IS296
Social Navigation Of Information Spaces
Assignment
1: social navigation amazon.com
The search for recommended titles brought about two distinctly
different experiences. Both searches
were done going deep. In other words,
I wanted to drill down 25 steps if possible, to see how far and extensively the
threads would go. I decided that in
going this far, the indent method might work best to show the trail of
recommended books. However, after going
11 steps with the non-fiction book, there was so much looping back to
previously recommended titles that I was forced to start over and go through
another thread. In this search for a
non-fiction book, I found that a general title on Japanese prints recommended
many more subject specific books on particular printmakers by a wide variety of
authors (in Blue). At the end of the
recommendations, a couple of titles on Japanese history and culture came up,
and the most recommended books seemed to be a couple of books central to academic
study of the subject.
In the second search for a fiction book, I found that amazon.com
would typically recommend other books by the same author (in Red). There was looping, but I was not forced to
start over as the author had written enough books to go a few steps. After that, authors with similar style and
subject matter were recommended, mostly magical realism books by Spanish
authors (in Green). However,
amazon.com seemed to want to recommend books by the same author as the one
selected, first, before recommending other’s work.
Assignment
2: legibility:
remembering spaces asking directions/constructing
campus map
I started
at Cross Campus Drive on the west side of the campus, where the Campanile is in
view. Many people would gesture at the
Campanile, and then have some trouble describing where to go next, as they
often didn’t know the names of buildings or paths, and sometimes remarked on
the lack of signs. Only one person
seemed to leap over a significant part of the campus, connecting the area just
east of Sather Gate to Hertz Hall, and when I questioned it he assured me they
were very close. A few people directed
me left or right at the library without defining which one, but the most
interesting repeated assumption people seemed to have was to refer to “above” or “up” as either east
up the hill, or north up the hill. They
seemed to divide the campus into “quadrants” where they understood the Cross
Campus Dr. and the path between North Gate and Sather Gate as the dividing
points, and then directed me more specifically within the quadrants. However, many people didn’t know much about
the middle of those quadrants, describing those areas as “a bunch of buildings”
to cross through before getting to Bancroft or Hearst.
Assignment
3: legibility: understanding spaces talking about things/mapping
newsgroups from verbal directions map
I looked at an email list I am a part of to see where the paths and
directions might lead. The discussions
are fairly simple and mostly consist of questions and answers, comments to answers,
or further questioning. I focused on
an intense period of discussion where over three days there were 75 email
related to one topic, the code red virus.
Assignment
4: legibility:
reading spaces reading the street
This
map shows signage between Dwight Way and Bancroft Ave. on Shattuck Ave. I took digital photos, but the signs are
difficult to make out. I include one picture as an example to show how
difficult it is to capture the information from signs for business names,
addresses or non-textual images, without lots of other information also
included. All of the buildings are of
the same approximate height, there are no parking lots in this four block
area. Larger signs are displayed in
larger text, neon signage is shown in red and signs in blue are those visible
while driving. All signs available to
drivers were also available to pedestrian traffic, but sometimes only across
the street. However, this was rare,
and primarily came up in the Jazz School sign, where cars and pedestrians
across the street could view it, but not those on the same side of the
street.
Assignment
5: geometry and topology of physical spaces permeability
maps for Foreign Cinema Café
& South Hall
I chose the Foreign Cinema Café, for a couple of
reasons. It has an architecture where
traffic can move in a complete loop, once inside the main space, there is a
huge view from the inside to the outside cinema display, there is reserved and
unreserved café seating, and the space is huge, both in height and in floor
space. The host and staff seem to
manage the traffic effortlessly. There
doesn’t seem to be lots of flow from Mission through the long hall way to the
host, and yet somehow the café is always full when I am there, with at least
200 people including the staff, both inside and out in the unreserved seating
either watching a movie or sitting on the deck working on laptops or reading.
I looked at South Hall at a time when it seemed that many rooms were locked or closed. I tried to represent as much as I could determine from that that state. The basement and first floor appear to have the most flow, the second floor has some and the third floor appears to have much less flow.
Assignment
6: geometry and topology of information spaces an email thread is not a tree
I looked
at the same group of email from assignment 3, but examined how the email
threads worked, and where the embedded messages went. Every email, except the first, contained the embedded messages of
the previous thread. This email discussion
and what I found in looking at the email from the authorship skew was that the
members seem to work in a very cohesive fashion, assume a certain level of
knowledge, are respectful and helpful towards inexperienced users, are rarely
sarcastic about anything but Microsoft, and have the desire to converse in a
quick way to address issues the group focuses on. However, members are spread around the globe and work in very
different ways in their own work groups, although it is not apparent in the
email threads.
