Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th
Reading blog responses are due the day before the due date in class. This gives me a chance to read your responses before we discuss the reading in class!
Respond to the following questions for each reading:
Information Anxiety, Richard Saul Wurman:
What does Wurman mean by “a fact can only be comprehended within the context of an idea?”
Use three points (or more) from “Information Anxiety” and your experience with making a mental map to explain how information hierarchies (bias towards specific data) are created.
How do we personalize information?
What are the five ways to organize information? And how does each mode of organization provide new information?
Multiple Ideas/Mulitple Disciplines, Clement Mok:
Explain the difference between identity design, information design and interactivity design. How have information technologies affected the role of the designer. What technologies have had the most impact?
posted by Stephanie @ 12:00 PM
28 Comments:
1. What Wurman means by "a fact can only be comprehended within the context of an idea," is that the ideas to back up a fact are subjective. Because of this, the fact becomes subjective because no one idea is the same to everyone and your understanding of a fact is based on the ideas surrounding it.
2. Information hiercarchies are created because ideas are subjective. People's mental maps are all different because even though they might be using the same facts, their personal views on them are different. Someone's mental map might also be different because someone's understanding of someone might be different from someone elses understanding. If you learn better visually then your map might contains pictures. Somneones mental map might also be different because one person's idea of important, could be different from someone elses.
3. We personalize information by putting the facts into our own words using our ideas to help us better understand the facts.
4. 5 ways to organize information is category, time, location, alphabet, and continuum. Each of these forms of organization gives the information different meanings.
5. Identity design is the face you put forward. How something is printed. Information design is how you organize and gather your information. Interactivity design is based on behavior. How you deside to present your information to people. Information technologies, like the computer, have made the designers job easier because it helps you gather exact information you need in an organized fashion.
Q1. Upon receiving a fact, someone would try to understand it by mapping out the relationship between the facts and some prior ideas or knowledge they already have. Therefore, without such frame of reference, the facts would not make sense.
Q2. The reading stated that to understand something we have to go through these processes:
a) We must have some interest in receiving the information
b) We must uncover the structure or framework by which it is organized
c) We must relate the information to ideas that we already understand
d) We must test the information against those ideas and examine it from different vantage points in order to know it.
Most of the processes above are subjective. Different people have different interests and hence, many times we filter data according to our personal preference of what we want to know. The bias converged further as we map the relationship and examine the data to various referential ideas. This is obviously because knowledge varies in different people. Therefore, the information that we take in are actually influenced by our interests, personal views, prior knowledge, etc.
Q3. Even though when information are presented to us, they are often already organized in a certain way based on what to be conveyed from them, we are not bound to always come to the same conclusion.
Information should be examined from different vantage points. The way we interpret and understand the information is subjective as we have to compare them with ideas that we have already acquired previously. These references differ from every person and hence the process would result in personalized information.
Q5. The 5 ways are:
a) Category: the mode helps us to organize items of similar importance.
b) Time: the mode helps us to observe changes across time as well as to make comparison.
c) Location: this mode helps us to examine and compare information that comes from different sources or locales.
d) Alphabet: this mode helps us particularly in organizing extraordinarily large bodies of information and does not require audience to understand classification by another form such as category or location
5) Continuum: this mode helps us to organize when we want to assign value or weight to the information
Q6. Identity design: a way to capture a living organization and how it accommodates dynamic behavior while reflecting cultural, social and business changes. Identity design synthesizes all the elements that make up a company’s interaction with the rest of the world. It consistently and cohesively expresses a company’s vision and intent, who it is and what it does.
Information design: a discipline of design that concentrates on making information understandable by giving it a context. It analyzes, defines and structures the relationships between ideas and the way ideas are visualized. In other words, information design tries to bring focus and order to content.
Interactivity design: a discipline of design that focuses on facilitating and mediating the interaction between two systems so that it can work together. It also involves examining two systems that are observable which makes interactivity design relatively quantifiable compared to identity and information design.
How have information technologies affected the role of the designer?
Information technology has brought about the explosion in the availability of information. People realize the need to make information easily accessible and efficiently comprehended as well as visually appealing--especially when they want to be heard by the public. Designers are now becoming indispensable in bringing about such features into their design so that the message can be conveyed effectively.
What technologies have had the most impact?
The computing medium has brought about the greatest change in how information circulates. It transforms the ways things are done in other media i.e. print and broadcasting. The computing medium increases efficiency in processing information and created the explosion in the availability of information and ideas. It is flexible, pervasive and has an almost omnipresent quality in modern day. It can also do practically anything, including simulating the appearance and functions of a variety of media.
#1) What Wurman means by the statement "a fact can only be comprehended within the context of an idea" is that in order to understand any type of fact, we must have some reference point, or previous knowledge of whatever the subject may be. He uses the example of chairs, and that we can understand that many types of furniture can fall into this category because we have a preconceived notion of what a chair is. On the other hand, if a scientist were to give facts on the subject of fission to a four year old, the child probably wouldn't be able to comprehend them, since most four year olds have no prior knowledge of what fission is.
