Blog Post 1: Topic Interests

I honestly don't know what I want to research yet. The funny thing is, I've never considered researching something based on technical usage. I'm curious about scientific issues such the power of sleep or how reading can help heal the brain--which is so weird, because science is not my strong suit. With that said, as I was reading Dr. B's blog, I thought about the research study that Dr. McMurrin told our Technical Writing class about. It was a study on how the eyes move around on a page consisting of technical information, more or less. It would be quite interesting to research this topic and expand upon it if I can. Basically, why do our eyes pick out certain font, color,and  alignment over others, and how long do our eyes naturally focus on different areas of a page?

Another topic that would be interesting would be what colors are most effective for different types of technical documents--especially when it comes to emotion--and why are they so effective? Or are they as effective as people think?

Well, that's what I've got for now. Maybe something new will transform during the week.

Comments

  1. Kelsi-Ann TullinenSeptember 2, 2020 at 12:24 PM

    To be honest, I don't really know what topic I want to research either. I have a strong desire to study psychological issues, which would correlate to your scientific studying desire. On the topic of sleep, I've always been fascinated by why we have nightmares or sleeping disorders. It's crazy what our brain does in general, but especially while we are asleep. I learned a lot of PTW studying from Dr. McMurrin's as well and I've honestly wanted to do a usability study like the one you described since I took that course. I never realized how broad PTW went as in all the things that we can do in this field.

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    1. Kelsi-Ann TullinenSeptember 2, 2020 at 12:26 PM

      I, Kelsi Tullinen, posted this comment but I honestly don't have any idea how to make my profile public to the point that you can see I posted the comment?

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  2. Emily MildenhallSeptember 2, 2020 at 2:53 PM

    I also think that the power of sleep is a super interesting topic to look into--and science isn't my strong suit, either. Tracking of eye movements would be a good thing to research; it still amazes me that we even have the technology to do that, honestly. Choosing a topic under the PTW umbrella is kind of tricky, but I'm sure it'll get easier the more we dive into the chapters and readings for ideas.

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