Letting Go of the Words

Janice Redish’s article, Letting Go of the Words; Writing Web Content that Works, is about exactly what the title suggests; writing web content that works and can be interpreted by your audience. This is MOST important when writing web content, thinking about the kind of people who you want to reach out too. If you have a specific group of people who are intended for, you must learn to understand your audience in order for the content to appeal to them.

Redish provides a list of seven small things to do in order to know and understand the audience or audiences that you are hoping to reach.

1. List your major audiences

2. Gather information about your audiences

3. List major characteristics about your audiences

4. Gather your audiences’ questions, tasks and stories

5. Use your information to create personas

6. Include your persona’s goals and tasks

7. Use your information to write scenarios for your site

After reading into each one of these suggested steps to knowing and understanding the audience, it seemed like something similar to an interview or a detailed research on your audience. The only way to reach out to them successfully when starting to write the content, is to do this research and gather as much information as possible. Once content has been started and there is a site that people (hopefully people from the audience that you are trying to reach), you will be able to gather even more information about what your particular readers will want based on their traffic on your site.

I found this diagram that I felt was another way to show how to go about finding information about the audience that you want to reach. After having done the research, the information gathered is what helps you create key phrases, emotions and other ways to really relate to the audience when they visit your site.

After reading the article, I found that the key phrases is probably what I think is one of the most important things to know and display when developing web content. Key phrases are in my opinion the most important because they are what the people relate to the fastest and they find that that”s what continuously brings them back to a site.

 

This video describes the main points of this article very well, and it’s pretty short! It just emphasizes the importance of selecting an audience or two in order to have the most successful experience possible.

 

 

Framed and Mounted

Written by David Rowe, Framed and Mounted: Sport Through the Photographic Eye talks about the importance of capturing those victorious moments that many fans and family adore.

gold medal match for treanor and walsh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tommie Smith and John Carlos 1968 victory in Mexico

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These photos have extreme impact, whether you were there and experienced, or are just seeing for the first time, the ability to capture these moments is truly amazing. The photographer’s job? Well that’s simple, to show the audience exactly what they want to see – the athlete. Rowe states that “the most important object in sports photography is sport’s prime instrument, the human body.” Like I said, this is what all of their fans and family, recruits, etc. want to see: their epic victory or moment captured forever.

This idea of capturing the victory, or maybe loss, is that it is frozen in time. The photographers take hundreds of shots during games in order to get that one shot that that they can edit and eventually be the cover of the newspaper or magazines. Similar to what I discussed last week, it’s still crucial for sports photographers to organize and choose the best photos that illustrate what happened in a particular event. It’s very important that the photograph be representative of not only the game, but of the article that describes the game for people who weren’t there. This can also be hard for some audiences because photographers and the journalists, may have a different view of the game than someone reading the article and viewing the picture. It just means, like a lot of other things, that the reader must find the journalist that portrays the best article and the best image for the game/article.

One thing that Rowe talks about is gender issues in sports photography. He explains that there is this issue of women athletes as being inactive or passive in sports photographs. I understand why he might say this, but couldn’t actually imagine one particular photograph that supports his example. So I came up with a few pictures. Venus Williams and Derek Jeter, both known for their respective sports and their victories, portrayed in here in one very inactive photo and one considered active.

 

Venus Williams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Derek Jeter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obviously, we see a difference here. Jeter is clearly more active than Venus is and therefore Rowe’s point is seen as true. BUT what if I post this instead:

Jeter’s batting stance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture, in my opinion, is just as inactive as Venus’. Nothing is happening other than Jeter getting ready for the pitch. So, why is there still so much of a slant when it comes to women athletes? Couldn’t tell you because I’m sure a lot of male athletes would say that their women counterpart is just as good, maybe if not better. Society, still hasn’t parted from the whole concept that apparently men are better than women.

All in all, the sports photograph is not only important to the audience, but it’s important for the athlete who is featured in the photo. It’s purpose is to freeze the moment, whether good or bad, in time forever. Then we can experience that moment and all of the emotions of it over, and over again.