Experts of the Virtual
World
-Raphaelle LUCAS, France
With the new information and communication
technologies, new professionals have appeared. There are the web designers for the
Internet. It is their job to design sites that are pleasant to look at, practical to
consult rich in content and present a positive image of their holder. It is a tall order
and all the more so as France now has more than 1.5 million Internet sites.
<<The web designer is simultaneously an
interpreter, an orchestrator, an ergonomist, a graphic artist and a script-writer, finding
himself at the hub of all the professions linked to the Web. In a sense, he is a sort of
multipurpose general practitioner and that's what is exciting>>, Yann Bonizec, a
web-designer explains. He has set up his own agency in Paris for creating sites called
Melimedia. His clients include the Axa group, Cegos, Feerie des Eaux, Societe Francaise
des Architectes and the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers-a top science and
technology higher education establishment. These and other graphic artists of the Net have
the difficult task of combining aesthetics and technology, and fantasy and rigor, to give
life to sites that developments in the Internet force to be increasingly attractive and
rich in content and to give them a strong visual identity.
Creating the illustration, the web designer
takes charge of all the aspects linked to the image. In agreement with the person
responsible for the site or webmaster, he draws up the graphic charter: the choices of
typography, the colors, the display, the integration of photos, the animation for access,
the summary and the arrangement of the texts. This professional also has to see to it that
his creation clearly stands out from the others. Originality makes it possible to capture
the attention of visitors while seeking to respect the image of the company as closely as
possible and to enhance it. For that purpose, the graphic artist can use a whole host of
tricks: he plays with light and shade, designs banners and personalized logos, animated
characters and , if need be, adds sound. Finally, the interactivity of the medium also
means that he has to take problems of ergonomics into account.
Some clients have a precise idea of the site
that they want but others just give a few instructions. It is then up to the web-designer
to go in to it more deeply and to help the client to describe his needs and state his aims
so as to fulfil them better and then, as the projects progresses, to check that his work
really corresponds to his wishes. <<Our job, is above all, based on listening to
others: listening to the person placing the order, the future user, partners and service
providers. It is a job, which creates the link between human activity and
technology>>, the manager of Milemedia explains. If he is not a computer expert, the
web designer must also know this technology thoroughly as, on the Net, graphics and
programming-a knowledge of the HTML language- go hand in hand. Moreover, the slowness of
the network imposes enormous constraints. So, in order to prevent the user from becoming
discouraged by too long a time needed for down loading, the graphic artist had to make
sure that the images or animation effects are not overbearing. However, creativity and
strong technical constraints do not always go well together.
To succeed in these technical and artistic
feats and to << continually alternate between rigour and electecism, the position of
an engineer and the eye and gesture of an artists>>, as Yann Bonizec points out, the
best asset is communication management by several course units in computer graphics taught
at famous Estienne School of Graphic Arts and Industries. Most other web designers studied
at a college of art or applied arts many of which today offer multimedia studies. For
example, the Paris School of Fine Arts has created a multimedia-hypermedia MA Course; the
school of Decorative Arts offers a four-year course. Some universities offer specialized
B.A-license and M.A-matrise-degrees. A host of courses are available to meet the growing
demand.
Today the 2,000 to 3,000 French web designers
work in agencies or, more often, as self-employed persons. In France, and, increasingly,
abroad, they are not short of work. To meet the demands of the businesses, even better,
some of them are gradually becoming organized and innovating. Melimedia is thus setting
out on an interesting adventure: creating a bundle of skills for small and medium-sized
enterprises or industries. << The idea is to group together several firms which are
specialized in a given area, such as an expert in data bases, another one in
spot-animation, another one in web design, etc. and to propose an offer, to SMEs-SMIs,
which perfectly meets their needs and is not over big>>. << Indeed>>, he
goes on, << all too often, today, SMEs-SMIs come up against an impossible choice:
paying exorbitant fees to big well known agencies or using small businesses which quickly
find themselves unable to cope>>.
Germany: Workshop for the
future
-Hermann Horstkotte, Germany
'In the global competition centered on the
"industries of the future", Germany is doing very well and can even build on its
position." That is the key finding of an international survey of experts carried out
by researchers at Leipzing's Commercial College and Erlangen-Nuremberg University. The
surveys included interviews with more than 250 politicians, top managers and professors
from 34 countries.
In a league ranking of future
competitiveness, the United States takes first place, followed by Britain and Germany.
Taken together, the countries of the European Union come close to the dominant United
States.
In view of the experts interviewed in the
survey, the key factors influencing future competitiveness are:# the quality of the
education system, and broad access to education; # the quality of the social and political
environment, and # the level of expenditure on research by industry.
