A strange thing happened...

I haven't updated this blog in quite a while.

I am not sure how I found it but I came across a timeline of world history and thought I would share it with you.

If you go back to the beginning of my Information Design blog, this blog, you will see I describe the very timeline that can be found at this link (be aware you need to use Chrome or Safari to view this history timeline) :

Contextual History Timeline

Links to my other blogs:

http://videofeedback.blogspot.com/

http://videofeedback1.blogspot.com/

http://videofeedback2.blogspot.com/

http://videofeedback3.blogspot.com/

http://videofeedback4.blogspot.com/

Information Design Analysis of a Sport Complex.

- PAINTBALL -

I recently was invited to a paintball tournament and decided that finding out more about this sport, from a local point of view, would be an excellent way to analyze the acquisition of the knowledge about this sport, since I am essentially in a position of not knowing anything about it.

My first step was to hit Google, which provided the following results:

I chose to click into the link for the closest address which happens to be a short ways from where I presently live. The web link gave this:

" width="400px" />

Second tool - incorporating an infographic.

This infographic indicates the outline of what has been discussed until now in this series of posts on information design. It shows all outline points coming from 2011, which is correct but the lower two nodes are in fact subsections or continuations of the July entry and it might be more accurate to have a line connecting those two nodes off the July node. However the interface at text2mindmap.com did not allow for changing the map in this particular fashion. And while I could create something similar that is correct, I found this online tool fun and easy to use and want to show it off.

My personal preference for using such a mind map would be to use it as a webpage image map and put it to work as a navigational by using each node as a hypertext link that you can then click on and be taken to the post that addresses that outline point. This process is not hard to do and it makes a great navigational aid for the somewhat smaller website, or as a central navigational point that can branch out into several other sections. This can be seen in this webpage: http://www.wskg.org/  The listen live graphics are hypertext hot and if you click them you go to another page to listen to this station programming.

What is particularly pleasing about image mapping is it is cross platform friendly and consistently displays the way you program it on the page. Here is a link to an online image mapping interface:

http://www.image-maps.com/

I have not personally tested this so results might be questionable.

The other upside benefit of programming an image map is that it incorporates both text and a visual which semiotics (Berger) indicates is the best method of communicating with the mind. Text may not be cross cultural but in many cases image is, and this then allows for the broadest possible scope for your message to reach, and it is a simplistic efficient method. I recommend them as much as possible, especially for navigation.

Here is the above infographic as a navigational aid (use your "back" button to return here after each click/visit):

reference:

Berger, Asa. (2007). Seeing is believing. Unknown: McGraw-Hill.

Image-maps.com


Addendum 8-10-2011:

Oh so cool infographic...

An Incoporated Tool of Information Design

In writing this section of the discussion on information design I struggled to come up with tools I have used that are being used within this discussion and then I said to myself the most ubiquitous pair of tools are the internet and HTML code. Both of which you are using to view this blog. Blogs also are a method of information design.

Blogs are interesting because they make a leap from having to code HTML directly or through an editor like Dreamweaver to allowing the user to simply open an interface, engage the blog system to begin a new post, and then one finds an open input space to simply start typing away in. The blog system does the HTML coding in the background which alleviates the user having to know how to program HTML. The end result is a nicely formatted piece of text that is available to all that wish to take it in via the internet.

The blog system also incorporates CSS formatting automatically. Cascading Style Sheets, which is very helpful in creating a constant design look and format of appearance for a website or blog. With a few lines of code, and the HTML page pointing to that code in the source code of the page, it acts in tandem with the HTML code to create layout, color, and typography without the user having to do so on their own.

This is a highly efficient system as one can type away into the blog input section and when done the page will have the same appearance as all the pages the user creates within that blog. And if one wants to make a blog-wide change to layout or color or typography an adjustment to the CSS script will do that throughout the entire blog immediately as well.

CSS user friendliness is built into the blog interface and is being utilized when one approaches the layout design aspects of the blog, which addresses font, color, and typography automatically for the user, much like the "ribbon" in MS Word does in order to create a formatted document.

