Google Teaching

Its been a while since I posted and it seems I've been knee deep in google! Yes, ok I use it for my email and docs, recently maps (been improving the functionality of the creative maps, awesome btw, post to come) and Youtuube. So without further-a-do... is that how you type that expression?... anyway!



Google is also integrated into my teaching through sharing resources digitally on google docs, to them submitting visual research through blogger. Today a colleague suspected you could use a google (word) doc as a live wiki, I was intirgued and we got the students to input their email address (hence not great quality to read) but we'd not seen how it works.

As you can see from the video you can see how it flickers as with different colour tags which are the different students collaborating on a timeline of research into how we have got to our digital world of today... when zuckerberg invented facebook to when logie baird invented the tele (ok majority are now plasma's as opposed to cathode ray tube).

But to watch it live (the colleges servers and ageing laptops just about survived created a beautiful collaborative document and such a fast, vast resource (ok didint ask to double checkl their sources of data, much in the same respect as a wiki) of info that created such debate that the tutuor could just reflect on to point out the shortening of technological development cycles (there is a better description for it) and key dates etc.

Infographics

Is there a way to track the amount of individual user input into the document other than colour coding each users text? I can imagine a tree diagram to represent the contrasting majorities of users input. I mean its useful in that you can track which user is doing what and who is adding the most useful data, but can we data mine their input?

Anyhow, I can imagine this technique has been done much already and we're hardly new, but I had to record it as it looked so good their collaboration and I'd love anyfeedback as if it is possible to translate this input technique into stats that can be made into infographics (not for the 'eye candy' novelty, though intriguing to innovate, but to assess, evaluate the students learning. Give Curriculum Leaders/Verifiers a clean-sweep-perception to aid the arbitary quantification of un-easy quantifiable currency of creative understanding. Ok, maybe not as deep as the whole of creativity, but still.

Published on 2011/03/09 8:49 pm.
Filed under: colour, communication, praxis, technology, visualisation, ways of working, web 2.0

Journal of IA

76ab18421e51fce23b50daef12439eff Journal of IA


The Journal of Information Architecture is an international peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Its aim is to facilitate the systematic development of the scientific body of knowledge in the field of information architecture. http://journalofia.org/

The Journal of Information Architecture is published biannually in English and Volume 1, Issue 1 is the current issue. Read more about the Journal » The Call for Papers for Volume 1, Issue 2, to be published Autumn 2009, is now open. Read the Call for Papers »


Here are the papers in Vol1.


Dorte Madsen's Editorial

Shall We Dance?


“ But where is the research in information architecture? (...) You may come across
research involving information architecture or relevant for information
architecture, but not necessarily written with a specific purpose of developing
the field of information architecture, of adding to the body of knowledge about
information architecture, developing concepts for information architecture, nor
in general addressing the theoretical foundations of information architecture.
Now, with a Journal of Information Architecture, we have a forum where we can
publish what is central to the development of the field of information
architecture. ”


Download Shall We Dance? in PDF format »

Gianluca Brugnoli


Connecting the Dots of User
Experience


The article presents a point of view about analyzing and designing the user experience within
pervasive networks made of distributed services and applications, where the user is the primary actor who freely and opportunistically connects and activates the system components following an activity-driven process. A digital content case study is used to outline the main characteristics of this scenario and to introduce a tool for user experience modelling and designing. From the
application of this model are proposed some considerations about how the design process could change to support this vision.


Download Connecting the Dots of User Experience in PDF format »

Helena Francke


Towards an Architectural Document
Analysis


Information architecture (IA) and document architecture (DA) provide two, partly overlapping, perspectives on the creation of document structures. This article suggests how the architecture of a document can be analysed from these two perspectives. Literature on IA and DA has been examined in order to identify central ideas that are of relevance for analysing the architectures of digital documents. The article contains an overview of how IA and DA have been used and
defined. The article shows how a model for analysing documents as sociotechnical artefacts can fruitfully draw on parts of the theoretical and practical complexes of IA and DA. The aspects that are identified as particularly important from IA are organisation systems, navigation, and labelling. From DA, logical structures, layout structures, content structures, and file structures
are all applicable aspects. It is discussed how these various aspects may be interpreted in order to support an analysis of the organising principles of documents.


