Woods & Theony describe four dimensions of wiki design:
- Architecture of information
- Plotting navigational paths
- Using templates for content page design
- Adding visual themes
Taking these four dimensions as a design framework, what design criteria and specifications should we be thinking about in the case of the Digital Cre8or wiki?
General considerations
One early consideration is likely to be, 'to what extent is the wiki design to be devolved to the Digital Cre8or wiki community, and to what extent should it already be in place for them when they join?' To put it another way, what is the best way to achieve the balance between giving the Digital Cre8or community a sense of ownership of the wiki, without wiki design considerations getting in the way of the student's learning goals? One approach would be to apply a light touch to the designed environment at the outset, but be open to suggestions and proposals from members of the community as to how the four design elements might be improved, for the greater effectiveness of the course. Woods & Thoeny suggest starting with something simple and allowing the design to emerge organically as the wiki is used. The eventual design may not become obvious until it has been used regularly and users start to complain about aspects of design.
Architecture of information
The Digital Cre8or course suggests its own fairly rigid structure. There are 8 modules, each with its own distinctivive content, which does not belong under any other module:
- Digital audio
- Digital images
- Movie language
- Digital Video
- Storytelling with animation
- Sharing through optical devices
- Sharing through the Internet
- Sharing multimedia through presentations
In addition to those, there will be other components which will either be self contained or might be closely connected with the content of several of the DC modules. Possible examples include:
- Welcome and introduction
- House rules
- Information about community members
- General information about the Digital Cre8tor course
- Health & safety content
- Intellectual property and capyright content
- Instructional materials for software required for projects
- Features on digital media techniques (in various formats)
- Published media projects by members of the community with comments
- Course glossary
Other supporting categories suggested by Woods & Thoeny, which may or may not overlap with those suggested above, include:
- Explanatory pages (rules & practices)
- How to add content
- Site map
- List of users
- List of project groups using the wiki
- Template examples
- About us (info about who created the wiki)
- FAQs
- Copyright and content licensing
A key part of the wiki structure will be the interlinking of all relevant parts of the wiki to each other.
Each content page can also have a tag applied to it, enabling content to be referenced under alternative taxonomies (see Categories below).
Plotting navigational paths
Front page
The front page should:
- Tell people what the wiki is about
- How to find what they want
- Take them as directly as possible to relevant content
The Digital Cre8or wiki is primarily content focussed. The front page should say what content is being created and how it is organised, perhaps with some examples. The front page should also spend some time encouraging community members to contribute as often as possible. The Digital cre8or wiki is also envisaged as a community wiki and should reflect the interest of that community with news, events,and by giving prominence to digital media.
Section pages
The Digital Cre8or modules will form the main sections. Some of the other headings discussed above may also suggest themselves as section headings. Sections may or may not require specific information or instructions or house rules.
Categorising pages
Categories may also be referred to as tags or tag clouds. Categories allow alternative taxonomies, to that used for the main architectural structure, to be applied within the wiki. For example, categories would make it possible to group all relevant content under a tag such as 'video' or 'instructions' etc.
Planning headers, footers & left hand navigation
These can usually be generated automatically by templates (see Confluence documentation). Wikis tend to follow website conventions for left hand navigation, which often link to general housekeeping functions such as:
- Support web
- Support guidelines
- Open questions
- Search
- Recent changes
- Notifications
- User registration
Effective headers
- Can be used to lay breadcrumbs
- Can include list of tags
- Jump and search box in top right hand corner
- Let users edit page in text mode
Above all, it is important to understand how people are using the wiki in order to get the most out of headers. Can people find what they want easily? Make sure we are getting good feedback by making feedback link prominent.
Planning footers
A page footer might include the following: Edit, WYSIWYG, Attach, Print, Raw view, Backlinks, History, and More actions.
Using templates
See confluence documentation.
Adding a visual style
Using visual content such as themes, personalisation and images can look much more professional, and add interest to the content of the wiki. However, it should be applied with care, so as not to overwhelm the users, or make content difficult to access.
Themes and skins
Themes, also sometimes known as skins, are a collection of settings which include colour, fonts, backgrounds, text size, page layout etc. They are used to set the look and feel of the page. Skins affect the 'personality of the page, so it is important to give some thought as to what sort of 'personality' we want the Digital Cre8tor wiki to project to the prospective community. Should it be creative, arty, geeky, studenty, serious, fun, simple, etc? Themes are usually provided with the wiki software. They can be ceated by the user, but bear in mind this involves extra effort and an understanding of CSS or XSLT.
Using Colour
Colour can be used to aid navigation, by giving certain parts of the wiki a distinctive colour identity. For example, parts of the wiki used for course content could be one colour, while parts used for more social/community based activities could be another. Care needs to be taken not to overwhelm content by makin unwise colour choices, especially with backgrounds.
Personalisation
The Digital Cre8or logo should appear where relevant, particularly on those pages hosting DC content. The University crest already appears on all the University hosted confluence pages. Some thought should be given as to the size at which the logo is presented (certainly not so large that it detracts from the page content.
Other iconography such as Favicons can help to make tools and links easier to find, and thereby make the wiki more usable.
Feedback
It would be useful to get your feedback on these questions and and other design considerations discussed above. Please reply using the comments box.
- Taking these four dimensions as a design framework, what design criteria and specifications should we be thinking about in the case of the Digital Cre8or wiki?
- To what extent is the wiki design to be devolved to the Digital Cre8or wiki community, and to what extent should it already be in place for them when they join?
- What sections should the wiki contain?
- What categories or tags should be applied to pages?
- What supporting pages should be provided as a bare minimum?
- What should be the general look and feel? (eg colour, mood, etc.)
- How should the content be split up?
- Any other views?
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