I made a case earlier this year in a paper I wrote regarding cyberwarfare. I happen to view a NATO handbook on the topic within the Empire State College library. The pages were often tagged with a byline of: "In God We Trust, All Else We Monitor." Such a phrase alludes to our dependence on the United States dollar bill that carries the first section of that statement upon it. In my argument I make the point, I believe, that we now have a new dependence, and it is the internet. So much now depends on the internet it has in fact become a kind of currency, and we have made it so much a part of our way of life we now depend on it. We then have two dependencies, the net and the dollar bill.

It is interesting to see in recent posts by online magazines like Fast Company, Politico, CIO and others, articles reflecting how it is so important to be prepared in various ways for this issue. In the NATO handbook there is another line printed, those that do not have will attack those that do, or words to that effect, and with all the preparation that is now being made to prepare us for the possibilities of all kinds of potential threats, from personal psychological warfare attacks, to attacks on electric grids, to attacks on the banking systems, it is obvious we find ourselves in a new age, locked in a room with others and one loaded gun.

It in fact brings new meaning to the old adage the pen is mightier than the sword, but now it is the computer that is mightier than the sword. One only has to reflect on the take down of Pharoah Mubarack earlier this year. And it was in fact a tool similar to a blog that was at the heart of this government turnover.

But it was the user friendliness that was at the heart of it. Every user that wanted to be a part of that event, or the authoring of any other intenet event now has it within their ability to do so. That is why bringing user friendliness, via tools like a blog and HTML and CSS is of high impact on all aspects of our lives now. And why we have now come to depend on it for our very lives.

References:
Cyberwar Is Coming!’. Carvalho, F.D. (Editor); Mateus Da Silva, E. (Editor). Cyberwar-Netwar. Amsterdam, , NLD: IOS Press, 2006. p 3.

Addendum:

Comment:

While the bulk of the class has focused on concept maps and dashboard functions and other types of information control as their discussions for this blog posting, I have chosen not to do so on purpose as I believe it is moving in a direction that does not employ the Keep It Simple method. I point out that I could have made a mind map, I could have made a Gantt chart about how the timing of these modules come to a finished product at the end of the term, I could have dropped in a graphic navigation bar, but I chose not to. The reason being that along the right hand side of this blog exists a perfectly good, efficient system of navigating and understanding inherently what this blog is all about. It is the built in system of navigation links the blog builds automatically for each posting one makes. This set of links is in fact a very efficient use of text as a mind map, while at the same time providing a navigation system through these posts, and is in fact for the purpose of this blog a site map as well. So the efficiency of those links is built upon in a thrice over manner. That is pretty efficient if you ask me, and not complex at all so the average user is not lost in complexity.

-CRBaldwin

Information Design Process

As I sit and contemplate the writing of this post and the introducing of the procedural process as indicated by our text Information Design and its accompanying workbook, that it might have been a good idea to build a rudimentary website or even a game with any of the gametools now available online, or even a widget with any of the available widget makers.

I say this because this course is becoming more and more about actual practical use in the real world, like one might expect from on the job training, rather than the picture in my head of classic classroom socratic blackboard theoretical understanding and the bridging of the classroom experience with hands on experience.

Politics, Diplomacy, Consensus

Comment:

The text advances pretty much as I would have in my web design years. I often asked a customer who is the boss? Meaning who is the one ultimately signing off on the finished project, giving their approval to take the project live to the internet cloud or whatever public domain the project is to occur in. And the text reflects this with the section of politics, diplomacy and consensus. I like the further definition the text gives though, particular in the understanding of the process, as all my clients have had to have the process explained to them and usually they walk away shaking their heads in a display of not understanding. People unfortunately have been given the caveat understanding that if you put up a website, you will become rich. I hate that stereotype. A website or any other interactive informational source is only a tool and as such it is only as good as the person that knows how to use it.

Process:

You need to find out who and why your client is developing an information interface. This requires diplomacy as you might be surprised at the context they may be coming from, but it also requires diplomacy because this is the beginning of the hold-their-hands process and you need to be aware that at the onset you are out to take care of your client, please them and will continue to do so through the process.

