Skip to content

Citizen professionals and mass amateurization

06-Nov-09

Martin Wolske, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Community Informatics Initiative.

Learning is lifelong, cyclical (reincarnation of Dewey)
Ask-Invesitgate-Create-Discuss-Reflect-Ask-on and on and on
Communities engage in this process too.

2009 Horizon Report identifies the trend of mass amateurization and grassroots scholarships. The quetion is not do they have technology? The question is do they have capacity? The focus should not be on diffusion of technology, but on social fabric.

Experiments with different configurations of computer labs and public access spaces.

Plastic technologies mold to use. You can pull it out or put it away. The average amount of time that a task takes in network-centric professions is 5 minutes. The needs of users are increasingly “plastic.”

Citizen professional toolkits:

  • easy to use
  • room for growth
  • sufficient production quality
  • portable
  • low cost

Citizen planners, citizen journalists, citizen research

Public computers should no longer be thought of as a stepping stone. Away from diffusion of technology to building social fabric.

Youth Community Informatics
Prairienet Community Network

Filed in ictd, new media, public access | Tagged | Comments (0) »

Libraries 101

29-Oct-09

People have strong beliefs about “libraries.” There are true believers and skeptics. Our work at TASCHA, recently changed from CIS, has been thinking about libraries as mechanisms for community development, especially outside the US. We have been trying to step back and focus on what they DO and what FUNCTIONS they serve.

I understand libraries as incredibly valuable social spaces. I have witnessed generally welcoming spaces where people can read, get info and hang out, usually without being pestered to cough up dough. I have seen also seen libraries with far more wide ranging and radical visions. I have also seen sad libraries where people did not engage, for many different reasons. In the US libraries have played a key role in public information and lifelong education. Libraries fill an ecological niche that is unique, although their functions overlap with other “public” institutions such as NPR and public schools.Given the cost of technology and the importance of digital information, it’s worth it for our social, political and community well-being to think about how libraries can adapt to the changes induced by technology and our social behaviors.

Libraryman, a fierce, effervescent and energetic advocate for libraries, (and a bunch of crowdsourced allies) has been pushing the conversation on opportunities for libraries to adapt. Today he got a little love when BoingBoing picked up his video. I couldn’t look away:) Congrats Michael.

YouTube Preview Image
Filed in libraries, tascha | | Comments (0) »

hcde 510: Lori Fisher, Director, IM User Tech

29-Oct-09

Lori’s domain is anything a user can see or touch.
“Positive information experience for customers.”
Drive faster adoption of IBM products…your job is not to be an artist, its to meet the deadlines and sell the products.
“Right content, right person, right time.”
“Proactive, embedded assistance in a progressive disclosure model. Providing less (at first) and then letting the user ask for more. If the user asks for help.”

Information developers (formerly known as technical communicators)  that work on the part of the product that communicates.

Writing for one context is “easy.” Writing simultaneously for audiences, formats, etc. is the new challenges.

Information model
Element model

Content Management Systems

Alternatives to the SEM…less radical alternatives than STOP and info mapping.

Modules, spreads, pouring of texts…

Weak modularity. Requires some contextual understanding.
Strong modularity. Standalone modularity.

Filed in hcde | | Comments (0) »

HCDE 510: Challenges to the Standard Expository Model

27-Oct-09

Read Horn, “What Kinds of Writing Have a Future?”
Weiss, “Bits, Atoms, and the Technical Writer: The Rhetoric of STOP.
Read Tracey, Rugh, and Starkey, Sequential Thematic Organization of Publications (STOP)

Storyboard model is modular, and therefor lends itself to modern digital content management. Information blocks are now reusable.
Pressure to produce more content on lager scales will increase demand for granularity.
Updates ripple outwards, e.g. change of facts changes to all the relevant places.
May not be creating documents, may be creating rules by which modules can be edited, mixed, remixed…meta writing. With xml the writing and the presentation are different. Creating reusable content is much easier across mediums v. genres. (Lori: XML scheme allows formatting to be appropriate…Weiss: Reusable information objects get reformatted improperly.)

