Smart Mobs

Smart Mobs are changing the course of our society. I believe that in the future, cellphones and computers will be considered the same thing since we will be able to access internet anywhere, anytime through smart devices. This have technological implications as well as social implications. Internet is becoming a bottom-up media, and its power is based on the number o people who use the network.

WIKI SUBMISSIONS

USER CENTERED DESIGN

The book "The Design of Everyday Things", originally called "The Psychology of Everyday Things" is considered one of the most important books in the world of design. In this book, Donal A. Norman describes the psychology behind good and bad design through interesting examples and clear principles. Norman exalts the importance of design in our everyday lifes, and the consequences of errors caused by bad designs.

In his book, Norman use the term "user-centered design" to describe design based on the needs of the user, leaving aside secondary issues like aesthetics. User-centered design involves simplifying the structure of tasks, making things visible, getting the mapping right, exploting the powers of constraint, and designing for error.

Other topics of the book include:

-The Psychopathology of Everyday Things
-The Psycholohy of Everyday Actions
-Knowledge in the Head and in the World
-Knowing What to Do
-To Err Is Human
-The Design Challenge

Error in Design and the Design Challenge

5 minutes ago, when I was going to check my email in one of the computers at the UT Flawn Academic Center, I realized that I was writing my UTEID instead of my email address in the hotmail's user text-field. After reading chapters five and six from the book "the design of everyday things" I decided to classify this error as a "capture error", because two different actions have their initial stages in common, which in this case are entering my UT EID and entering my e-mail. Solving this error with good design could imply using a bigger font size for example. I believe that some errors can be prevented with good design, but not always our errors are the fault of bad design.

The evolution of design is an interesting topic. Improvements in design could be based on errors of past designs, especially nowadays, with the improvements in technology, and the flexibility of design. The famous "i-pod" is a good example of evolution in design, because 2 or 3 years ago it had about 6 buttons, and now it only has two.

Wiki Topic

For my submission I chose the topic of "Generative Art" which involves a new wave of media artists who use technology, algorithms, and mathematics as tools of self-expression. I believe that this topic is directly related with the class because it is a new way of using technology to achieve cultural and artistic objectives.

The Design of Everyday Things

We live surrounded by devices that are able to solve all of our problems but are too complex to use. as Donald A. Norman mentions in his book, " added functionality generally comes along at the price of added complexity". The computers at the Flawn academic Center for instance, are connected in a very ellaborated network, but sometimes users get confused by the complexity of it's software.

Beyond Words

Words affect the way we think. We think through words, and everytime we read, we are pronouncing the words in our head, which means that not only words affect our thoughts, but their sound also have an influence in our way of thinking. Words act as "light bulbs" in our brain, because everytime we pronounce a word, we make associations with other words that have the same sound. The spanish journalists Alex Grijelmo, in his book "The Seduction of the Words", states that "nothing could ever measure the power that is hidden by the words... Words are the structure of thought, the embryos of ideas, and their content exceeds the simple and official definition given by the dictionary... Words have their roots in thoughts and evolve with them, but these words contain previously the seed of a cultural heritage that transcends an individual", which means that words evolve with our civilization, and sometimes a word have a meaning that goes beyond it's denotative representation, and that is affected by its history, and by our personal experiences. Words hide a power that has been discovered and applied by people like politicians, journalists, and publicists, to affect perspectives and thoughts.

Tokens

According to Denise Schmandt the beginnings of writing are directly related to the use of tokens in ancient times. After reading the different theories concerning "how writing came about" I believe that Denise's theory is the most rational and well supported and even though William Warburton's pictographic theory is also well supported, The evidences of Denise's Theory are more ancient. Denise describe the use of symbolic tokens about 8000 B.C.,like clay objects of different shapes that were used as counters of different products. I find interesting the use of tokens in the ancient times because tokens are portable and relatively easy to create and use. Denise also mention that the the beginning of sign communication could have its roots in the incisions that were made in the envelopes used to protect the tokens, which seems as a very rational idea because it connects the "pictographic theory" with the "token theory".