YOUR INFORMATION HABITS = TOOLS TO INTERACTION DESIGNERS (above)-->how you do what you do matters to how we do what we do (Informatik Framework theory, diagram by John Vore (2007)).The end of the Informatik Framework Tutorial...Those who have read and studied some of the Constructivist philosophies of the 20th century will have already noticed that I’ve been writing about the construction of knowledge via “info-routines.” To others, it might seem foreign; but not to an Informatik star! (more). In truth, though grounded by Foucault, the perspective developed here relies even more on Ovid.
He was one of the first Western writers to write about paradigm shifts. And he understood the strengths and weakensses of the newest Tool, the written word.
Discovering that one is using a tool even while one is in the midst of, say, a vehement argument about what is right or wrong about the world, is disconcerting, at first. But as I’ve been trying to describe, these tools are the everyday tools of our lives. We’ve “forgotten” that we had to learn to ride this bicycle...
I believe the strength of the Informatik approach comes from the fact that its four routines are precisely what we use, everyday, to organize our lives. We have To-Do lists; we learn from and are entertained by uncountable stories--in ever-increasing media. We can hear stories, read stories, watch stories. What was once stuck in a book has jumped to radio, TV, film and finally, the internet. The same could be said about paintings, which have become photographs, moving pictures, animation. Some put Virtual Realities on this continuum. I think they are something different; though mostly based in visual depiction, the sense of space one experiences when inside a virtual reality makes it a new kind of experience.
The tools available to the Informatik thus arise out of methods already familiar to us. When we make prototypes of our ideas, we organize our sense of what a person needs by all of these methods: we make lists of what people need and want, we interview people to hear their stories; we create “personas” and imagine living in a world with our product, to see how it might work. We experiment with paper versions of our solutions, and Flash versions (example)--and, more recently, Machinima versions (example)--which takes protoyping into the realm of Virtual Reality. From within a world in which our designs exists, we can look out; from outside, we can watch our “virtual” end-users discover things which are wrong before a real person has to.
What we use to find meaning in our lives is also what we use to test and construct products which mirror and enhance what is meaningful to people. Using these methods, which add yet more information to the designers’ world, can be daunting--creating yet more possibilities for confusion (staying on the same page while skipping back and forth between info-routines is a challenge). THUS, juggling realities is another responsibility added to the list for Human-Computer Interaction/designers. Some think Interaction Design means simply making a program more humane, or making programming more widely accessible. While these are incredible goals, there’s plenty of work to go around for both programmers and Interaction designers--and everyone else on the production team, as an idea moves from the white board to prototypes to the people who are waiting for the Next Next Thing.
Into the Tool Shed (or “We Tried Discipline, Now Punish”)
One of my favorite moments at Indiana University came from one of the short-but-packed meetings with Eli Blevis towards the end of my second semester at Indiana University. We were discussing applying some of the ideas in the Reading-Writing-Meaning Triangle. I’d drawn it out on a white board. I was suggesting its use in a broader educational context when Eli added the letter “C” to the center of my R-W-M triangle.
Now this was a teaching heuristic I’d developed, rolled-out and tested with writing students over several years. I felt pretty good about it. It seemed unlikely that it might need any improvement.
So I stared uncomprehendingly at the C in the middle of the triangle. “What’s that?” I asked.
“Clarity,” Professor Blevis answered.
I was bemused and excited. Of course! Students would not only make their way around the triangle to find their starting point in a writing assignment (my initial concept for the methodology), but they would also use it to make their writing better, as well!
Blevis proved, again, what I came to learn quickly at Indiana University: that several good minds looking at the same puzzle--all moving towards a similar goal--will inevitably create a better product than one mind working in isolation. This is the strength of teams, the value which different experience and perspectives bring to bear on a project.
So it wasn’t until a year after first sketching out a full version of these information rituals that I recalled Professor Blevis’ insight. These rituals I’ve outlined in the last few pages are not meant to keep you circling the problem; they aim to improve the design. They mean to keep an interaction design team juggling the “right” things as they zero in on a design solution: that tool which makes life somehow fantastically better.
Keep in mind this notion about tools: they interpose themselves between an end-user and a desired outcome. But the best tools don’t get in the way, i.e., one should not have to walk outside of one’s creative process in order to use them. The best tools allow the creative person to achieve the desired result in a better way than was known before.
It’s a tall order--a difficult task--and to come full circle in these [ Informatik Framework ] pages, exactly the challenge an Informatik loves.
v4r0© 2009 John Michael Vore
TABLE IT (above)-->Usability methods as they relate to the Informatik Framework, and vice versa (Informatik Framework theory and table by John Vore, 2008).