Knowing the Audience

If you do not know your audience it kind of begs the question of why are you formulating an information interface to begin with? But audience appeal is going to make the interface desirable to use, and the user will feel comfortable coming back to it for its value in the form of information it dispenses. So you have to know what they are talking about. If it is for a grouping of engineers and you don't know about engineering strength of materials and kilipascals of tension, and you start talking about what it takes to snap cabling and describe it as pulling a string of bubble gun from your mouth until it snaps, I feel confident they are going to leave your interface and have a field day with commentary about it at the water cooler.

Context of where the user is coming from will be of most value in discerning what context to build into the interface. Engineers will expect engineering jargon and nomenclature, medical doctors will expect medical based understandings, writers will expect proper word usage, syntax and semantics, and so on across the fields of industry, science and art.

Physical requirements intrigue me. I have given a lot of thought as to how to address sense-deficient peoples. This part of information design has only been scratched with a wide open future. But in the end the practice of the interface meeting the user is going to be generalized around what the senses can take in conveniently.
You need to know in what physical method the content is going to be accessed.

Procedurally the text indicates a numeric step by step process. I have seen such as timelines for construction sites, renovations of buildings but this is the first time seeing it in an Information Design context. It does make sense especially if more than one person is on board with the construct of the interface. It brings with it a uniformity of concept process which everyone can see in their own imagination, and thus avoid mis-steps along the process.

Plain language use is kind of a no-brainer for me. I am stating regularly these days that people need to hear Twain's comment of don't use a fifty cent word where a nickel word will do. The overall project concept has to be readily conceivable in the client's mind as well. If you are flying over their head you are doing them a dis-service by dismissing their intellect in the buying process and raising the possibility of a bad end product that won't be approved and will generate bad emotions to deal with along the way. Speak to your client in terms they can understand, and be politically correct while doing so.

Content analysis is probably the single hardest effort as one is anticipating and making the data translation on behalf of both client and end user at this point and figuring out how to best make the two meet each other in friendly terms. It is the synthesis of the data into truly usable information. Along with this is how to library the content into convenient methods of retrieval. As much as possible my belief is that the marriage of both an image and a few words of text are the best possible solution. Call it the cartoon solution. Deeper meaning can be a tangent link off the main information, so for example one might have technical specs as a deeper link, images from various views as a deeper link, user reviews as a deeper link, but the main image is the splash image that the user wants to see, and what the interface should nurture for the user to see. Instant gratification and the human stimulus response are both enacted, which makes that moment of discovery poignant for the user and thus delivers a dopamine blow that entices them to no end.

The Creative Brief

How to achieve all of the above understanding at the onset? It takes an interview process wherein all the above parameters are discussed. One aspect I don't see our text addressing are preliminary compositions leading up to a final implementation design to start the build with. This might be inferred as part of making up the creative brief, but if so this aspect is understated. I have designed six versions of graphic interfaces only to have the client say no to all of them and then walk away from the project because I couldn't hit on what was wanted.

This is probably the single most difficult task between the client and the designer as you are asking the client to see in their mind what you hold for them as a future finished product. And if they are short on imagination, you are going to, as the text says, have to hold their hand a lot. And you still might not get the project even then.

If you get it rght, the client will display that they are okay with what you have come up with. Either a yes will be stated or they will become gleeful for seeing what they want, something will trigger a response from them that tells you that you are tracking in the right direction and you are good to go.

The creative brief is the instrutction set or outline of parameters you are going to live up to as the creator and produce as best as you can.

Personas and Scenarios

I feel like this is a further explanation of who is your audience. However having said that, it does make sense to troubleshoot the interface for user friendliness and any obstacles the user might come up against in the odd situation.

I see it as part of the section on testing the interface as well. In some ways I feel like this should be fairly well resolved from the onset as part of audience definition. Perhaps what this is about is a graceful follow through arcing from the know your audeince aspect to user freindliness to testing for user friendliness. I do see where all three are tied to each other on behalf of the end user.

