An open question was left at a former post : Reading Facts. which I wish to revisit. When knowledge is not valued over its ability to be fast or slow what does is become? The issue with fast or slow knowledge rests on the delivery form factor, ie through computation (kindle, ipad internet) or not. The ability for the message to be lost due to the form factor it becomes delivered through has change dramatically due to technology in the past 10 years. Marshall Mcluhan said “the medium is the message” This statement has become widely accepted when discussing media theory especially print material. We are acutely aware of how content delivery changes between tabloid news, newspaper news, and news Television, and that is only taking into account a line of similar content. As content types diversify the ability of the medium to affect the message is compounded. There is a lively debate in academia as to how new media devices are affecting education and to that extent society. The level of pervasiveness within technologies like the internet, smart phones, computation and the like are having on sectors of society across all economic positions remains a huge challenge from both a standard of living access point but also a society & educated populace stand point. Because of that, education is on the head of the technology spear. The ubiquitous nature of information technologies has forced the systems of education to reevaluate their methodologies for better or worse. However I believe there is a massive gaping hole in the collective thinking process of education when it comes to communication technologies. Ubiquitous computation is seen as a barrier to teaching methodologies due to the nature and speed at which computational devices alter and change and access of content especially the content that is attempting to be taught through the teacher. The 19th century education model still dominates a vast majority of theory of education system especially k-9.
I don’t teach in k-9 but I would imagine it would be super difficult to dish out lessons, mandated curriculum and dated textbooks when a majority of that content can be accessed, parsed and delivered at the touch of a mouse. I am not saying that the speed of the information age is a bad thing, I can only imagine how it throws a wrench in to the teaching methodologies of countless classrooms. Similarly I am not suggesting that there should be a free fore all on the Internets access and ubiquitous nature. Many have discussed the difficult bind to which education is in and me rambling on about it is not really the point especially when there are writers & educators like Sr. Ken Robinson. But education has to find a what to establish what it means to be educated in our modern times. Is this going to be based on the old model of memorization and specialization or will it me more the ability to ask the right question and be endlessly curious with the ability to use technology to not only find the answer but contribute back to how the questions are asked?
I do believe that the ubiquitous nature and speed of our current technology has had a profound impact on our ability to tell stories. It is arguable that we have more stories then ever before and I would agree with that, however, it is purely an outcome of access not quality. The saying quality over quantity has never been more appropriate than when speaking about the internet and the amount of content that is added to it knowledge bank daily (to which I am adding with this blog). Therefore I believe that a fundamental piece that is missing in education is truly great storytelling skills, conceptual thinking and lateral thinking methodologies and subsequent devices to assist those skills. The ubiquitous catch all nature of computers is, in my opinion, having a detrimental impact on thinking out side the computer and impacting the skills of students, designers, teachers, and businesses.
I recently took place with the generosity of the AIGA Los Angeles Organization in the Student Portfolio day as a reviewer. Although I did not review hundreds of portfolios, one thing that I was immensely disappointed in was the lack of storytelling when in came to presenting visual ideas and solutions. Students seemed to have a prescribed set of things in their somewhat unimpressive collections of work. It made me sit back and think about what it is that a designer does? In the 5 portfolios I looked at it felt as if I was looking at a predetermined script. It went something like this. 1 to 2 logos with 1 of those logos as a letterhead business card etc, 1 to 3 print posters (just the solutions no context), 1 to 4 ad campaigns (non of them a systems of ads just a single advertisement), 1 to 3 editorial spreads (no context), 1 package (a cd jewel case, no context), and 2 to 3 misc illustrations, photographs, or typography pieces (again no context). Each having between 12 and 15 pieces. Only one person had even the hint of digital competency with an overwhelmingly simple html site but I gave her some slack because she was only a sophomore as USC and I appreciated the gusto to get evaluated at such a early stage in her schooling. However the predicted procedural nature of the portfolios made me stand back for a second and say wait? Is this really how education views the role of designers? Has the system of curriculum’s and dated industrial needs reflected so poorly on the skill sets of designers? Can we as visual professionals be so quickly summed up. My frustration with the lack of story telling lead me to be quite harsh on my last review of the day. I told my student. “Yes you have the required 15 pieces of work that has some how been determined this makes you a designer, however I know nothing about you! You have not told me a single story or lead me along any thinking path that has convinced me that your visual solutions are the correct ones.” I followed it up with “a logo and business card are the baseline of designer however if you can not tell me a story or show me that you have a making and thinking methodology then I really don’t care about your work. Period. I want to know if you draw, how many images you collected how many versions you did, why you chose to do this the question you asked the things you were looking at and thinking about when you made it. If I was going to hire you which I am not, I would want you. Not a prescribed set of 5 to 8 baseline skills, yes they are necessary but not unteachable in industry. If I were you I would find a way to let your portfolio be a mirror of your passion and your ability to think and think as a designer not the curriculum of your design education” After going a bit of a rant I said I was sorry for being overly harsh but without it all the work becomes useless to which he disappointingly agreed.
