User Experience design has been a contested title for those designers who already think they accomplish these tasks as graphic designer / art directors. User experience is a title that is vague on purpose. What is the roll of a designer in a system or product. For 100′s of years designers have taken visual language and communication skill and applied them to the purposes of commerce and business. Graphic design is the use of art to sell. How ever in an ever changing technological world the ideas of usability and engagement have confronted the business world and created a void for which graphic designers need to fill. For some industries like the music industry there unwillingness to adapt to the changing music experience allowed other companies more versed in the experience of new technologies to take the legs from their business models, ie apple. User experience is vague for the reason that it can encompass so many facets of the business cycle from strategy of a product launch to the specific of how a user logs in. The spectrum of experience is the importance of the role of a UX designer not just the specific of a swatch color. Tweet
A Norwegian researcher, Anne Mangen, wrote an interesting paper in the Journal of Research in Reading, asserting that screen reading and page reading are radically different. “The feeling of literally being in touch with the text is lost when your actions – clicking with the mouse, pointing on touch screens, or scrolling with keys or on touch pads – take place at a distance from the digital text, which is, somehow, somewhere inside the computer, the e-book, or the mobile phone,’’ Mangen writes.
Her conclusion: “Materiality matters. . . . One main effect of the intangibility of the digital text is that of making us read in a shallower, less focused way.’’
The materiality of paper takes on a extended meaning due to its experience. The knowledge that is contained with in a book is not singularly wrapped up in the words on the page. From psychology class in college at Colorado State University, I remember my teacher telling us that our brains formulate knowledge and recall through repeating similar experiences under which that knowledge was learned. For example if you are juiced up on coffee while you study for a test you should be juiced up on coffee during the test because the brain associates the experience of the learning along with the recall of that information. Similarly you might be able to recall a story in a book more vividly when the same circumstances are repeated. The engagement of content influences our learning and subsequent recall. Therefore the reading of a book is learned through the experience of the pages. Knowledge that is engaged in the physicality of pages is then linked with that experience. Pages then become essential to formulation of knowledge within a book.
Media critic William Powers wrote a defense of physical bound literature in his essay, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Why Paper Is Eternal,’’ Mr. Paper – he not dead, Powers wrote: “There are cognitive, cultural, and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of paper, from a tiny Post-It note to a groaning Sunday newspaper, is used to convey, retrieve, or store information.’’
Paper will never die, Powers concluded: “It becomes a still point, an anchor for the consciousness. It’s a trick the digital medium hasn’t mastered – not yet.’’
The digital medium has been attempting to replace the piece of paper and it has been around the corner in terms of technology since technology began. Now what if the digital medium and the physical medium where equal? When paper and computer work together seamlessly then paper takes on an added functionality with the computer.
The digital textbook?
With students doing so much of their reading assignments through the screen instead of on book or paper formats, it’s important for educators to determine how the shift is altering their habits and learning. The research is just beginning, but it’s getting deeper, an article in the Journal of Research in Reading (2008, pp. 404-419) by Anne Mangen, “Hypertext fiction reading: haptics and immersion.” Mangen notes the growing sub-field of screen reading studies, but finds that the “intangibility and volatility of the digital text” remain under-examined. She focuses first, then, on the material nature of digital and non-digital reading experiences. “Unlike print texts,” she writes, “digital texts are ontologically intangible and detached from the physical and mechanical dimension of their material support, namely, their computer or e-book (or other devices, such as the PDA, the iPod or the mobile phone” (405).
This is important, she argues, because “materiality matters.” The reading experience includes manual activities and haptic perceptions (what the skin and muscles and joints register), and so as activities and perceptions of that kind are changed from one kind of reading experience to another because of the object, the reading experience, too, will change.
So if materiality matters in the delivery of content especially reading material, then it would be arguable that to remove the materiality of paper from the reading experience would fundamentally alter that exchange. Screen engagement has become a reality in modern times but the advantages of the screen have forced its usability right next to the book forcing them to go head to head. I have chosen to regard these experience as different and explore a way to bridge the difference between experiences. As use of screen based devices increases, the need for physical interaction with objects like books will become essential in the recombination of content delivery. I believe users should not have to exchange one experience for the other in order to engage in the content the way they would like. Many things in this world have multiple experiences and with the linking physical and digital is opens up a strategy and platform for making printed content and digital content work together.
John Locke said, “reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.” Thinking can be greatly enhanced through digital means of networking so making paper and computer work together will greatly enhance the opportunity to make reading our again.
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.
