Web Aesthetics

1
Web Aesthetics

• A study of the artifice and architecture of
  information

2
Key Questions.

• Why does the web look the way it does?
• What are the origins of that look?
• How do we analyze that look?

3
Origins

• Computer Screens
• Apples and the personal computer
• ease of access
• the graphic user interface (GUI)
• Applets and Icons

4
Hypertext

• A different writing form
• the metaphor of the rhizome
• hypertext fiction
• implying possible directions
• a challenge to authorial control

5
Television and Information

• The relationship to graphics and the screen
• Early television
• live news and sports
• the development of the technology of reception
• on screen text
• remote controls

6
Analyzing Websites

• Semiotic approaches
• defining interactivity
• defining personalization
• multimedia dimensions

7
Student Websites

• http//home.earthlink.net/jmben/
• http//lynx.dac.neu.edu/w/whenders/
• http//lynx.dac.neu.edu/k/kspataro/
• http//lynx.dac.neu.edu/s/sbougie/
• http//lynx.neu.edu/m/mbacher
• http//lynx.dac.neu.edu/a/agoldber/index.html
• http//lynx.dac.neu.edu/d/dstepche/
• http//lynx.dac.neu.edu/a/acieplik
• http//lynx.dac.neu.edu/b/bepeters/
• http//lynx.neu.edu/l/lchiu/index.html
• http//lynx.dac.neu.edu/k/kcrozier/
• http//lynx.dac.neu.edu/j/jruiz/
• http//lynx.neu.edu/s/sstojako/Index.html
• http//lynx.dac.neu.edu/a/aolsen/index.html
• http//lynx.neu.edu/s/sawilson
• http//lynx.neu.edu/l/lducharm/index.html
• http//lynx.neu.edu/j/jpeterma/index.html

8
Websites

• Yahoo!
• Webby Awards
• Spiderman
• CBS