find a story in the data
visual access to dimensions in that data
remove everything that isn’t telling the story
control their own web experience
empower people to tell their own stories
design the application to tell their own story
using the data as a navigation source
using people’s behaviour as a data source
tools for people to focus data in a way that tells a story – tools that empower users
storytelling; discovery; visual cues; interacting; editing; filtering
I caught up with BC recently in a follow up to his presentation as part of the affective atlas project here at RMIT. He introduced me to open street map
OpenStreetMap is a free editable map of the whole world. It is made by people like you.
Along with some other resources including the Pan America Institute of Geography and History based in Mexico, all part of a discussion on the community providing their own information towards the mapping process. Domesday project is an example of both community and specialist documentation. From wikipedia:
It included a new ‘survey’ of the United Kingdom, in which people, mostly school children, wrote about geography, history or social issues in their local area or just about their daily lives. This was linked with maps, and many colour photos, statistical data, video and ‘virtual walks’. Over 1 million people participated in the project. The project also incorporated professionally-prepared video footage, virtual reality tours of major landmarks and other prepared datasets such as the 1981 census.
Radical cartography is a practice that uses maps and mapping to promote social change, and is part of a cultural movement that cuts across boundaries of art, geography, and activism. This paper will present examples of cartographic work by artists, architects, and collectives who create maps to raise awareness of social justice issues. These maps are both artworks and part of a larger activist research and practice.
The other person who reappeared from the videoblog scene was Daniel Liss (pouring down) and his project Seven Maps
A conference that explores the intersection between design and cinema:
…while interrogating the place of design disciplines within cinema. The attention drawn by this conference showed the necessity of evaluating the knowledge that existed in the intersection of these two disciplines.
Theoretical studies have become more and more interested in our experiences in those designed environments, both real and fantasized, as distinctions between them became blurred. We have chosen the real, the hyper-real and the virtual, as our topics via which a number of issues are expected to unfold. These issues could be defined both as personal experiences and as social practices. When stated in terms of the experiences of the individual, philosophically and psychologically based studies will unavoidably be on the scene. When taken in terms of our social existence in a post-modern world, our experience of the uncanny, of alienation, and genuineness, in short, our mixed feelings about what is real would likely emerge as issues to be discussed.
Real
Designing of objects and environments
Experience of designed objects and environments
Hyper-real
Manipulation of the real
Blurring of the real
Virtual
Creation of a parallel universe Implementation Hybrid existences
Received a link to this online design thesis openp2pdesign.org_1.1. I like the way this thesis has been re-designed for online distribution and translated from Italian into Spanish and English to increase the spread.
openp2pdesign.o rg was born in order to publish, disseminate and develop further my thesis, and to stimulate on it a collective discussion. The intention is to render the ideas behind the thesis not as property of a single person, but to share them collectively within a community. The thesis as the first source code on which to develop a community: this is why it has been translated to English and Spanish too.
There is some material in here on Free Software in relation to design, along with some nice design ideas like the way links are represented around the body text.
Which came first, the Interaction or the Design?, Source: Interaction-Design.org, 18 June 2008
Submitted by Mads Soegaard, by Jonas Lowgren
Interaction Design” refers to the shaping of interactive products and services with a specific focus on their use. Broadly speaking, there are two main senses of the concept, coming out of different intellectual traditions but increasingly converging in practice and research.
I went to a workshop last week titled ‘HOW TO INVENT! Pink Diggers, Rude Signs and Driving on the Wrong Side’, given by Professor Tom Barker from the London Royal College of Art (RCA). The blurb form the workshop flyer:
As companies increasingly compete in giant global markets, innovation and design is gaining greater value than ever before. The role of the designer has become pivotal not just to a company’s success, but also in terms of social responsibility, ethics and sustainability. Good design gives competitive advantage and builds brand value. However, the process of designing truly innovative products that succeed has always been a difficult and risky task. How can the designer respond to these new challenges? Why is experimental design and research so important in all of this? What is the contemporary role of design academia?
Tom described how products and design ideas go through a “constant path of evolution” and a highly productive way of working involves “colloborative non-disciplinary” partnerships. In his presentation Tom showed a table that outlined the incubation of future design ideas for marketable products which he called “bottom draw technology”:
5 years – Products that are available now but are generally expensive and not working well.
10 years – Held in the research and development departments of commercial companies.
15 years – University research
He stressed that design briefs need to be “stretched and tested into something else.” The term “experimental design” was used to describe design that is informed by a “creative, artistic process”. The results of these experiments are recorded and reviewed with the idea of working out how they may be used.
In regards to University research he is reluctant to get caught up in pure consultancy work that does not allow for costs to have “time to think.” The paperwork can overwhelm the research. An ideal industry link allows for “process; research and innovation”.
“Project Migration” involves re-packaging research projects to test industry interest.
In the presentation of RCA student work I was intrigued by the way video was used to document design projects – Tom talked about the need for designers to understand how to use narrative in this documentation. A lot of animation, maps, sketches and illustrations where used by students to explain the design process.
All this got me thinking about a design where categories are tags becoming a simple tag cloud like in the archives section.
The tags on the left and right become clip titles instead loosing a level. Categories are wiped. Categories in this interface are like making a batch or set in Flickr. The user selects content instead using the tag cloud directly.
I have got most of the clips into the ‘Glasshouse Birdman’ prototype and are now starting to look at how the categories and tags work in terms of how I would like the user to engage with the themes that have emerged in the content. I realised that clips could be kept in separate categories by controlling cross-overs with tag names, but sometimes a clip has something to offer in other categories. For example, giving a clip a tag name that features strongly in another category brings all those clips from that category across with it into the original category that has been selected. Often from my perspective this makes the theme to random if this is not the desired effect. One way around this within this interface design is to post the same clip twice with the same title but in a different category and with a different tag name.
category = birdman; tag = animal lover; clip title = big brown snake
category = feeding; tag = aviary; clip title = big brown snake
This means clips can be repeated to appear elsewhere while still having some control over themes. In a hidden kind of way clips that seemed more important that others could be repeated to appear in a number of places. Repetition becomes a feature of the narrative structure.
1. Log material and get a sense of the content
2. Loosely think about categories by making connections across the material (try sketching a map)
3. Start with individual stand alone clips as a way of determining what might work as montage sequences. (export into temporary category folders)
4. Work out which clips should be edited into montage sequences to help develop specific narratives within the overall content. (think about maintaining the shortest durations possible)
5. Review all the exported clips and emerging categories.
6. Think about the titles and tag – keywords. (Look for associations across tags with the aim of keeping the amount of tags applied to each clip at a minimum)
7. Think about how categories can be used like chapters or sections for developing particular narrative tangents. (These are sections that offer less choice across the content with the aim to steer the user down particular narrative paths.
8. Review the tags by testing the player. (Look at user testing if needed)
I am Seth Keen, a new media lecturer and researcher at RMIT University. I use this blog to document my PhD research. I am doing practice-based research and use video to produce non-fiction media projects online.