Download Towards an Architectural Document Analysis in PDF format »

Andrew Hinton


The Machineries of Context


The essay re-frames Information Architecture as designing context in the digital layer, contending that IA has always been less about organizing information than about designing architecture for a new kind of contextual space. It explores how a global network of user-created hyperlinks has changed how we experience context, and how IA practice emerged to contend with this change. In addition, the essay proposes that IA study and practice develop tools and methods that improve our understanding and methods for solving the increasingly complex design challenges brought about by this new contextual reality.


Download The Machineries of Context in PDF format »

James Kalbach


On Uncertainty in Information
Architecture


Uncertainty, in general, is a fundamental aspect of human activity and underlies much of our
decision making. The notion of uncertainty in information seeking, in particular, dates back to Shannon and Weaver (1949) and since then has been investigated in many forms. Kulthau's (1993) work on information uncertainty is perhaps the most extensive. Through two specific examples, this article proposes uncertainty as a unifying heuristic in information architecture. Measurements of uncertainty can serve a diagnostic function in both the design and evaluation of information technologies and user interfaces.


Download On Uncertainty in Information Architecture in PDF format »

See also:


Published on 2009/05/07 8:01 pm.
Filed under: architecture, editorial, education, information, language, praxis, research, technology

Mapping the Creative Process

Mapping the Creative Process

Damn good stuff they make, wish they were more prolific in their creation but they are well
worth the wait. How appropriate then their next one is the Creative Process. I'm sure we all
think things can be included but they have pretty much nailed it. I am sure it will be doing the blog rounds as it is well deserved, but as from the blogs I am fed and try to digest from google reader it hasnt yet, so lets start the ball rolling.

Share with your many more readers than mine and explore their versatile and equally clear 'back catalogue'.


I tell you, the amount of posters I want to print so big and put up in a classroom, Periodic table of Typefaces, this, Periodic Table of Design, psd-poster - shortcuts by designbyvent, Type Timeline Map... and I'd be tempted with Periodic Table of Visualisation Methods, Information Aesthetics Diagram.

Here's what they say,

'The creative process is not just iterative; it’s also recursive. It plays out “in the large” and “in the small”— in defining the broadest goals and concepts and refining the smallest details. It branches like a tree, and each choice has ramifications, which may not be known in advance.

Recursion also suggests a procedure that “calls” or includes itself. Many engineers
define the design process as a recursive function:

discover > define > design > develop > deploy


The creative process involves many conversations—about goals and actions to achieve them—conversations with co-creators and colleagues, conversations with oneself.
The participants and their language, experience, and values affect the conversations'.

http://www.dubberly.com/concept-maps

Download PDF - http://www.dubberly.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ddo_creative_process.pdf

check out their model of innovation concept map,

Innovation concept map by hugh dubberly , Sean Durham, Ryan Reposar, Paul Pangaro, and Nathan Felde

More here:
A Model of The Creative Process
A Model of Play

How Organizations Track Customers

Domain Name Map

Heart Attack
Java Technology

A Model of Brand
How to Play Baseball

Understanding Internet Search
Design for the Internet

Published on 2009/04/12 12:44 am.
Filed under: aesthetic, cartography, communication, concept map, creative, design, ideas, information, knowledge, map, praxis, problem, typographic, visual

Inner Body Isometrics

a8eccea60847565507a2bb6bab9ff7b3 Inner Body Isometrics



http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikaonodera/2497345074/

Love the Isometric Perspective's depticting the inner workings of the body in these editorial spreads. visit erika's other spreads, think this one won an editorial award 2007 but there is the heart.

also check out previous post Visual Body

hope you all had a good christmas.

