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
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