The Hardcore critique was an opportunity to get some great feedback on my experiments and process, along with an opportunity to gauge what needs to be completed and flushed out before graduation. There were many informative aspects to take away from the review and here are the productive 5.
1.) Prototype! Prototype! Prototype!
The ideas of combining print and screen need to manifest themselves in a way that it is possible to see how a user will engage in such process. Speaking about the ideas is all good an well but unless you can show anyone and engage the opportunity space in a meaningful way it’s just a lot of words.
2.) Focused Scenario
Classroom and product scenario video needs refinement, focusing, and shortening that drives at the ideas that will be shown in the prototype. The prototype comes first and need to complement the opportunity space set up through the video
3.) A New title
Hybrid Media Systems is generic and the title should get at the premise of the experimentation right away. Marginalia seems to hit at the production space so now it is just what the by line and how the supporting language starts to complete itself.
4.) Premise contextualization
I need to get to the idea of print and screen being linked quicker. The premise shouldn’t linger too long on the refuting of physical books but rather dilineate the advantages of combining the affordances of each. Prototype should have examples where actual marginalia was collected but also show how the new form of reading and writing is used, and possible misused. The interface of the prototype should capitalize on the engagement with a classroom and be part of the conversation.
5.) Narrow and Deep
The context and scenario of it existing for a classroom and an educational experience is a rich space but it needs to explored deeper through posing the possibility to teachers and be less about something that can be generalized for all print material.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/09/technolog/tablet_ebooks_media.fortune/index.htm
The Fortune Article ” the Future of Reading” poses some relevant questions?
Question 1: Will anyone be willing to pay for content delivered to a tablet when they can get information for free on the web?
Question 2: But aren’t tablets just a better way to browse the web?
Question 3: Reading? Reading is dead.
Question 4: How will tablet-based ads work better than the web?
Question 5: Can traditional publishing companies reorganize and move fast enough to embrace and serve new platforms?
these questions all poise the options as if the book and the screen are binary. Print media is looked as a being obsolete due to the advancement of screen based tablets. Granted the pervasive nature of digitized content will have a large impact on printed materials. This effect has already stated to take its toll when it comes to newspaper media. How ever like Red heads in America, their kind is not going to dissappear. Book and printed material might start to diminish but then is begs the question just as the question poised above, what is a book when it can exist on a screen?
This question requires going back to the nuanced history of printed material in bound and sequenced form and taking note of its ability to become ubiquitous and why? The screen and the book will never be the same thing as one is fundamentally material based ie pages and ink while the other is silicon driven ie the screen. Each of these forms is a media delivery device and technology. (Although many might not consider books a technology when compared to a computer) Each media format has its own place, use factors, acceptance, penetration into society, and distribution. Each is equally unique to its time and space and each is locked in a continuum that links the two in weave of consumerism, knowledge, and social contextuality. The screen experience would not be capable without the book, and the book would not be producible in contemporary terms with out a computer.
I have asked my self through out this process, why do we consider physical books and digital book and being so different. Why when you buy a physical book do you not receive the digital part also? It seems to me that if you could link the physical with the digital it would allow each of there forms strenghts and affordances to work together rather then in opposition. The simplicity of sequential pages bound together has a unique experience that can only be mimicked by the screen and the social and networking capabilities of a screen require the dynamics of that different system. What are the implications of making print and screen work together, well hopefully it will lead to more productive use of materials and a platform for a larger connection of information directed at specific context.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Engaging users with an interaction is a difficult process. I am attempting to engage users in natural mapped interactions through iconography the associats a particular action of touch. Natural mapping is a term for the proper and natural arrangements for the relations between controls and their movements to the outcome from such action into the world. Like that of a door knob or a book.The real function of natural mappings is to reduce the need for any information from a user’s memory to perform a task. This term is widely used in the areas of human-computer interaction (HCI) and interactive design discussed in Donald Norman’s book : The design of Everyday Things.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
In the process of looking at printing material and contemplating the possibility of the end of print where a screen replaces all print material, I was struck by something that to date has not really been handled by screen based technologies. The Margin! Margins in technology since are locations for buttons, actions, and tools associated with the particular application that is being used.
Since the margin has excuse my pun been marginalized by technologies, I decided to do a number of explorations in to the potential of the margin when given a computational aspect and affordance. In order for me to get a good grasp on the design nature of margins with in printed matter, I have taken 9 of my books ranging from design porn to technical textbooks, I have done an analysis of the margin and implied usage and created a piece of relevant print material describing each examples margin design and use as associated with grid, layout and space.
The idea revolves around the notion of marginalia and the use of margins with in written content in order to apply notes, reflections and sketches.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Now the conductive inks that I have made work, I have started to dive into breaking the perception of what a circuit should be and should look like. With the addition of user interaction, turning a light on becomes more interesting and engaging. The earlier experiments are mostly a process of seeing and thinking about paper differently, this is a experiment into giving paper an added interaction through the conductive ink and the simple switches. The form of the conductive lines are skewing the efficiency ideas associated with circuit board design, and the interaction allows the user to piece together the shapes of both the form and of the shape the lights make.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Now that I have gotten an ink that can conduct an current over a relatively decient distance, I have started to play with the notion of what can a circuit look like. Can it be anything you want it to be as long as there is a positive and negative in and out. Can the form start to speak about it functionality, can the forms be unique and artistic rather than function based. Most circuitry disappears and becomes invisible. To most who use electronics and understanding of the work, skill, craft, and planning that has gone into a majority of the things they operate on a daily basis is pretty minimal. Electronics work and we rarely pay attention until they stop working. An interest in involving conductive ink is to challenge the expectation and visibility of otherwise invisible things. The mixed media piece of conductive ink, copper tape on paper is an experiment into changing and evaluating the expectations of electronic conductivity and use.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
The experimentation process with making my own conductive ink has been a process of thinking about what paper + ink could be when given conductive attributes? The power of giving ink conductivity to me is starting to be interesting when I start to use in as a mode of communicating its function. The ephemeral nature of paper and printed object start to change and become more interesting when digital affordances of awareness, networking, communication and delivery system come into play.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
RFid tags and reader are becoming more and more accessible in consumer markets. The idea is to do some experiments in giving paper and printed artifacts a computational affordance through the RFid’s. As technology becomes more embedded into our systems, the ability of that technology to engage our role or connection to the content changes. The role of the print medium can potentially be extended through the use of RFid tags and readers. If tags are embedded into the print narrative and incorporate the unique afforance of the RFid then a user can engage in that piece of print media from a new and unique perspective.
The concept is going to explore what paper can become when the technology of RFid and the interactive elements of passive, active, interactive, and networked objects engage the user in a potentially more meaningful, fun, and mystical experience that allows the printed artifact to take on a different role then in opposition to the screen and dynamic content generators.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
Screen printing has a unique affordance involved in the making process, since ink is pulled through a screen rather that placed or sprayed by a machine printer, the maker can decided to layer aspects of the composition. Depending on the opacity of the ink used during the printing process, the blending of layers allows for designers/printmakers to utilize the ability to make a 2 color composition a 3 color through blending and overlapping.
In my experiments with conductive ink for screen printing, it made me think of the possibility of having the conductive aspect of my experiments only work when they are layered or overlapping? could my inks when layered have a chemical connection that would render it conductive.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook