Status: Used for the past year
Transaction: Taking a picture with the flash reduced
The camera has a default setting to “auto” where all the features of the camera, such as flash, exposure, size of the photo and size of the lens are preset. In the auto setting, the camera will allow the user to alter the size of the lens from the default wide angle to a anywhere on the range from wide angle to the telephoto or close-up setting. Nothing else can be altered, remaining on the fixed default settings.
The top of the camera has a round disk, with 13 small icons, or initials, for the different camera setting menus. Auto is in green, the rest are in black. While I have used the camera, successfully, for the past year, I am not used to each menu in the other settings.
Step one was to play with each of the other menus, by opening the front of the camera, which activates the menu, and then turning the disk on the top of the camera to “P” which brought up the menu on the viewer on the back of the screen, showing that flash was blocked, with the flash icon showing a line through it. I usually use the “P” setting, although I have no idea what the P stands for. I use it because it is easy to manipulate the settings.
To the left of the viewer on the back of the camera are three buttons. They are toggle buttons, which scroll through the icons shown next to the buttons. The top button has a “+-“, “WB”, arrow”+-“, and a contrast symbol. The arrow +- symbol is the flash, with +-, which I’m not sure about. The plus/minus may mean it adds or takes away the flash completely, or may mean that it adds or subtracts it partially, which is what I want to do. I set the arrow +-, and moved the flash to –1, on the scale, using the arrow button on the upper right of the back of the camera, so that the flash would be one increment less than the default flash setting.
Step two, after seeing that the P menu defaulted to the flash symbol with a line through it, was to play with the button just left of the display with the four selections. I could see that first “+-“ was to adjust the exposure, the“WB” was to choose the flash setting, from White Balance, Auto White Balance, a sun for White Balance day, a cloud for White Balance Cloudy, a light bulb for White Balance Tungsten, two symbols meant to resemble a fluorescent bulb in regular and high but that were difficult to make out and forced me to rely on the wording at the top which said “White Balance Fluorescent” and “White Balance Fluorescent H”, White Balance Flash and White Balance Custom. I set the cursor to the White Balance Flash setting, and then used the toggle button to the left, scrolling through several times to try to turn to flash on, from the off setting. This second button only would allow me to change the ranges of the flash, the white balance, and contrast. It would not allow me to set the flash to the on setting, which was what I was trying to do.
I then tried the menu button, scrolling through the three menus, one specifically for “P”, and two others for the general camera settings. There was nothing there regarding flash. I went back to the +- toggle button, and tried the loop of selections again. No luck. Then I noticed a button above the menu, on the far left. Below the button is a checker board, for viewing nine photos already stored in the camera. However, above the same button, I noticed the flash symbol or arrow. It is alone, and so in some confusion, hoping this would do it, pushed the button. It did turn the flash on, which was shown on the display now without the line through the arrow. This was a relief, because at this point, I was sure I had exhausted all the menus and buttons, and this was the last apparent option.
Step three, take the picture, with the –1 flash setting. The picture was then a little darker, but not so washed out as previous pictures of the same. In the display menu, when viewing a stored picture, there is a toggle on the display button allowing the photo to be viewed full screen, with just basic metadata such as date and time taken and the number of the photo, or with a full spectral analysis of the photo, including the flash. Comparing the photo in this last setting to the previous over-exposed picture, I could see that the flash setting on the second photo was –1, and the color and contrast spectrum analysis was very different due to the change in lighting.
I did not have to modify my own behavior in order to take this photo, because I knew the camera could take a picture using a reduced flash. However, I had never used this exact feature before and so found it a little confusing, and possibly awkward. After noting the flash symbol on the separate button, to toggle it on and off, it reminded me of my 5-year-old digital camera from Canon, which does not have any features like those offered on the buttons to the left of the display or in the display menus, such as flash intensity adjustment, but does have the two buttons above the display where the same four features, where two corresponding features to each button are offered. It dawned on me that the reason they might have kept the two buttons, located above the display, with only two toggle features each is because users who have had their cameras for years would be used to finding these features there, even though the menus and other buttons located to the left of the display will scroll through multiple features and require other buttons to adjust and select features, or scroll through submenus.
Status: Never used before or visited the website
Task: Download the software, download and read the documentation. Find out whether users can be solicited to submit a blog post in draft, without being able to publish it. Publishing control is to be maintained by the publisher alone.
Part 1: On the front page of the site is a link to download the software. I immediately did this, knowing that I wanted it regardless of the publishing permissions. There is a single, simple menu which asks for a user name and email address, a statement about never sharing the email address, and a download button. The process was simple, efficient, and took a couple of seconds.
Part 2: The documentation appears to be located on several simple-to-find subpages of the site, but if there is a pdf or other documentation document to be downloaded locally, I cannot find it. However, since I have not unpacked the software, I don’t know if there is documentation there. I assume there is. After a minute, I notice “Resources” which when clicked, lists several documentation options, all of which are helpful and easily downloaded.
Part 3:
In the online documentation, located at the “About” section on the front
webpage, in the upper left area, under the first listing of “Features” is a
page with features summarized. Listed
is the following: “Support for multiple authors — register multiple
authors, and set their access levels using Movable Type's role-based
permissions system.” This does not tell
me whether I will be able to set up a guest posting mechanism, which will allow
a guest poster to publish in draft, and the publisher to then post it on the
weblog (for the purpose of preventing spam or other posts unrelated to the blog
topic).
I looked around the site, and noticed
“user forums”, and did a search on “user permissions” which led me to a list of
user topics and threads. The third
thread down was on guest books and draft posting, where a user had posted
instructions for having guests post in draft.
I saved these and for now, considered my work with Movable Type
finished, until I install.
The whole Movable Type site was extremely
easy to use and organized, just like my experience so far with the
program. I have only used it as a
poster with full rights to publish, but not modify the program settings. I expect my experience with publishing and
the website to be similar to installing and using the software because of my
previous experience.
The process of using the camera, which I was familiar with because I had owned it for a year, turned out to be far more difficult and confusing than using the Moveable Type website, which I had never used. I found the camera, and trying to use a feature I knew was available, confusing at times. While the logic of buttons that are “newer” in the sense that they control features available on cameras more recently released are consolidated and organized, older features are still located in the same old place. The four features and two buttons found on older cameras, which toggle between the flash or no flash settings, the display of pictures in either full display or checkerboard style, the jump feature to jump a few pictures ahead in the display, and the 10x close up, are located where they have been on digital cameras by Canon for the five years I’ve owned them (I owned an Elf three years ago, which had the same buttons) in my experience. Since the button to turn the flash on or off is located away from all the other flash setting buttons and menus, it is awkward to use. I wanted to find all the related options for a feature together.
I observed that the designers may have maintained an old style interface so that users used to the old style would be accommodated. I also think the flash toggle is located there on the back upper left of the camera so that users can quickly turn it on or off, without having to navigate menus in the display. However, when the task is to do something more complicated with the flash settings, the fact that the on/off switch is elsewhere was not so intuitive to find and manipulate.
In the Moveable Type example, I felt a tremendous sense of relief that it was so easy to see everything I needed, navigate through, and did not have to click more than twice to get everything I needed. Also, the simple interface of the website, which is very similar to using a Moveable Type blog, belies what is a complex amount of information that could be confusing and yet is not. However, like using their software, I felt as if the website had been well thought out and designed to be simple and easy, with a very simple logic. I liked that it was organized and simple, and found myself wishing that other sites were as good.