Assignment
7: pattern languages for physical architecture patterns of design at a cafe
The Foreign Cinema Café has some of the patterns Alexander describes, such
as large windows and natural light areas, outside space, cozy spaces such as
areas on the deck and at tables inside around the fireplace, solid doors with
glass, low window sills, frames with thickened edges, natural materials, and
windows overlooking life. This last
element exists in the inside area, where dinners can look out through the huge
windows to the courtyard, where seating is informal and in the evenings movies
are shown up on the back wall. Here are
two photos: inside and outside. These photos were taken while the café was
still under construction, but they show the huge spaces, windows and views, as
well as where sunlight can enter into the space.
Assignment
8: pattern languages for information architecture patterns of interaction in e-space
I focused
on pattern roles of specific email, and defined how those roles typically manifest
in the list group looked at in Assignments 3 and 6. I found several patterns, and found that certain authors repeat
those patterns and rarely deviate from them.
Authors tended to manifest one role, possibly two. The patterns of email tended to fit into
these categories fairly easily. Only
one or two of the 75 email I surveyed didn’t, and these were email from people
confused about the point of the list or trying to get somewhere else.
Assignment
9: physical interaction
plotting positions on sproul plaza
I found the drumming interaction the most interesting,
between the drummers themselves and those watching them. It was the only example I found where social
positions and physical positions might be related in prominence. I chose two distinctly different times of
day to look at the use of the plaza and found very different interactions and
presences. The early morning use was
quiet, purposed, and mostly about walking through the plaza to get somewhere
else. The evening was for a few people
about walking through, but the real users were the drummers and the audience,
who interacted in an interesting non-verbal way around the music and the
positions of performer and receiver, centerpiece and periphery.
Assignment 10: virtual interaction plotting positions in
active worlds
Active
Worlds was interesting, but not nearly as active or revealing as Sproul
Plaza. However, I felt that if more people
were there and spent more time in the space learning to use it, it could be as
rich as the Sproul Plaza experience.
Assignment
11: subject-oriented design homeless
design
After interviewing two
homeless people, on Shattuck Avenue, around 8pm on a Monday night, I had some
difficultly coming up with ideas for creating an information design for the
homeless. Both people were intoxicated,
and while I was talking with them, indicated that rather than having some sort
of information or other device design, they really wanted a house. They felt this would be the most helpful
solution to their problem. However, I
thought further about the realities of living on the street, and decided to try
to come up with something that was useful, would be sold at a low price ($5.00)
so as not to become too much of a commodity, and that might aid them in finding
food and shelter, and other daily needs.
I thought of an information “wand” that might be attached to a shopping
cart like a key chain, and have a simply scroll bar with LED display, that
could be waived near a kiosk for updating via inferred, that would display
locations of services and times of availability and would be extremely simply
to use. Government service agencies,
NGO’s and non-profits could log into a web interface and update service
information, as well as other homeless or interested parties via local library
web access or via kiosks located in public places.
Assignment 12: boundaries
and
subjects
mapping your week, mapping your life
During a
normal week, the majority of my travel is within two miles of my house in
Berkeley, with occasional trips to SF and the Walnut Creek area. I decided to use icons and lines instead of
a real map with overlay as an experiment to see if it might show more about
where I go. Colors and thickness of
lines refer to the kind and number of trips.
On my world map, I experimented with using age numbers located on the
map, with darker and larger numbers referring to places I have spent more
time. I added numbers with a plus sign
to show places I want to go and how long I expect it to be before I get there.
Assignment
13: boundaries and mixed spaces cafes as mixed information
spaces
Why would people talk to each other in a café, when
they appear to actively try to create private space around them to study, read,
talk to people they are with or people-watch?
I thought about situations where people in public places do have
discourse, something like the pub atmosphere where people might go after work,
talk politics and discuss whatever comes into their minds with whoever is
around and wants to join in. With this
in mind, I tried to come up with an old/new way of making a comfortable space
for talk, that might be something like the pub, where others not participating
could still “listen in” and still other café discussions could be joined via a
video link, and transcribed talk.
Since I was sick for most of this week, I was not able to go
to SF and the Foreign Cinema Café. I
tried to come up with an idea that would work in a café around the corner from
my house, but that would take off with some of the concepts used at the
Electronic Café.
