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