As part of knowing your audience, you will want to come up with a grouping of user types and their personalities that will be using the interface, this will give you insight in various ways like ergonomics, gender concerns, politics, sustainability, any of a number of reasons that may incur a design adjustment to accomodate as the interface is being created.

Structural Overview

Comment:
Site maps are something I always use for myself when I seem to be getting no where on an information search, but when I have suggested them to customers they draw a blank and never had me produce them.I was producing for smaller clients though and as such they can be forgiven.

The sitemap is an orientation tool. And a set of shortcuts to cut across the hierarchy structure, A top view so you can see where you were and where you want to be and readily achieve getting there. Sitemaps make an interface that when the rest of the site drops the ball, the sitemap saves the site itself by having a well done site map for a "lost user" to re-orient themselves with and get back on track. But if the sitemap fails then the whole interface is a jerk. At that point the user has tried A, and the user has tried B, and neither have worked, so its the exit button to the next site on the search engine return list.

I have built huge 700 plus page websites. If they can be database driven it is a lot easier. If they have to be static pages, well say a little prayer,  but have a good layout of the structure of the site and proceed with caution. Making such a site map is ...well... challenging.

Process:

Structure goes to departmentalization and compartmentalization. Breaking up the whole into manageable subsets so as to make the baking of the cake a step by step process a team can knock out a chunk at a time and see progress at the same time, and be able to report back to a client those steps as done stages of the process.

Wireframes

The wireframe is similar to a storyboarding of the website. In some ways I feel like this is a little redundant to site mapping. What is being added in are additional functionalities or streams of information that might occur that aren't comprehensively written into the site map.

Best practices, Radical Simplification, and User Centric Design.

For me best practices really is all about the layout of the available real estate the interface is going to give the user (user centric) to work with and manipulate the available data with. If you stick a function that is used regularly on a drop down menu where it is hidden, that is just plain nuts. Testing will survey and resolve how often a function is determined to be needed and so such function needs to have an appropriate spot in the real estate.

Which is all about user centricity. Surveying such functionalities in a checklist type of format where users can say they needed to use X function so many times to achieve they desired result will give an idea of whether to place the button or function in one place or deeper where it may be needed in relation to some other aspect of the interface function.

The pitfall at this point though is what does the client want. If the client wants a certain functionality that testing shows is less important than the client gives it in weight so you have to move that functionality up the ladder and put it someplace where it might not be appropriate, you are suddenly in an awkward position of having to cave in on best practices to exact making a buck.

But that never happens.

Theoretical stances from Jacobsen's text "Information Design", is there an upside or downside to them and how I perceive to incorporate Information Design into this Blog

As I write this and reviewed the module and have my text open some things come to mind. First were the teachings of my ESC Visual Literacy class as I reread what Jacobsen talks about in chapter 1 explaining where Horn, Dervin, Cooley and Passinni are coming from (while I see in the module Shedroff's name mentioned and where he is coming from I don't see that we were to read that chapter, according to the syllabus, in our text). Visual Literacy because this is where Horn meets us in the past, but then there is spill over into what Dervin is about. Horn reminds me of the Vis Lit discussion we had about how text is a kind of signage, and that semiotics will mean different things to different cultures. This has an upside and a downside. Upside because each culture has its own language, presumably a starting point one might think to begin a discussion. Except I don't speak Russian, so I can't talk with a Russian and have it make sense if we both stay to our languages, the downside. Horn though in a way makes the Vis Lit argument about Visual Literacy being at the apex above anthropological study and any other discourse about culture because you have to have a starting place with commonality of meaning, semiotic meaning, that everyone in the discussion agrees to. In essence what Dervin is talking about with sense making.

When I think of sense making I think of Pavlovian conditioning. And so Clockwork Orange comes to mind, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange (the book link), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_(film) (the film link), the book is better to read first and then see the movie, imho. But I also remember wondering about eating berries as a kid. Mom was an avid strawberry picker, and we had bushes alongside the house that produced white berries, and we had thornbushes (we call them pricker bushes because they will prick you), and from what I remember while strawberries were okay to eat, white berries and the red ones were not. But I learned these facts from a combination of experience, when Mom had a peck of strawberries collected and we ate them, and then my asking (because they were berries) ...Mom about the white and red berries around the house. Somehow I inately knew not to try them first. Which makes me wonder about that moment. I suppose I was folloowing my mother's lead on what was okay to eat or not.

