User-Generated Content

User-Generated Content

What is UGC?

Any form of content such as blogs, wikis, discussion forums, posts, chats, tweets, podcasts, digital images, video, audio files, advertisements and other forms of media that was created by users of an online system or service, often made available via social media websites".

Participate: Designing with User-Generated Content

I would like to recommend a book for graphic designers or any design student. The book, Participate: Designing with User-Generated Content by Helen Armstrong and  Zvezdana Stojmirovic should be a textbook requirement throughout a design students four years at university. User-generated content is all around us and designers need to keep hold of user-generated content while maintaining their own status as professional designers. "Participate considers historical and contemporary models of creation that provide ideas for harnessing user-generated content through participatory design. The authors discuss how designers can lead the new breed of widely distributed amateur creatives rather than be overrun by them." User-driven content has been made easily accessible and graphic designers need to be ever more familiar with was of keeping a unique touch. I believe this book would be an intellectual and not a boring read for the creative designer! To get a sneak peak of the first few pages click the link below!

https://issuu.com/papress/docs/participate_press

Web Design & The Increase of UI Patterns

To get the gist of the substance of my post I want to answer a few questions for you all first. Web design is constantly growing and changing to respond to its viewers which builds the platform for responsive web design. 

What is Responsive Web Design?

      Responsive web design (RWD) is an approach to web design aimed at crafting sites to provide an 
      optimal viewing and interaction experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, 
      panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).

Why Do We Need RWD?

     “Day by day, the number of devices, platforms, 
     and browsers that need to work with your site grows. 
     Responsive web design represents a fundamental shift 
     in how we’ll build websites for the decade to come.”
                                                                                                   - Jeffrey Veen

Similarity Becomes Positive Familiarity Among Web Pages & Their Users

From social media networks and sites constantly popping up on the web and our mobile devices it is no wonder that the positive layouts and looks have stuck and become almost fluent in every nicely designed web page we come across. Web pages that are easy to navigate and apps created to suite the user's experience are going to gain positive feedback and from that it has resulted in common UI design patterns for websites.

When a user comes to a site that looks smooth and familiar on the eyes they are more likely to trust the site and therefore commit to their daily usage on the site. Our daily web page interactions have become so familiar to us that when we do come across a very under-developed tacky looking site we tend to be stand-offish to its content and the result is the site getting a decrease in usage. As a technology community we create relationships with the various sites we visit everyday. We are accustomed to a certain look, mostly the look of the created UI web design patterns.

Web page similarity is not a bad thing yet a tight knit community that makes its audience comfortable thinking of the users experience while on the site. For anyone interested in knowing more about UI patterns below is a link to an article that shows of 63 Web UI Patterns From Todays Hottest Companies!

http://www.awwwards.com/63-web-ui-patterns-from-today-s-hottest-companies.html

Introduction

Hello Everyone!

A little bit about me....I am a third year student at California State University, Chico majoring in Graphic Design along with pursuing a minor in Photographic Studies and a certificate in Web Design and Publishing. I am highly interested in UX design (User Experience Design), packaging, re-branding and presentation design. Aside from my studies I love traveling and everything outdoorsy, especially surfing, hiking/camping, and film photography which includes my love for and collection of old-cameras. Now I''d like to welcome my readers to my blog dedicated to all things social media with correlation to graphic design.

My blog posts will mainly revolve around how social media plays a huge role in a graphic designers life and how social media is a huge part of graphic design. Helpful tools and tricks in the design world will be fun posts to explore on my blog as well as posts highlighting ways the graphic design community uses social media to get exposure for potential jobs and create an active audience. Making a positive online presence for a graphic designer is a necessary tool and objective and social media is at the forefront for providing that.

I hope my blog posts inspire or invoke inspiration or thought from new to experienced designers. I want my posts to also show social media in a new way and in a specific field that I believe compliments the other very well. Graphic design is a key element in social media and social media is a key element in graphic design. 


I hope you enjoy my future posts to come and would love any positive or constructive criticism!