April 29, 1999

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Kim's Idiotic Move #247

I had to give a presentation in class this morning of the portfolio discussed in yesterday's entry. I don't usually use notes for these types of things - I do better when speaking extemporaneously. Otherwise, I sound like I'm reading my notes. I had kind of practiced it in my head and I had a mental outline of the important points to cover.

So I start talking about how we designed our portfolio to be fairly linear, even though it was a multimedia class. But for the first few pages, to help the user understand the metaphor we were using, it made more sense to just have the page automatically forward or the narrative would get lost in the shuffle. Sounds good, right? In talking about this, I made a reference to the "Stupid User" - kind of a joke, because we had talked about how you have to respect your audience and not make any assumptions. I said something like: "So we removed all the links because we didn't want the Stupid Users to get lost". Everyone laughed and my professor said, "So, since you designed this portfolio primarily for me, does that mean I am The Stupid User?". Everyone laughed again and I just turned bright red. Of course, the more I kept talking, the worse it got. I quickly summed up and turned it over to the next person in my group. But it was truly embarrassing. And of course, throughout class, people kept making Stupid User jokes. I am such an idiot, sometimes. Maybe next time I better use notes.

In other news on this presentation, the last person to present was a friend of mine. Now, she has strong opinions about things, and isn't afraid to share them, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, right? When our group initially formed, we were assigned the "whatever is left" portion of creating the site, so we were kind of annoyed by our lack of direction. But we soon realized that this was a positive - since we didn't have any assignment, we could make up our own minds about what to do. My friend was trying to get that across, but she said, "After our group was raped..." and then "since everyone else stole all our tasks..." Oops. The class just kind of chuckled uncomfortably, not quite sure how to take that. They laughed a bit when my professor said, "Are we bitter?" Of course, me being the ultimate smoother-over (see above) I tried to fix it by jumping in with, "Ha ha. We are the oppressed group! Maybe she will need some therapy after this to deal with the trauma", but I said it in a totally joking way. I don't know if it made anyone else feel better, but I think it helped my friend realize what she had said, because she kind of backpedaled a bit and then moved on.

I'm making it out like it was the worst presentation in the world, but I am focusing on the negative. It went over well, and people seemed impressed with our work. People came up to me afterward and complimented me on my part of it too. The other groups did an amazing job as well. I am sad that the class is over, because I really looked forward to it every Thursday. But time marches on.

So now I am stuck in Access hell for a few more days. This project is due Monday so come hell or high water, it has to get done. So enough writing...back to the coal mines.