This is Dervin's theory at work. But Horn starts us in a sense because we are humans and we are the creators and understanders and users of information. And historically the handcraft of a human, whether voice, image, text, scent, or touch, is what leads us onto a path of understanding. And in a scientific method of building knowledge on top of knowledge so as to create a foundational base to work from and to increase, so that depth, breadth and complexity ensue, you begin by thinking like Horn does. I'd be willing to bet that Brenda Dervin is younger than Horn. She starts historically lke Horn, with her 7 descriptions of information on page 37. And then she says this is a cumulative representation. As if in a Horn way of thinking she has stacked them for depth, breadth and complexity. And then introduces descriptive 8. Which brings in human observation. If that does not sound like scientific methodolgy I don't know what does. On page 41 she states information as made and unmade. Well we do this. We coin new words fairly regularly. This link: http://gajitz.com/deep-ocean-science-says-theres-no-such-thing-as-jellyfish/ indicates in the second caption about untold numbers of species we haven't found out about yet. Why? Because we do not live under water and so we culturally brush it aside for the nonce. But we also don't make and create data and information so quickly that we can not help others to come along with us on the information gathering trails. In fact, because we don't like to be lonely, and again this is a Vis Lit concept, we are in love with human image, and human creation, we value being given attention (human stimulus response) and so we invite others to be with us on the information path, the ether, by creating imagery or text that helps others to come along with us. Dervin's sense making on page 45 - she says we do it in such a way as to not make it complicated. That's right, we want to continue the romance with ourselves. Dervin states "humans MUST muddle through together". [Uppercase letters are mine.]  But because we do move, because we are dynamic, because we do find that all of us catch up on the path, because we do find information or other constructs, like buildings or wire bindings on skis, that some become obsolete, so we destroy them (is this an argument for war I have just made?). And on page 47 Dervin talks about the time relationship. Sure, humans change over time, and so does the bulk of human culture, and human information, human knowledge. One might say innovation leaves us no choice but to destroy the old for the new. But Dervin goes one step further in saying we want to make sure others can follow the information design that others can come up with, and hence she states research of the design is endemic to ID. Certainly.

And then Cooley also begins with "we learn from history". But throws the contention that we seem constantly repeating mistakes in history. He does so in order to tell us that modesty and caution are in order. That kind of sounds like scientific method also, you do want to be careful with the materials you toss about so you don't make something that goes boom.

Cooley then on page 61 talks about our latent paranoia for having moved so fast into the Future with technology. I agree with that. We are still creatures of instinct. Instincts have been sidelined in big ways by modern culture and technology. It wasn't too long ago that we were solitary individuals in the wilderness and by teaming up did we learn to start to integrate and step out of our individuality. But we keep hearing that we are individuals that can be free thinking and self designing, but then we go to WalMart and have to fit into the same parking space as everyone else, and doesn't this upset what might have been territoriality instinct we may have had going to a feeding hole or watering hole and wanting to protect same? I have thought I'd like to toss my keys to someone sometimes when I haven't been able to find my car. I am sure many humans feel this way about modern technolgy whenever they confront it or it confronts them. Life isn't about getting up and heading down a trail to an apple tree anynmore for breakfast. Its about the complexity of saving money, saving coupons, clipping coupons so they fit the coupon wallet, then finding yourself through traffic that hopefully you don't get killed by, to Wegman's and then determining as you walk around being bombarded by branding, audio inputs, other people walking by, cash registers blooping, grocery carts banging and wheels doing the twist, to get yourself something to eat. I sometimes understand why my Mom likes to walk out into the backyard and pop an onion out of the ground so as to not have to go deal with the world.
The human body hasn't caught up yet. And neither has the brain. It is why the term information overload has come into existence. If we did not feel overloaded, it infers we we are handling it and would not feel overloaded. And with the rapid speeding up the last 20 years of technology has provided, and whats to come in the next 20 years, is anyone really ready? Today on NPR Morning Edition one of the stories was about how they are going to redraw Weiner's district and simply loop his district out of concern. And another story talking about how government redefines definitions for health concerns and one day you are not overweight and the next day government has re-written that definition and suddenly you're obese.

