1) The design of money isn’t something I’ve considered much–at least until this podcast. What are some of the design flaws of US currency raised in this episode? Can you add anymore to this list? What are some of the reasons offered for why US money doesn’t get redesigned?
The flaws with American currency is that the bills are not durable, they are all uniform in size and is not usable for people with disabilities. The US bills are also the same color and only feature white men. I feel in todays age it is time for a woman or African American to be featured on the bill. The US bill does not get redesigned since the US is a superpower and if it does redesign it show that the US is not stable.
2) Besides the design of money, consider the design of this story. This story could have been presented as a traditional text-based news story–minus the podcast, the embedded YouTube video, the images, and all the clickable hyperlinks. In fact, in its earliest iterations, this story probably was just text-based–in the form of a story pitch and then script. So why go through all the trouble of remediating that text? What do the audio, video, images, and interactive features (like hyperlinks) add? More specifically, how do they persuade in ways that text can’t? Try to point to specific examples.
The interactive features make the article more accessible and ‘fun’ to read. The YouTube video really explains what its like being blind and handling US currency. This proves the design flaw the article was talking about without using too much text. The podcast is also a feature to the people who do not have enough time to physically read the article.
3) How do/did your reading habits change when you “read” new media as opposed to regular text-based readings?
Instead of reading the text as normal, I stopped and clicked on the Youtube video link as that’s how the article was structured. After clicking on the interactive features the article made better sense as those links were placed strategically.
rhetoricalresponses 