Category: Peer Review

For this peer review, I got the chance to look at Alyssa’s blog (http://alyssawuwrites.com/), so thank you Alyssa for letting me do this.

First impression of the site for me is that it is very clear. The soft off white colour background with rounded edges of the chosen font types make the blog overall feel very friendly and easy to follow through. I love that you have a quick, one sentence description of who you are. This helps me get who you are trying to be or talk about in this blog.

I like how the posts are organized based on the recent dates, so that it was really easy for me to look through the blogs one by one. To make it more accessible, it would have been nice to have filter function on the homepage, where I can classified it based on categories if I want to. I was a little confused when it comes to the navigation bar, between “Art” and “Writing” since they both contain the same blogs as the ones under “PUB101” tab. So, I would suggest to to put those two tabs as child menu under “PUB101” menu. In addition, I think that all the blogs on the homepage are the same as the ones under the “PUB101” tab. I made me quite confused on why, so maybe get rid of the “PUB101” tab!

This is very nitpicking but I found the titles quite distracting with the dates. As I go back in time, the way the dates were labeled are different than the current ones. So, maybe you could change that to make it clear. Plus, maybe you don’t need the dates since the posts themselves show when you posted on the blog already.

Interestingly, you also have the accessibility button where users can customize the site. I like the feature, but I do not like the chosen icon at all. I think it is communicating the wrong information to the user. By first glance, it makes me think there is something wrong with me because the icon reflects a person on a wheelchair. Secondly, the site has nothing to do with whether I am using a wheelchair or not. So, change the icon up so it can be translated to better fit with the feature.

Based on my browsing, her blog is her “digital garden” of her weekly experience as a student and a writer. I found it very interesting since I am also a student. To see we are both struggling in someways with school get me interested with the content she is posting on the blog. From her recent process post on November 15th, she said she is struggling with analytics on her site. I agree, it is very hard to do, especially if you decide to go on the route of lifestyle and entertainment. I am speaking from my own experience with YouTube haha. I saw that she posted some of her drawings skills, so maybe bringing those up to the front pages instead of just put on posts may let the audience get the know faster than right now. Another implement that she could do is having more visuals. Right now, the blog seems to be text-heavy and it is very hard to attract users when all they see is a block of them. So play around with that!

Thank you Alyssa again for letting me read through and peer review your blog. Hopefully my comments are helpful!

Thank you Isha Hoonjan for letting me peer review your blog (http://consideringcardamom.com/).

First of all, your blog is looking really good and interesting to browse through! You have the landing page with all the posts you have helped me to see who you are as a person at a first glance. The images attached to each blog attract me fairly well to read the blog. All the pages have a consistent design that shows I’m still on the same site. Overall, The blog has a very good flow and is easy to follow. Also, I love the additional features you have added to the page, which include the dark theme, the resizing system for the fonts, the high contrast settings and the search feature. These features help to make your site more accessible and fun to discover from the user side, so good job!

As for the design principles of the site, it shows pretty clearly in terms of hierarchy. I can see that the name of the site has the highest hierarchy, then the title of the section, then the submenu and so on. Personally, I think the title should have the highest priority once the user goes to a different page. For example, as in the image attached down below, I would rather see that I am on the “Post” page than see the site’s name as the first attention I go towards again.

As for the colour schemes, I like that you keep it white with different shades of grey. It is a very simple yet elegant look, which gives a clean vibe to the site. It also makes your images pop up even more. A consideration if you would like to go further on colour schemes is to play more with different colours based on the user’s interaction. For example, maybe the colours could change instead of the transparency when the user hovers over a clickable word or phrase. Also, don’t be scared to add some colours to the site! Even though it is a simple look, is it how you want the reader to see you? Or is there more for them to learn from you and attract them to keep reading about you? Maybe you could think about your favourite colours or based on your content, what colours may make the most sense to go with. Those can be some brainstorming questions you can think of while looking more into colours.

I would have to say, unfortunately, I do not think that the images are communicating much about who you are. It could be because they are stock images. I would like you to look more into that, so the reader can get to know you more clearly right at first glance. Also, the image attached below shows that each post doesn’t have the same size at the bottom. It looks like it is from the images’ setting, so check that so everything looks clean. Another comment I would say is, instead of saying what assignment, have fun with making titles up. It will attract the audience more and, right away, knows what they are going to write about.

One thing that confuses me about the site is the submenu’s language choice. What is the difference between “Blog” and the other submenus like the image I have attached? Because, right now, everything is a blog for me. Maybe, find another word instead of that to make it cleaner.

Overall, a very interesting blog to show parts of yourself. I definitely have learned a little bit more about who you are. Thank you again for letting me look through your site. Hopefully, these comments are helpful!

• Reflection on The Site
• Community Guideline
• Update on the Audience

My chosen blog to review on is Mikeala’s blog (http://mikaelaswrld.com/). Side note to everyone, I’m not sure if there is a new link that I should be looking at because there is no change at all on the site. Feel free to let me know about that as well! I will be talking about the design, the accessibilities of the site and recommendations I would like to give her so she can improve her site.

The site is currently using the template it has been given by WordPress, so I will be judging based on that. I really like the monochromic colour scheme you decide to keep for your site. With addition to the whitespace you have and clear hierarchy for each display components (header, sub header, and body copy), it makes the site looks very clean and easy to read through each portion. Now, let’s move into the accessibilities portion of the review.

The first point I would like to talk about is the navigation portion of the site. There is no tabs to help me lead to other pages on the site. I kind of have to “look around” to find the information I am looking for. In relation to that comment, the vocabulary used for the navigation is not helping me find what I’m trying to look for. So, my recommendation for this part is think about the accessibility and how should the readers look through her blog. To make it easier, think like this:

• What makes a site, any site and it doesn’t have to be a blog if you don’t read one often like me, easy to navigate and why is it working?
• How can I implement that to my own site?

Secondly, after clicking to “Hello World” sub header on the landing page, it leads to another page that I assume it is for all the posts. The keyword here is “assume”. The readers should not be assuming where the information they are looking for is. She, as the blogger, needs to provide a pathway for me, the reader, to where I want to go. So, my suggestion if it is a little bit hard to think about that. Write down a flow. Break it down, step by step on how do you go from the landing page of the site to the section you want to find.

The last point I would like to bring up in this review is to start publishing her posts. Like the teaching team has been saying, there is no solid deadline (except this review) for the posts, but it would be good to look through your process on how she gets here and starts creating a conversation with your audience. Right now, since there is nothing yet, I don’t know who she is. As Cory Doctorow (2021) mentioned in his “The Memex Method” blog, the blog is the publisher’s branding on a platform. In this case, her WordPress is her branding. She can start “digital gardening”, a term used by Tanya Basu (2020) in her “Digital gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet” blog, where she shows her growing process as a blogger on something she is learning or getting challenged on.

I have touched based on the big improvements you could do on your site. To recap, I suggest her to work on the accessibility portion of your site for the menu and pages’ names first. I would also recommend her to start post her process and assignments on the site. As for the designs, that can come later. Thank you Mikeala for letting me looking through your site and I am excited to see how your site looks like in the future!

Want to read more about what Doctorow (2021) and Basu (2020) said? Here are the links:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/03/1007716/digital-gardens-let-you-cultivate-your-own-little-bit-of-the-internet/

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-memex-method-238c71f2fb46

• Reflection on The Site
• Community Guideline
• Update on the Audience