Isaac Asimov in 1988 spoke with Bill Moyer and starts to discuss the importance of learning and the power the internet and networked computers can have on the ability to impact learning. At 1:23 sec of the conversation video from youtube.com.
“through this machine, for the first time we can have a one to one relationship between information source and information consumer.” – Issac Asimov
This ability opens up the curious mind to explore its own path and suggests that the separation between knowledge and consumption is null. Learning becomes less about the hoops that are jumped through and more about the enjoying of discovering truths on an individual achievement. The machine (computer) and its networking ability has fundamentally challenged the pedagogical structure. Therefore is education really just they ability to engage enticement? a place where you learn to be curious? Or can it continue to establish the carrot and stick mentality of achievement via grades?
If the computer opens up a one to one relationship, what is the responsibility of the objects and services that provide that communication space? the idea that questions lead not to answers but a path of inquiry. A location space to which an individual can challenge a system and explore the possibilities. Is the level of conversation then the metric for which to judge success? The ability to broadcast and engage inquiry and learning beyond the carrot and stick look at my grades, my merits, my achievements but rather look at my connections, my influence, my conversations. Knowledge is contained in groups, societies, and social structures and ways at which to engage communication about knowledge could become the new metric for advancement, innovation or achievement.
With the release of Apple’s iPad (joke with standing) there was the buzz of technological potential all around the interwebs. Apple has the potential to make game changing devices and with a track record of the iPod, iPhone, and iMac it is hard not to argue with their ability to produce and create a mobs of loyal and dedicated fans. The iPad may not be the replacement to the laptop which many in the Nerd-o-sphere hoped it would and a nice review has been posted by Phil Van Allen (http://www.philvanallen.com/news/its-not-a-laptop-what-people-are-missing-about-the-ipad/)
The iPad is a platform system one not to unfamiliar to the iPhone, the device becomes a conduit for the apps to which it runs. This is the success model that has produced revolution in mobile communication. As for the types of apps that the iPad will start to inherit, I believe that some will greatly enhance the user and engage at a much different experience level that a laptop ever could.
On the other hand, the iPad is still a screen a back lit screen with multitouch software based apps it is not a book, or a news paper, or a manual. Now matter how you cut or change the app it is still a pixel. Not to say that it is not a very effective and useful screen, no but to see or try and utilize it as if it were not a screen is a vast mistake.
Take the book store example that is highlighted in the images with in this post. The metaphor of a books and its physical attributes of paper are being replicated with in the experience of the screen interface. The book application starts to engage the user as if with in that particular app they are interacting with paper; however, this has missed the opportunity to engage the affordance of the screen. A screen is not a book and a book is not a screen. The ironic thing is that technologies as advanced as the iPad are trying to be a book instead of being what they really are, a screen.
As technologies progresses and rumors of tablet computers continue to circulate through out the Internet and hardware prediction sites, companies like Coursesmart (http://www.coursesmart.com/) a digital textbook company has attempted to prototype and show the potential of these new systems and their impact on education. The textbook industry and subsequent educational materials have been dominated by print industries and through this process have created an ecology of textbooks for student and an experience that prepares the students for the upcoming semester of learning and education. The purchasing and exchange of books at colleges and universities is a tradition that is unique in its own right. The system of textbook sales and resales is one that encourages reuse and resale depending on the print industry who sees the opportunity to reprint new additions as a way to bolster profits. Personally I loved buying used textbooks and would peruse the pages to see how studious the prior student had been. I always felt privileged to have the extra marginalia knowledge that was left behind by particular students. This marginalia is sometimes damaging to the text book but other times helped me work though difficult challenging questions about the material. Take the physics textbook from the tablet demo, at Colorado State University where I went to undergrad, all students were required to fulfill a science credit even for majors of Fine Art to which I completed in 2004. As a student I am not strong in mathematics this lead me to know that physics was going to be a challenging course. I remember being the first student to the used physics 101 books and made sure that I got the best used textbook with the most useful notes in the marginalia. The existing use of the text book allowed me to access a alternative knowledge space that was extremely helpful when studying. The Coursesmart prototype shows the ability to leave notes and highlight but neglects the notion that notes and marginalia are not always a singular action. At the time of being made they are for the user engaged in the content but once left they have an impact on future users as a extension of the knowledge within the textbook. Now if the CourseSmart system could be networked with other classmates and the notes and commentary could be shared over a social network then that might make the use of the tablet system more engaging. Studying is a unique interaction because it requires the ability to move both from singular action usually memorization to the more complication comprehension which can and sometimes require a social aspect. How do you know you understand something? Ask someone else who is trying to understand the same thing if you both come to the same outcomes than comprehension has occurred barring the person you ask has come to the correct conclusion. Answers have a much different dimension depending on the subject but take simple math you either conclude that 5 x 5 is 25 or you don’t but you can test it over and over and then define that it is indeed true. There is the saying the you really understand something when you can teach it (help someone else comprehend it).