Published on 2008/12/27 2:58 pm.
Filed under: 3d, diagram, drug trip, illustration, perception, perspectives, praxis, representation, white space

Periodic Table of Design

6dfb8845509f5a8eeaf6a9b635ebed88 Periodic Table of Design

Problem solving [Ps], Visual thinking [Vt], Information [In], Communication [C], Language [L], Technology [T], Shapes [S], Form [Fo] & Function [Fu].

Just the first 9 elements in my periodic table of design. I had a sketched idea to try it in one of my notebooks. then saw the periodic table of visualisation methods by Ralph Lengler and Martin J. Eppler, had seen simon pattersons rhodes to reason done in 95' and so kept making notes of things that should be included until had a good structure (below). might have missed things but found some of the elements were already covered under another. any other suggestions please let me know.

Not quite as interactive as the visualisation methods table by eppler and lengler but hopefully equally as useful to overview the topic of design and have a substantially improved awareness of design releated issues/elements.

published here: http://www.nowpublic.com/environment/when-elements-go-extinct

Published on 2008/08/14 10:07 pm.
Filed under: architecture, communication, designs, knowledge, language, praxis, problem, research, science, simon patterson, solving, typographic, visual thinking, visualisation, white space

Da Vinci: Notebooks as Thinking Artefacts

homo+vitruvianus+ +da+vinci+painting Da Vinci: Notebooks as Thinking Artefacts

Not all visual maps involve these beautiful, elaboratly designed concept maps, mindmaps, spider diagrams with time & knowledge of coding/art to create.

The notebook is easily portable with the only need being a pen without the need for your other research files/books to hand. It allows your thoughts to be readily reflected upon and more chance of the critical point of engagement utilised.

Many great thinkers utilised notebooks such as I.K. Brunel featured on you tube at my blog, Paula Scher (pentagram partner) likewise blog, also Leonardo Da Vinci who worked between Science & Art, fig,

‘Page after page of Leonardo’s manuscripts has a gentle but thorough integration of text and figure […] the use of words and pictures together requires a special sensitivity to the purpose of design. [W]hether the graphic is primarily for communication and illustration of a settled finding or, in contrast, for the exploration of a data set.’ (Tufte, 2001, p.182).

I have created a notebook that use’s drawing and writing to combine ideas and readings across varying sectors of design. I use drawing as a research tool as well as writing; fig. This special sensitivity to design are some of the design issues surrounding form and function, and contrasts of light/dark, thick/thin (salience), framing, use of white space, or colour harmony.

'words on and around graphics are highly effective-sometimes all too effective-in telling viewers how to allocate their attention to the various parts of the data display’ (Tufte, 2001, p.182).

Mind maps, brainstorms and notebooks are visual research (visual maps). In the book Visual Research: An Introduction to Research Methodologies in Graphic Design (Advanced Level), ‘it is possible to critique action so as to produce more enlightened or more effective forms of action. The critical thinking in this tradition is a practice in the world, a praxis’ (Noble & Beastley, 2005, p 9).

Critical thinking is what is trying to be achieved through notebooks, visual maps. Praxis is if we look at Aristotle states, ‘practice is the application of that knowledge to solve problems’, this is what design is problem solving.

Visual diaries & notebooks are a form of ‘action research – where a diary tells, in a step-by-step way, of a practical experiment in the studio’. This is ‘research through art and design’, ‘where the end product is an artefact – where the thinking is, so to speak, embodied in the artefact’ (Frayling, 1993/4, p.5).

mini bibliography

Tufte, E R. (2001). Envisioning Information. Graphics Press LLC , Connecticut

Noble, Ian & Bestley, Russell. (2005). Visual Research: An Introduction to Research Methodologies in Graphic Design (Advanced Level). SA, AVA Publishing

Frayling, C. (1993/4). Research in Art & Design. Royal College, Vol 1, No 1. London.

Da vinci figure from : Pederetti, Carlo. (2006). Leonardo Da Vinci. UK, Tajbook

Published on 2008/04/07 8:42 pm.
Filed under: art, artefacts, critical, da vinci, diaries, drawing, figure, notebook, pictures, praxis, research, science, sublime, text, thoughts, tufte, visual thinking, words, writing