degree in the fields of education or counseling. I still haven't decide which program to go into, I think that I will just apply to all three and see which program I will be accepted too and that will be the program that I will chose. If I donât get accepted into any program then I will try to get a job as a valet at Jon Dominis restaurant. In my immediate future I plan to take another of Professor James' class on the internet, so I can learn more about the internet and any new bits of technology that might surface in the coming months. I think that I will be taking Dr. James' Traffic Psychology class, and that it will help to give me a different perspective on they way that I drive and the way that others drive on the road.

The third suggestion is to get an outside Internet provider. You will be doing a lot of work on-line in this class and you have to be able to access the internet when you want to, not when pearl lets you. I know that getting an outside provider means spending some of the precious little money that college students have, but it will be worth it when you are trying to turn in your report or getting the information from home pages or sites. After the first three weeks in class I went and got and outside Internet provider, the company that I chose to go with was LavaNet inc. This company provides excellent service, but it is a little expensive about $26 a month plus a $24 setup fee. All of the services and information can be found on their home page or by calling them @ (808) 532-3192. There are other providers that can be found in the phone book that are cheaper, but their services might not be as good as LavaNet's

I have a few suggestions for Professor James that might help with future generations. I think that more help should be provided in during the lab time. Sometimes questions arise and no one in lab whether it is a student or a monitor can answer the question. If a more knowledgeable person cannot be found to work in the lab I think that the ICS dept should be asked to use their labs. It might be more inconvenient, but the lab monitors in those labs know how to answer more questions then the monitors in the Porteus labs. Also, all of the computers in lab should be working with working programs, I feel that this should be a necessity if Professor James is trying to build an online generational community classroom. I liked that format of the class that Professor James used this semester. It helps a lot of the other people in class to have three weeks to learn the UNIX commands and a little of the html language. I think that it was a good decision to cut the reports down to only two for the semester. It is hard to write a good report when you are just typing it on paper, but to put it on a home page makes it even harder. I think that the quality of the reports is reduced by having to do more then two reports because of the time constraints and the problems that arise in working with this media. I think that this class can be taught in distance learning (HITS) because all of the work can be done in lab and the discussion part of the class can be done over interactive television. Since we tend to communicate with other classmates on e-mail it wouldn't really change the class; it would allow other students from different islands or states to participate in the building of the online generational community classroom.

I used two different search engines to try to find articles that discuss the topics of psychological forces in web design and navigation. The two search engines that I used were yahoo and infoseek I used many different combinations of the words home page, web design, webdesign, navigation, psychological forces and architecture. Here is a list of related articles that I found.

The first article I found in my search was Professor James' article on web architecture. I used both infoseek and yahoo to find this article. I really don't have to summarize this article again because it is the same article that I have discussed earlier in my report in the section titled Psychological Aspects to Web Design.

I found another article while using the key words webdesign, home page, and navigation. The search engine that I used was infoseek. The article was written by Tim Guay and is entitled "Beyond the Mechanics: Web Design Issues." This article covered most of the same points that can be found at Jeff Glover's site and in Professor James's article. Here are some of the points that the author discusses in his article. Like in Professor James' article this author talks about design goals for web pages. A few of the goals that the author says are important are content, layout, navigation, and interactivity. These goals are similar to the ones that are talked about in Professor James' article.

I also found two lists while I was searching for articles on the web. After reading these lists I found them to relate to Jeff Glover's site. These lists are "Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design" by Jakob Nielsen and "Issues in Web Design." I found the "Issues in Web Design" list to also have points that relate to parts of Professor James' article. I don't want to say what points you can find on these two sites, that would make it too easy for you. I have made live links to these sites, so I hope that you visit these sites. I think that they will help you understand more about web design and I think that you will be pleased when you visit them.

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If you want to see Jeff Glover's site then click on this icon

 If you want to e-mail me I can be reached at shintani@hawaii.edu. I would really like to hear any comments or opinions that you might have after reading my report.