Comprehension of knowledge in a textbook is understood through testing within pedagogy. However the route to the comprehension is individual like a snowflake. In my education, testing ie choose A, B, C, D was never a great metric for comprehension of the material, but when I was asked in written form what do I understand about the subject I used much more information to which was gather through not just memorizing answers but synthesising both lectures, studying and conversations with fellow students. When I was asked to explain the process or show my comprehension that is where I was more successful as long as I comprehended the content. Now comprehension is a complicated notion of education and the scientific method would suggest (and can be seen in current educational trends) that memorization is the precursor to comprehension. If you can memorize facts then you can eventually follow the right procedure and develop comprehension, hopefully. For me I always considered the experience of memorization a fleeting education because the process never stuck, I have a hard enough time remembering peoples names, but can for some reason recall obscure facts about the conversation we shared. I believe this is due to the fact that my individual process of comprehension deals with an experience and I will remember more when engaged in remembering the experience rather that a specific element with that whole. I have had a number of experiences where I can recall the how, where, when, and what happened, but can remember the name.
Education is really about comprehension and tools that engage the understanding of content should be more versed and in my opinion should be realized through making tools and services that engage the experience of comprehension not just a singular element of the educational access with apparently starts with the textbook and memorization.
A line needs to be drawn in the sand for the values of static media. The expectation and belief that that dynamic content is the wave of the future needs to be reconsidered. Motion pictures are great incredible informative and interesting and have changed the way we see and respond to the world, but do we want every bit of content the we engage with to be moving or worse reactive. Media content has variety and in my opinion more value should be placed on the ability of somethings to be still and other things to move.
The expectation that readers of Outside will want to want motion images assumes that the current model of photography is incomplete to the user and what is the answer, a screen. A world of screens is not one that I hope will exist.
Apple is selling record numbers of downloadable games for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This is attracting publishers because the lack of physical media is better economically for both consumers and video game creators (November 12)
Microsoft is set to open up the XBox 360 to user-generated games on November 19, all of which will only be available via download – there will be no DVDs (October 30)
The bullet list is a few examples of technologies and media delivery platforms that currently or will in the future deminish print media’s market share or potentially eliminate it all together. Print Media platformes of books, magazines, posters, etc etc are talked about in term of being Tangible Media.
The description of tangible is defined as capable of being perceived especially by the sense of touch.
The materiality of paper and ink in all is variety from newsprint to gompy has earned print media the use of that terminology with in its description. Media delivery devices like the kindle, the iphone etc are tangible. To suggest that they are not assumes that the ability to touch a screen ie a pixel is not equal with that of prior physical object (artifacts) like books for instance.
The reasoning behind referencing print material as “Tangible Media” and technologies like the Kindle as being something different is really located with in the process of experience. Tangible when describing a book is referencing the experience a user has engage with that media type for the time they were a child to current interactions. Paper has texture, color, smell, it can be flooded and imprinted or debossed the list goes on and on. Tangible becomes a catch all for the experience of turning pages in a seqential artifact and emcompasses the notions of age, use and variety. When tangible is used for the iPhone, Kindle or technologies, it is used more as a description of functionality of the interface. Because a screen is just pixels that can be anything, the experience of that tangible experience is fundimentally different then that of the experience with print media, and rightly so!
The issue is then the expectation that a book can be on a screen and contain the same experience? There is a compromise when “tangible media” is traded for “tangible pixel”, the experience of the can only be mimicked or hinted at through acknologment in either direction. The ability to have animated turning pages in a pdf is an example of a media type not sure how to accept its “pixel” nature because a pixel can never be a piece of paper.
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.
Through out my experimentation with conductive inks and screen printing, I have started to try and engage the user in interaction with the tangible printed artifact. Paper and ephemeral material is inherently tangible and physical you can bend it, tear it, crinkle it, touch it plus it has a texture a quality and a materiality very unique to its form. Unique to the conductive inks is there ability to engage a user. The current experiment is a test to see if certain form structures are inherently engage-able. With out any signage does a user know to touch the paper and interact with the strips. This experiment utilizes the nature the higher contact equals a brighter light.