After all the reviews were over the reviewers and educators gathered as a recap of the day. During the discussion a number of reviewers shared the same frustration with a lack of personality and passion and storytelling in their students work. I am convinced that this lack of story telling is based in the narrow minded approach most educational systems are equating to design. Design rather than a thinking approach is a determined set of skills. However the collection of design professionals siting in the room were disgusted with the lack of understanding of what industry is looking for out of our design education systems. It seemed to me the design education systems were looking to teach predetermined skills where industry was looking for creative visual thinkers. Somewhere there is a missing element in the teaching of skills to designers. I believe that skill is storytelling. Design is not making a logo, the logo is the culmination of visual problem solving that requires a huge set of skills including design research, anthropology, biology, visual taxonomy, system thinking, business, drawing, computer skills, history etc etc.
“Design is that area of human experience, skill and knowledge which is concerned with man’s ability to mould his environment to suit his material and spiritual needs.” _archer, B
This lack of story telling could be a vision problem of education to design or it could be something more systemic as I had mentioned at the beginning of this post. Regardless of the root of misbegotten storytelling, I think that until we as educators, designers, professionals, and thinkers articulate the importance of media specific storytelling methodologies and start charting changes in the education delivery systems to meet these new changes, our society will start to see the growing effects and missed opportunities from not teaching and learning from profound stories and storytelling processes.
It may come as a surprise to many but the idea of adding daily value to a digital object is a relatively untrodden landscape. Some would say its the beginning of the end for the newspaper, however this day has been long coming. Now don’t get me wrong, I like the physical newspaper it has an experience that is uniquely its own which I believe is a reason it has both dissipated and stayed beloved by many. The ritual of the morning paper sufficed generations of engaged and interested citizenry, but the fact of the matter is that ritual is no longer. A causality of a mediated and techno social world. However the content that exists on the pages of newspapers, some would say dieing media, is still relevant. I would argue more relevant then ever because the access of citizen journalism and the 24 hour news cycle has severely watered down the quality of content. Therefore the success of the “The daily” iPad app, which in my opinion took them way too long to launch, will rest on the quality of the content and subsequently the advertising.
In the feature laden demo, an emphasis is placed on the interactions with the content. The swipe, the carousel, the saving and sharing of content. However not one attribute or hint to how advertising infiltrates the content or coincides with the content is shown? Plus what kind of information will the daily know about their subscribers (With facebook connect they can know a whole lot) I believe the content is priced very reasonable. Low enough to make it worth a lark but also an amount that makes me wonder how Murdock is making ends meet? Since there was no inclination to the severity of advertising within the content then it is safe to presume that individualized use data is what he is hoping to mine! Similar to Facebook personalization of advertising is accessed through the tracking of users. What better way to track users then by giving them an app to read the news from every day. Now I am probably over reacting but it would be nice to know what kind of information “the daily” keeps track of? But this is the trade off for cheap content, right? Something has to give. Now I have no proof of this hypothesis but it is a logical explanation unless “the daily” is strangely populated with ads which very well could be the fact. Either way these new technologies allow for a much different level of interaction between content provider and company. The newspaper model was relatively simple before, deliver a paper into people’s hands and charge advertisers for that access. Similar is the iPad but now an advertiser can have proof of that delivery rather than a guess like that of a newspaper subscription. Now the burden of access is left to the trackers of that unique fact.
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
Craft, quality, longevity, care, sustainable, informative. These words are associated with the experience of well designed books. As a majority of this blog has explored the ideas of design are essential to a experience. Experience is a word that has a wide range of use. It can be broad and specific shallow or deep and short and long. Experience design then has to deal with these binaries at every turn. The video above is an interview with @craigmod at http://www.craigmod.com an great blog and resource for opening the discussion when it comes to the publishing community. I agree with his premise that print material will never go away! and that for existing publishers to compete with digital media they need to reassess the design quality of books. Increasing the craft, quality, and experience which could increase the cost but would establish a different value for the user / readers.
Human beings are very astute creatures and the nuance of quality is probably our greatest skill. The perception of quality is a realm that advertising and design and media has been manipulating for 1000′s of years. Perception of quality is an outcome of communication and commerce. I don’t believe I need to talk about the value of design and quality in an economic system I believe Adam Smith layed it out just fine in wealth of nations. How ever the experience of quality is something that technology has a great impact on. Systems of manufacturing, production and distribution also impact the perception value of an object in society. When Gutenberg was first printing books there the value of such an object was so rare that is had great value this revolution allowed at wave of printing innovation that has made many millionaires and billionaires over through out time. However the advances in manufacturing and production has also degraded the perception of value of print material. Walk through any common book store and the weight of the complicated system that produces books is transparent. The whole system falls away and all that is left is a price tag. It is a huge problem for the perceived value of a book and its experience. This concept occurs in many other place in contemporary society including out modern grocery stores. Business practices of efficiency take the system and infrastructure as unimportant to the experience of an object for sale. However the entire system is the story the context for a book in this case to live in the world. The complication of these system are looked at as too complicated for the simplicity of marketing and advertising of objects. The idea that we only make decisions in the moment. However we know this not to be true! Objects especially well made books become way more interesting when their quality and production are evident on the surface. The most valuable book are those from the gutenberg press. There story and longeivity add to this quality but so does the system that kept their existence going ie libraries. Therefore the quality of a book is the sum of its entire experience. When a book shows up on a shelf is not the beginning of the story is is somewhere in the middle. The story needs to become more evident just as craig mod discusses. Marshall McLuhan once said “we become what we behold …. we shape our tools, and therefore after our tools shape us” for me I hope that that tool is a beautifully design well crafted well written book!