Lots of similarities between STOP and powerpoint.

Categorical versus propositional headings. The linear, flow of the SEM, creates gravity for categorical. Topocentric nature of STOP forces propositional.

Audience changes and literacies have implications for move away from SEM. Changes in behavior, preferences, brain function…

Filed in hcde | Tagged , | Comments (0) »

HCDE 510: How Are Our Literacies Changing?

20-Oct-09

Robert Horn looked at the paragraph.
Tracy addresses the whole document.

STOP: 2 page spread (text, graphics)
If the format has to be a 2 page spread what do you do when you have more info? One example is fold outs. The foldouts, when converted to pdf, were lost. Supposedly digital loses the constraints, but the foldouts weren’t scanned!

Graphics Theory Category

  • Verbal Component
  • Pictorial
  • Schematic
  • Composite

Components

  • Signal icon
  • Title (may be descriptor)
  • Descriptor/Sub-descriptor
  • Tag line
  • Rating Element (comparative system)
  • Scale
  • Interpretive aid
  • Source
  • Other

Reader Reaction

  • Pre-attentive
  • Interpretive
  • Response

Type of Label

  • Endorsement
  • Comparative. (Symbol, rating scale)
  • Information Only
  • Hybrid

Decision infographics…any recommender system will fit into the patterns. “Consumer” in the broadest sense of the term.

How do you design for “readers” as culture and consciousness shifts? Media space rapidly changing. Digital, multimodal.
Industrial age: producers + consumers. Now: everybody is a producer.

Books of the print era need to be fat enough so that the title appears on the side.

Filed in hcde | Tagged , | Comments (0) »

HCDE 510: The Standard Expository Model

15-Oct-09

Elements:
Title
Comparative (Informational?)
Endorsement
Source
Tagline
Pictorial (symbolic icon, e.g. flame)
Continuous v. categorical scale

Context matters (low v. high) in how people interpret, what conclusions they will draw, etc.

Three levels:
Pre-attentive
Interpretation
Response

(Hot and cold) color spectrum crosses all culture.

Pay attention to all the copyright conversations: five pillars of fair use.

Pattern library projects should be in the domain of “Consumer Information Scorecards,” which includes, but is broader than Jared’s Environmental label.

87 patterns, 2 people doing each one.

Standard Expository Model

Microformat is something like: hanging indent, margins, fonts.
Macroformat is a set of microformats.

SEM has been so dominant for so long, there are very few competing alternatives. (information mapping, STOP,

Characteristics of Standard Expos Model (aka the linear, hierarchical model):
Display unit is negligible…text can be poured into many displays.
Intended to be read in a linear way.
Hierarchical, nested organizational structure.

Downward tendency…H1, H2, H3…you can always expand deeper.
Powerpoint forces you up to the top level with each new slide.

Michael Twyman

Chandler objects to the hypermasculine

Filed in hcde | Tagged | Comments (0) »

HCDE 510: The Genre of the Environmental Life-Cycle Rating Label Practice Writing Patterns

13-Oct-09

For Thursday:
Farkas…long, but straightforward: Standard expository model.
Chandler…Structure, hierarchies…therefore one of the primary tasks of a long document is to reveal the structure. His hero is Montaigne…the French writer that created the essay, but writes in a loose and informal way…and uses Montaigne to beat on structure and hierarchy from a Queer Thoery POV. Hierarchy is Western neurosis.

