This is a dragon, idk y

 Jessica Clements Interview

First questions

I lead with a question that I had already introduced to Dr. Clements in one of my classes when she visited the class. Are websites becoming monomodal? No. Monomodal is not the right word. Websites by virtue tend to include lots of different modalities, sound, text, images etc. So I was using the wrong word. But she said YES websites do seem to be becoming homogenous. Web aesthetics ARE flattening. 

We discussed this for a bit. Why are websites becoming so homogenous and how. The classic usability and reliability is what we decided upon. People don't want to have to relearn how to use a new website or tool every time they try something new. It's already hard enough. If they all follow similar archetypes it becomes much simpler for the users to accept new artifacts. Also, the sterile classic design is efficient. Sidebars, drop boxes, text boxes, common icons, etc. They all work and do their job well and are easy to implement. 

I mentioned some websites I had found that do things a little differently and add a little story telling to their design. Like the website for The Line Animation Studio. Clements offered me a resource she had, a book called Storytelling in Digital Worlds, or something like that and how people go about telling stories in the digital medium. This made me think about interfaces and menus in video games, and how clever developers can include them in the world and make them feel more immersive than just a separate tab. Case in point, the terminal in Lethal Company. 

Accessibility

This conversation around usability and efficiency in websites led really well into my next question around accessibility? How much can we sacrifice when it comes to accessibility for cool design. Dr. Clements made some really good points about why it is important to try and make tools accessible for as many people as you can, but also how difficult that can be. I tried to add some framing to the question about making tools online that you know exist in other formats that are easily accessible, and if that relieved some of the pressure to make your design the most accessible. This led to a really good conversation, but we didn't come up with a clear or good answer, just more thoughts and ideas to consider.

Academic perspective

Next I asked her about her perspective as a professor and a leader in the WCC (Whitworth Composition Commons) Specifically I asked about whether or not websites specifically are being seen as a common alternative for assignments that would normally require an essay or a visual project. It seems like this was something she was definitely aware of and seemed to wish it was more common than it is. She mentioned that in larger institutions this might be more common than smaller ones like Whitworth. This all stemmed from the ideas of multimodal and multiliterate theories that the WCC promotes. 

As a follow up I asked her a follow up about AI giving access to coding and web design that students in most disciplines usually wouldn't have. She had a lot of really good things to say about this, and it seemed like we were like minded in our assessment of it. AI seems to be a really good access bridger. It can open a lot of doors that would normally require a large knowledge base to be able to access. Dr. Clements and I both seemed pretty excited about this notion and the opportunities that it opened for people to be creative in new spaces