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.
Computation seems to be in a second stage of evolution. As we move into a world where computation power is compact and millions of people are carrying super computers in there pockets, the computer has started to remove us from behind a desk. The potential of mobile computing has started to engage the user and the physical world in exciting possibilities. If the purpose of computation at our fingertips is to allow us connection to the information cloud, then what is the form that that connection should take? Mark Weiser famously quoted in his essay : The Computer For the 21st Century
“the most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.”
The interesting part is technologies start to change everyday life. Cell phones are no longer just phones but their ability to be that mode of communication has allowed the access of other interventions and introductions of computers into the hand and away from behind a desk.
A computer can’t be a piece of paper but that doesn’t mean a computer can’t incorporate paper. If books and print material could be used in the same fashion with their simplicity of interaction ie the turning of pages but have the advantage of a social counterpart, then computing would have the ability to become indistinguishable in everyday use by making the use of the book fit with the use of the computer.
he most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.
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.
If its not a screen make it one with a projector. Technologies are moving onto every surface. With a projector and software, interacting with computation can occur anywhere. It is really unimportant what the material is as long as it can have an image projected onto it, anything can be the new computer. The notion that any wall or surface can be a computer or interface with which to engage with computation establishes a value on the visual outcome of a computer. A computer and its interface can be boilded down to just light projected on a surface.
A computer is a type of machine and exisits with in the applied history and design spectrum of other machine. When a computer becomes just a screen or just light on a surface it neglects to recognize the importance of many aspects that make the use of a machine useful fun or engaging. Take haptics for example.
Haptics (pronounced HAP-tiks) is the science of applying touch (tactile) sensation and control to interaction with computer applications. (The word derives from the Greek haptein meaning “to fasten.”) By using special input/output devices (joysticks, data gloves, or other devices), users can receive feedback from computer applications in the form of felt sensations in the hand or other parts of the body. In combination with a visual display, haptics technology can be used to train people for tasks requiring hand-eye coordination, such as surgery and space ship maneuvers. It can also be used for games in which you feel as well as see your interactions with images. For example, you might play tennis with another computer user somewhere else in the world. Both of you can see the moving ball and, using the haptic device, position and swing your tennis racket and feel the impact of the ball.
Light as a phonomonia is untangible. One can not touch light the heat they feel from lets say a light bulb is altogether a different sensation but the bodies ability to use the sense of touch to establish knowledge about an object becomes a strong and useful tool for interaction. Interaction with a projection on a wall or table or whatever just becomes interacting with light an altogether difficult thing. A user is not really interacting with anything rather the computer is recognizing the limited physical space to which is being projected and then compensating though the use of software and mostlikely infrared sensors located in the projector. This technology assumes that the interface of a key board is just too bulky and should be illiminated or disregarded as an experience from the interaction with the computer. However the interface and interaction with the keyboard is entirely a learned interaction and has been evolved from the collective consiousness of the typewriter and education itself. A vast and nuanced history that has both been accepted and retaught an established truth of interface. The QUERTY is not going to redically change but somehow the idea that the physical interaction with keys is unuseful for a user of a computer negelts the ablity of the brain to memorize phyiscal space and repeat actions known as muscle memory. The phyiscality of even the simple keys to which this post has been made would have been a much different experience for my hands if I were just to project the letters onto a surface. I would imagine that my fingertips would hurt after pounding them on to a hard surface and that I would have to use more of my sight in order to correctly locate my fingers over the keyboard. The ability of a keyboard to have sutle haptic clues allows me as a user to orient my self to the interface of the keyboard with much more ease. I am speaking of the tiny raised dashes on the f and j keys. Any thing projected can’t accomplish this nuanced yet setting and orienting feature of the keyboard.
I am dismayed by the thinking that a screen is that answer to all our needs when interacting with computation. What would a computer be if it was not screen? why do we need to interact with computation only in the visible sense? Why have computer moved away from the machines you engage and experience and into the the real of only see? All these question arise when I am confronted by technologies that imply and attempt to bring to truth that a computer is really just a screen when I think that it could be so much more such a better experience that light on a surface.
