Review: The Sandbox

Our assignment today is to evaluate one of our own blog posts for content, voice, and value. I am evaluating my post from yesterday about Sandbox, an online CSS learning tool made by Bryony, Aaron, and Clint with input from Matt, Evan, and myself.

With regard to content, my post focuses on identifying purposes for which people might find Sandbox useful and on color contrast on the home page of Sandbox. Each represents an instance where we made recommendations for the website, though the color contrast instance is more specific.

The voice of my post is mostly direct and brief. There are two sentences of humor at the end. I am going to try to make my future blog posts both more narrative in form and more playful.

I find three potentially valuable insights in my experience with Sandbox. First, all software should have have a button enabling the user to summon fennecs (a species of desert fox). I think that Microsoft’s failure to include a “Summon Fennecs” option in their mobile software, is clearly the main reason that Windows is not the dominant operating system for smartphones. Second, for textured backgrounds adjusting the “texture color” (i.e. the color present only in flecks against the dominant background) can make a big difference in readability while causing only a relatively small change in the appearance of the background. Third, identifying the specific functionality of a product is critical to most aspects of design. Sandbox with custom content would be completely different tool than Sandbox with pre-populated content.