And corporations want speed. They have to get to the bottom line faster and with more margin daily.
Cooley is right in stating it has been an extraordinary millenium, but it is just in its first footsteps. I had a 3D image taken of my teeth the other day. I thought it was very cool. I like to think I am somewhat of a geek and love technology and try not to feel overwhelmed by the rate at which everything is innovating and changing. It has been said the future belongs to the geeks. I am inclined to agree with that. But experience tells me y'gotta keep your eyes open too. You never know what is around the next corner.

On page 65 Cooley talks about Human Centered Systems with respect to industrial production but then goes on to state it is finding its way into socioeconomic and cultural issues. Sure. Even Dervin and Horn are rolled up in this. All that has gone before builds into what is present today, whether it stuck around long enough (like Aristotle did) to be relevant or was found out to be irrelevant and was destroyed or discarded or shelved in some fashion. I do not think that any of the theories are completely exclusive of each other in other words. It is kind of like Ed Witten describing the five prenatal theories that lead to String Theory. Each is coming from their own relevant perspective to give us essentially the same concerns and concepts to go forth with.

Cooley merely steps it up and says Information is a human thing, without us it is the sound of a tree falling in the woods and no on there to hear it. And thus Human Centric. And any system of design is going to require an arcing ability to look over the task and make it work for everybody.

Passini is about waypointing. Direction if you will. Sure that applies. Wthout knowing (there's that word know, short for knowledge) where you are going how can you know if you are headed anywhere. Outer Space without stars leads you to only more Outer Space.

Glancing through Shedroff in the text I think I find myself closest overall to what he is talking about, which is what I have expounded all along. He gets into the time element, the element of senses, the moving from passive to active, data becoming information becoming understanding becoming knowledge becoming wisdom. It is all about calibration.

Why do I prefer this? In general terms it does seem to encompass all of the above. Shedroff's conclusion on page 291 says it, " Designing an interface for any audience [which also implies the individual], whether technological, physical, or conceptual, begins with the creation of meaning [calibration] and the development of an appropriate type of interactivity."

And from there one builds into more complexity for the depth, breadth, and complexity the user wishes to go and find.

What are the downsides of any of the above? I think if one relegates oneself to any of the theories above and sticks to that single theory one is going to have shortcomings eventually. If you are going to communicate, you have to be thinking...thinking that is, about the other person in the conversation. In Hansel and Gretel the witch leaves bread crumbs for the kids to follow. Had she left drops of mercury or leaves from trees or specks of sand or anything the kids wouldn't have recognized as appropriate and desirable to lead them on, then we wouldn't have a story about Hansel and Gretel.

The witch knew enough to calibrate the trail she was going to leave for the kids and make it a trail she knew they would follow.





For the purposes of this blog I choose to utlize what I am deeming the most ubiquitous information design and that would be plain english text.

The reasoning for this is that this blog is computer based, computer accessed (smartphone, what have you), and anyone wishing to get to it can fairly easily as a result. And if they can access this page, they also have access to google translate, which can be found here:

Google Translate

If they want to read it they can, and if they want to read it in the available translations from Google they can. Right here and right now that is about the best that can be done to make this discussion reachable by as many as possible. Although given time I am sure others could be incorporated to calibrate this blog to nearly anyone that wants access to it. Text is in my humble opinion still the most far reaching semiotic currently available for users of the web, although many other types of signing like video or images might be desirable.



references:

Jacobson, Robert(Editor) :"Information Design."  Cambridge, Massachussetts: MIT press, 2000.

Rylant, Cynthia, and Jen Corace. Hansel and Gretel. Hyperion, 2008. Print