Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Day in the life: With swine flu becoming more prevalent, should pregnant women vaccinate?

It seems americans are split when it comes to deciding whether or not to vaccinate themselves during flu season. There are many reasons behind the choice to vaccinate or not to vaccinate, some are based on fact and research and others are based on myth. Regardless of your stance, one thing you do need to know is that this flu season the H1N1 strand of the flu or the "swine flu," is most prevalent. Swine Flu Symptoms include cough, fever, sore throat, stuffy or runny nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. If you're experiencing any of these symptoms you should see your docotor immediately. But, if you want to prevent yourself from getting the flu altogether, doctors recommend you get the flu shot as soon as possible. Those most at risk this flu season are children, the elderly, young adults and pregnant women. My story focuses on the latter and why so many of them aren't getting the vaccination. I spoke about stand ups in a previous post, take a look at the one I did in this story and tell me what you think. You can also take a look at the "Google Flu Trends" chart to see how the nation is handling the 2013-2014 Flu Season. To find the nearest vaccination location in your area, use the "Vaccine Finder":

Monday, February 10, 2014

Tiffany Sessions: 25 years later

As a night side reporter for GTN News, I had the opportunity to produce a story following a break in the 25 year old "Tiffany Sessions Cold Case." The University of Florida student went on a walk on February 9, 1989, but never returned. Her family and several law enforcement agencies have been searching for her ever since. New information is leading detectives to believe Tiffany was abducted (and potentially killed) by convicted serial killer, Paul Rowles. Rowles died in a state prison in 2013, but this new information could lead us one step closer to finding Tiffany.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Review of "Don’t make me think (Revisited): A common sense approach to web usability."

I’ve recently read through the book “Don’t make me think (Revisited): A common sense approach to web usability,” and I have to say it really opened up my eyes to the world of being a “user friendly” web operator. In saying this I mean that there is so much more that should go into creating and maintaining a successful website. For example, I created this blog for the Advanced Interactive course that I am currently enrolled in at the University of Florida. However, in making this blog I didn’t put much thought into what you as the reader would get out of it (sorry!). I honestly just assumed that if I posted things and made them witty and easy to read then people would read my posts and that would be the end of that. But this book challenges you to dig deeper. On the internet there are a million different things competing for your attention. In personally know that even when logging on the web with one specific task in mind, within seconds I have at least four to five other tabs open on my browser window. As I write this post right now I have a tab open for Facebook, Pandora, Essence Magazine, Elearning, and BuzzFeed. That’s insane when you think about it! I say all of this to say that as an online consumer it takes something more than “catchiness” or “quirkiness” to grab and hold one’s attention. When I look at all of these things that I have open, more than half of them where due to links that I found on Facebook and ended up clicking on. And that’s just it, it’s the ease with which I was able to get to another site that made it so enticing to click. If I knew in order to get to that funny BuzzFeed post I’d have to jump through a million hoops and give a pint of blood, then I would have never clicked on it. And it’s with this mindset that we as web operators should be creating and managing our website. Chapter four of the book, “Don’t make me think (Revisited): A common sense approach to web usability,” really does a great job of explaining this concept. Essentially it says that people on the Internet don’t want to have to think too much to do anything (harsh right?). But when you think about it it’s true! If there are two things competing for your attention on the internet, both equally “important” to you, but one is easier to get to, which one are you going to go for first and probably stick with longer? The easy one, duh! So in sum there are few important tips that any blogger, website manager/owner, etc. should employ based on this book. For one, don’t give users too many hard and lengthy choices to make in order to get to you content. Just don’t do it. And two, if you keep your site full of brief, timely, unavoidable, and (my own addition) easy to access, you’ll probably have more eyes looking at your content for longer.