Sorry with another quick hit, without answering all of Dan's questions, but just a quick reply to one piece of what he raised, below:
On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 1:46 PM, Dan Saffer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Jun 23, 2008, at 10:24 AM, Christine Boese wrote: > > > > > I'd say the last thing we'd want to do is put the Artist/Designer back >> into her high-tower, preparing wondrous creations to unleash upon a grateful >> and waiting one-to-many monologic world. >> > > > Why is this not a valid means of design? I'll let Andrei and Jim Leftwich > do their thing here, but I'll point to Jared's recent keynote: > > < > http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2008/04/23/ia-summit-keynote-journey-to-the-center-of-design/ > > > > where he notes: > > "The foundations of user-centered design are now disintegrating. Notable > community members are suggesting UCD practice is burdensome and returns > little value. There's a growing sentiment that spending limited resources on > user research takes away from essential design activities. Previously > fundamental techniques, such as usability testing and persona development, > are now regularly under attack. And let's not forget that today's shining > stars, such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the iPod, came to their > success without UCD practices." > > I'd just want to note that Google, Facebook, and Twitter above, do practice something I would call Interactive Design (which is not necessarily HCD), in that the SOCIAL element is the center. This is what I call out as the most essential nature of true interactivity, not just branching structures and options for "audience-participation," but seeing the social aspect as actually giving power to audiences as true co-creators of the communally-authored virtual landscape. How do these and other similar grassroots or social-centered designs manifest and evolve? Generally, so far in how this is working itself out in cybercultures, it happens with beta releases, and big ears on the part of the platform hosts/authors. They release some of their bread upon the waters, and then watch what the social co-authors do with it, and design from that point on collaboratively, dialogically, with actual users, often of fairly large scale. I'm not talking about design by committee (blah) so much as I'm talking about defining the essence of interactivity as POWER-SHARING, and for Designers to share creation/design power with social forces that will use the platform or designs, DESIGNERS MUST GIVE UP POWER. That's why the old stereotypical model of the lone artist working in isolation is moot. Sure, lone artists can work in isolation, but if the process doesn't turn dialogic with the social forces of the audience for true power sharing and co-creation, then I would argue what you have is pseudo-interactivity, not real interactivity. Ultimately (and I was able to document this in my dissertation in one instance, 10 years ago), the best thing that can happen for true interactivity, is for the audience, the social groups, to rise up and take complete control, pre-empting the designers, the "original" content creators and interface creators altogether, through poaching or alternative and competing modifications. Chris > > > Dan > > > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