Due Monday, 5pm: One pattern, nicely formatted and presented. 8 proposed pattern titles. (E.g. color contrast, nature of symbols, dissonance on the nature of the symbol, fonts)

Two pattern examples from our group:
Patterns can belong to multiple categories

Two examples from our breakout group:

  • Aligning category naming and design of graphic scales
  • Representing efficiency gains over time in rating scales

Consumer Responses:

  • Pre-attentive
  • Interpretive
  • Response
Filed in hcde | Tagged | Comments (0) »

Sell the Vatican, Feed the World

10-Oct-09

Sarah Silverman was on Bill Maher last night. She is brilliant. Remember the Great Schlep? Her new short video has relevant development commentary and is hilarious. Check it. (Though, if you don’t go for pussy jokes, you may want to steer clear:)

YouTube Preview Image
Filed in humor | Tagged , | Comments (0) »

Patterns, Pattern Languages and Genre

09-Oct-09

On Ding:

Rhetorical moves are the elements that constitute genre.
Key moves of a journal article: establish your niche.
Occluded genre–college graduates don’t get to know the rules of the genre.
Sample is 30 letters, however she had 2 experts read the letters for representativeness.

Pattern templates
The first pass at the design patterns we will make to create the library and eventually the pattern language for a rating system.

  1. Title (mandatory). Tension between problem focussed title and solution oriented title. The goal is to be as useful as possible.
  2. Problem (mandatory). A pattern is more general (and therefore more useful) than a guideline. An opportunity is the right kind of problem to have.
  3. Solution (mandatory).
  4. Example (optional).
  5. Use When (optional). An elaboration on the context.
  6. Considerations (optional). Trade-offs.
  7. Rationale (recommended).
  8. See Also (mandatory). Next steps, previous steps, broader, more specific, siblings and cousins.

Read Larsen

Filed in hcde | Tagged , | Comments (0) »

Genres, Modalities and Communication (Info Design #2)

06-Oct-09

Scott McCloud is a famous creator of “sequential art.” He authored the Google Chrome manual.

The medium of comics (sequential art) is print. The parameters are little boxes within fixed dimensions (page).

Typical genres are fiction. However this is difficult. Its also difficult to define (or box) any of these ideas. It reminds me of a conversation with Nancy Pearl on KUOW about “graphic novels” and all the problems of naming this whole collection of work.

For Tuesday, more on Genre:
Read Ding for the idea that genres are made up of rhetorical moves: “Genre Analysis of Personal Statements.” Marcus, on the idea of design patterns for sharing and discussing complicated information, “Patterns within Patterns: Introduction to Design Patterns.” Christopher Alexander started patterns (architect, mystic, visionary) and left us with weird terminology. Yahoo! Developer Network Design Pattern Library has a collection of patterns–it doesn’t qualify as a pattern of languages. Its a good collection and it demonstrates the social process of pattern construction (and agreement).

Key concepts for 510 Info Design:

  1. Communication. Process of sharing ideas or experience.
  2. Information. Experiences that reduce uncertainty.
  3. Modality. Nature of the symbol system being used to communicate (voice, text, graphics).
  4. Discourse. Communication through language. (speech, text, visuals?)
  5. Negotiated meaning. Communication is social; meaning is co-constructed with audience.
  6. Media. Means of communication that transcends time and space. (W/o media, f2f.) Medium can be different even when invisible to audience.
  7. Mediation. A thing that comes between and has an effect on communication–much broader than media.
  8. Document. Traditional: text + graphics. Modern: includes time-based media and user control (interactivity). Emergent: “Open”, unfixed content. (Wiki, social media) New terms: “info resource” or “info product.”
  9. Genre. Recognizable category of communication event that 1) fulfills a recognizable social role and 2) is recognizable as an instance of the genre. Format, content, purpose very important for establishing genre.
  10. Rhetorical Moves. Expert communicators have mastered the moods of a particular genre.
  11. Structure. Comprises the recognizable shifts in discourse or a document. (Often hierarchical. Headings are explicit signals. Structure is often implicit.)
  12. Format. Micro (hanging indent, paragraphs, etc.)  Macro: resume is format which is a combination of many micro formatting choices. Format is about static documents: pixels and pigment in fixed locations to guide a reader’s interpretation.

On the Road was typed on a scroll because he did not believe in revision.

Filed in hcde | Tagged , | Comments (0) »