Germany's dual system of vocational training
in the company and at vocational school enjoys a high reputation around the world. On the
other hand, US education experts criticize German Universities and colleges:
"'amongst the academic leaders", they are not pointing the way ahead in the 21st
century. The experts consider the most promising sector to be microelectronics, with the
sub-sectors of telecommunications-mobile communications, software, multimedia and
satellite technology, are also regarded as the growth sectors with the highest potential.
A "genetic revolution" is already
in full swing, now that researchers have managed to fully decode the human genome.
Procedures which have the capacity to revolutionize the future of genetic technology and
medicine are under application at the European Patent office in Munich.
"Greenpeace" criticizes the German Embryo Protection Act and the European
directives on patents: whilst research into the genome could be a blessing and provide
clear answers to age-old questions like "what is a person?" or "what is
special about human life? What is human dignity?", genetic technology could just as
easily turn into a dangerous nightmare.
Comprehensive structural changes can be
observed in other areas, too. Research and industry are making new breakthroughs
everywhere, as the following examples show.
The mobile phone, a driving force: The summer
of 2000 saw an auction of the licenses to operate a new generation of mobile phones in
Germany, combining telephone and Internet connections in one appliance. International
bidders hiked the prices paid in the auction to almost DM 100 billion. For the same money,
one could buy enough Macs to stretch to the moon and back three times, and a pile of
one-mark pieces would be 295,000 km high.
In addition to the Federal Finance Ministry
in Berlin, which is pocketing the cash, there are six smiling winners, including T-Mobil,
the subsidiary of the former state owned Deutsche Telekom, and Mannesmann Mobilfunk, which
is currently the largest mobile phone operator in Germany. Each of the future providers of
the global UMTS system, Universal Mobile Telecommunication System, has received two
national frequencies to be used until 2020. Klaus-Dieter Scheurle, the official
auctioneer, said with satisfaction: "'The outcome of the auction is an impressive
demonstration of Germany's attractiveness as a location for innovative investment".
Now that the UMTS licenses have been awarded,
Germany is beginning to take the lead in developments: "You will see German UMTS
technology in place first," says Bettina Horster from the Association of the German
Internet Industry. "The high price paid for the licenses will speed up the
construction of the networks immensely. The high costs mean the companies need money
coming in soon." Mannesmann Mobilefunk intends to be" on air" as early
as2002.
Much remains to be done before that happens.
At least 60,000 new antennas need to be set up around the country. So the operators still
need to invest more billions on top of the price for the licenses .On the other hand, the
construction industry and the suppliers, both employers and workers, are expecting the
orders to flood in. During the period of licenses auction, the "terminal
equipment" .i. e. the UMTS phones, were still being designed. The manufacturers
–Siemens is leading company in German –know that the pace is being forced not
only by the network operators, but also by their own rivals-mainly from Scandinavia.
Whoever reaches the market first will enjoy a rewarding advantage as the market develops.
So the license –holders and the equipment manufacturers are pulling in same
direction.
The final consumers, i.e. the man and women
on the street, can look forward to attractive services at affordable prices. Anyone
wishing to conquer the new market will have to demand low initial prices and low fees. At
present, Germany has 36 million mobile phone owners (out of a population of 80 million);
by the end of 2000 the figure should have risen to 40 million, meaning that there would be
more mobile phones than fixed lines. Half of the population can still be persuaded to use
a mobile phone.
"In term of sales, telephony itself will
just be a side line, "explains Gerhard Schmid, head of the UMTS operator Mobilcom.
"We will earn our money from business partners who use our network to stay in contact
with the consumers" e.g. .the advertising business, sports marketers, mail-order
business, Internet providers, news agencies. So it will be necessary to get
"high-grade, consumer-friendly content on the network very quickly" according to
Jurgen Grutzner from Association of the Providers of Telecommunications and value-added
services. The latest thing:; a hungry car-driver calls the number of a world famous fast
food chain and is guided by sound and images to the nearest outlet-where he pays for his
lunch with his phone card.
Logically, therefore, Mobilcom boss Schmid is
now considering setting up his own bank. He might cooperate with a tour-operator who
prefers to use moving images on the mobile phone to attract people to go on holiday rather
than a traditional brochure format. The mobile permits immediate reservations to be made
and just a few hours later, the first call home from the holiday destination. Optimistic
estimates suggest that business worth DM 250 billion will be done on and around the mobile
multimedia phone in 2010. Text courtesy: INPRESS Code number 700Q2816. |
