I think that across all the assignments I’ve done this year, this idea of considering your audience has been most prominent. It is important in any type of communication, be it an argumentative essay, a research paper, or a media-rich analysis in website form. These different structures are all different ways to get across an idea and make it seem worthwhile. Some elements that influence the success of this goal include organization, providing context, incorporating evidence, and having a motive. During the creation of my final project, these were what I focused on. I had a robust introduction page and description of the ideas and issues I was discussing, in which background information and context was crucial. I also tried to structure the website in a way that was not only intuitive but innovative, which was what originally led me to create the “Sight”, “Sound”, “Space” pages. However, I ended up going with a simpler organization that included mainly my big idea and then pages with evidence. I also felt it was important to give a sensory experience of the space I was describing throughout the site. Ultimately, my greatest achievement was finding my motive, which lies with the importance of quiet spaces for creativity and productive work.
To create a media-rich project that accomplishes the same things that an essay does, I had to think critically about the purpose of everything I was trying to say. Every part of my argument had to stand on its own as a separate page, and I had to figure out how to create an intuitive flow of ideas without the help of a well-understood structure. I had to focus much more on the processes of idea generation and organization to make sure my points were clear. While writing a typical essay, I tend to get caught up with the complexity of my ideas and originality of presentation. But when creating a website, it was much more clear that the main goal was to communicate with an audience. Incorporating new types of media also had me always coming back to this one question – “how will this help viewers/readers understand my point?”