Navimation: Exploring Time, Space & Motion in the Design of Screen Based Interfaces
"Interface design has often been considered a subsection of interaction design (Moggridge, 2007; Löwgren & Stolterman, 2004; Bagnara & Crampton Smith, 2006). In the shift from designing objects to designing experiences, interaction design needs to investigate temporal as well as spatial form (Redström, 2001; Mazé & Redström, 2005), and to see computation as basic material.
From a social, cultural and humanistic perspective, studies of the design of interactions and their contexts of use can be understood in terms of mediated communication and the historical, social, playful and aesthetic in digital design (Blythe, Overbeeke, Monk, & Wright, 2003; Lunenfeld, 1999). This approach has been framed as Communication Design (Morrison et al., in press). This mediational perspective of digital communication is informed by studies in new media, social semiotics, socio-cultural studies of learning and work, and practice-based research into multimodal composition in which mediated discourse itself undergoes change through active use (Jones & Norris, 2005; Morrison, in press). This view is distinct from the structuralist and directional or 'transmission' models of communication (e.g., Crilly, Maier, & Clarkson, 2008) that are not rooted in cultural and mediational theory. From a Communication Design perspective, the interface itself mediates; it is understood as socially and culturally constructed and situated. Such a perspective is not very widely articulated in discussions of the interface in design research. Further, few studies exist of dynamic, digital interfaces and their multimodal characteristics from a specifically media and Communication Design view (e.g., Skjulstad, 2007).
In their design activity, interaction designers invest heavily in the shaping of interfaces as symbolic and cultural texts. Alongside this attention to design, and with reference to user-driven studies, we also need to unpack the features and possible functions of these emerging forms of mediated communication. The proliferation of 'movement in the interface' demands that we pay attention to a variety of media types, genre conventions and earlier media, and to the ways that elements of these are combined in different configurations. Social semiotics provides some means for relating the various graphical, animational and kinetic aspects of dynamic interfaces within a wider communicative perspective.3"
(Jon Olav H. Eikenes and Andrew Morrison, 2010)
Jon Olav H. Eikenes and Andrew Morrison (2010). "Navimation: Exploring Time, Space & Motion in the Design of Screen-based Interfaces", International Journal of Design Vol 4, No 1.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
A simple abstract model of human communication
"One of the first designs of the information theory is the model of communication by Shannon and Weaver. Claude Shannon, an engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories, worked with Warren Weaver on the classic book ‘The mathematical theory of communication’. In this work Shannon and Weaver sought to identify the quickest and most efficient way to get a message from one point to another. Their goal was to discover how communication messages could be converted into electronic signals most efficiently, and how those signals could be transmitted with a minimum of error. In studying this, Shannon and Weaver developed a mechanical and mathematical model of communication, known as the 'Shannon and Weaver model of communication'. ...
Shannon and Weaver broadly defined communication as 'all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another'. Their communication model consisted of an information source: the source’s message, a transmitter, a signal, and a receiver: the receiver’s message, and a destination. Eventually, the standard communication model featured the source or encoder, who encodes a message by translating an idea into a code in terms of bits. A code is a language or other set of symbols or signs that can be used to transmit a thought through one or more channels to elicit a response in a receiver or decoder. Shannon and Weaver also included the factor noise into the model. The study conducted by Shannon and Weaver was motivated by the desire to increase the efficiency and accuracy or fidelity of transmission and reception. Efficiency refers to the bits of information per second that can be sent and received. Accuracy is the extent to which signals of information can be understood. In this sense, accuracy refers more to clear reception than to the meaning of message. This engineering model asks quite different questions than do other approaches to human communication research."
(Communication Studies, University of Twente)
Shannon, C.E., & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Hawes, L.C. (1975). Pragmatics of analoguing: Theory and model construction in communication. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Fig.1 Mathematical (information) model of communication.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
e-learning 1.0: LMSs, VLEs, e-portfolios
"the dominant learning technology employed today is a type of system that organizes and delivers online courses - the learning management system (LMS). This piece of [e-learning 1.0] software has become almost ubiquitous in the learning environment; companies such as WebCT, Blackboard, and Desire2Learn have installed products at thousands of universities and colleges and are used by tens of thousands of instructors and students. The learning management system takes learning content and organizes it in a standard way, as a course divided into modules and lessons, supported with quizzes, tests and discussions, and in many systems today, integrated into the college or university's student information system."
(Stephen Downes, 17 October 2005)
Downes, S. (17 October 2005). "E-learning 2.0." eLearn Magazine, an Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. publication.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Constructivism and emerging online learning pedagogy: a discussion for formal to acknowledge and promote the informal
"Formal education has traditionally relied on the objectivist view of knowledge. This view of learning assumes that knowledge can be imparted from teacher to learner through instruction, lecture and practice. This view of traditional adult education assumes true reality can be determined by 'a large accumulation of facts' (Kelly 1970, 2). Teaching and research driven by this philosophy discourage different views and understandings, disregarding different contexts and experiences of individuals, and regard individuals as passive recipients of knowledge. Although lectures and information-giving techniques may be affective in some contexts and for some individual learning styles, their continued use as a dominant pedagogy has allowed limited recognition to diverse preferences of learning. Limited learner participation and interaction in the objectivist view has also disallowed pedagogues to realise the need for learner control during the process of learning. Learning in this context rather places emphasis on teacher-control and learner compliance.
In recent times, educators and institutional discourse has begun to challenge the objectivist view, with an increasing appreciation of different ways of knowing the world. Constructivist writers in education have described varied versions of constructivism, but commonly acknowledge the active role of the learner in interpretation of reality (Larochelle and Bednarz 1998, 5). They challenge the objectivist view that suggests 'facts speak for themselves' and that 'knowledge is the reflection of ontological reality, and that language objectively refers to this reality' (Larochelle and Bednarz 1998, 5). The constructivist alternativism philosophy, described by George Kelly (1970) instead suggests that our constructions and views of the world are not stable, but are in continuous change as we build on past experiences. This change signifies learning and supports the understanding that as human beings, we are always construing and learning, and we are never inert (Kelly 1970)."
(Shalni Gulati, 5-7 April 2004)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Digital Ethnography: A Vision of Students Today
"despite appearances, our classrooms have been fundamentally changed. There is literally something in the air, and it is nothing less than the digital artifacts of over one billion people and computers networked together collectively producing over 2,000 gigabytes of new information per second. While most of our classrooms were built under the assumption that information is scarce and hard to find, nearly the entire body of human knowledge now flows through and around these rooms in one form or another, ready to be accessed by laptops, cellphones, and iPods. Classrooms built to re-enforce the top-down authoritative knowledge of the teacher are now enveloped by a cloud of ubiquitous digital information where knowledge is made, not found, and authority is continuously negotiated through discussion and participation. In short, they tell us that our walls no longer mark the boundaries of our classrooms.
And that's what has been wrong all along. Some time ago we started taking our walls too seriously - not just the walls of our classrooms, but also the metaphorical walls that we have constructed around our 'subjects,' 'disciplines,' and 'courses.' McLuhan's statement about the bewildered child confronting 'the education establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules' still holds true in most classrooms today. The walls have become so prominent that they are even reflected in our language, so that today there is something called 'the real world' which is foreign and set apart from our schools. When somebody asks a question that seems irrelevant to this real world, we say that it is 'merely academic.'
Not surprisingly, our students struggle to find meaning and significance inside these walls. They tune out of class, and log on to Facebook."
(Dr. Michael Wesch, Kansas State University)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