#2) Information hierarchies can be created through many different ways. On way is how you look at things. Wurman talks about paying more attention to opposites, or negative space. Some things stand out to certain people, while others may focus on something completely different about the exact object or space.
Another way is through experience. When making a mental map of an area, if I have never been to a certain place then I may not even know that it exists, while it may be an important point on someone else's. Certain things may have affected other people, while I may have never had the same things happen to me. Experience leads to learning, and information is subject to bias depending on the person.
One more way that information hierarchies are created is by what you are trying to convey, and how you are trying to convey it. Bias towards certain data may occur depending on what you want your message to be.
#3) We personalize information by first figuring out what we want to know, and then by finding the best means of searching by which to gain that knowledge.
#4) A) CATEGORY- Organization by category makes it easier to find things that are “of similar importance”. This can be done by model, color, product, question, etc.
B) TIME- Organization by time provides information about events that have or will occur “over fixed durations”. This can be done chronologically, simultaneously, etc.
C) LOCATION- Organization by location enables people “to examine and compare information that comes from diverse sources or locales”. This can be done worldwide, locally, by region, etc.
D) ALPHABET- Alphabetic organization provides an easy way to find what you need within large bodies of information.
E) CONTINUUM- Organization by continuum utilizes magnitude to convey data, i.e. smallest to largest, cheapest to most expensive, etc. It is useful when studying industry.
#5) Identity design is “an analysis of all of the information about a company’s products or services”. It is how a company wants to be perceived by its consumers. Information design “analyzes, defines, and structures the relationships between ideas, and the way the ideas are visualized”. It is essentially taking a body of information and making understandable to anyone that may want to utilize it. Interactivity design finds understandable ways for two systems (i.e. humans & technology) to interact with each other. Mok uses the example of cellular phones, or keyboards to input characters on the computer.
The advancement of information technologies has affected the role of the designer because of the increasing amount of information that has become available. Broadcasting and the especially the computer (which has brought us things such as the internet, CD ROMS, and intercasts) have made it a necessity for designers to provide an efficient way for people to navigate and absorb any information that they observe. It has also become necessary for people from several different disciplines to work together to achieve the desired results on projects within these mediums. Mok provides the DADI process (definition, architecture, design, and implementation) which paves the way for “successful collaboration” between business people, designers, and engineers working together.
1. What Wurman means by “a fact can only be comprehended within the contest of an idea” is in order to come up with our own ideas we must first understand all the facts. If you do not understand the facts it is hard to form your own opinion on the matters at hand. Once these facts are understood then you have the freedom to interpret as you see fit. Wurman also suggests that facts are just as subjective as ideas, which is in part true because of the way a person interprets facts. One person's fact is another's opinion.
2. Wurman brings up the idea of examining the opposite and how “opposites embrace the unexpected-what you look at everyday but never really see or what you expect will never happen but does.” This reminds me of the mental map exercise because we had to draw a map of things we see everyday. It turns out that the things we see everyday might not be as easy to remember as you would think it would be. Another idea Wurman brings up is the method of creative organization. He uses the dog arrangements for his example and how there are many ways to organize them to create new information. The dogs did not change but the information about them did. You can do this with a lot of things in life. Ideas are meant to be broken down into simpler segments. It is a way of understanding. Finally, there are the parts to solving problems. Wurman does this by asking “what you want to accomplish and how you want to do it.” This relates to the mental map because we first had to ask ourselves what area we are going to create and which parts we will decide are important enough to put on the map. The how comes in when we were drawing our paths. These paths are our ways of getting to the destinations we find ourselves making a part of our lives.
3. We personalize information through our own thoughts and ideas. We bring our own concepts into the information we perceive and by doing this create our own vantage points.
4. The five ways to organize information are category, time, location, alphabet, and continuum. Categories break down information into different types therefore creating a new group of information. Time organizes events that occur during a certain period. Location splits up information related to regions of a certain area you are trying to examine. Alphabet is one of the common ways of organizing information. We often hear of things being alphabetized such as in the dictionary or encyclopedias. Continuum assigns to information a value or weight such as small to large and least expensive to most expensive.
5. Identity design, for example a person's signature, is a distinct form of expression of that person's self. Another example is a company's logo. “Identity is the expression of a company's vision and intent.” Information design is information that is created in order to help convey a message to communicate to the intended audience. Interactivity design is a way to offer information to a certain person through a method that includes some sort of interaction between message and viewer. It is almost more of a hands-on type thing where the person is able to actually find information on their own (ex. websites). Information technologies have affected the role of the designer because they have become so much more useful now that there is more information that needs to be put out into the world for people to discover. The technologies that have had the most impact are in the computer world. With the necessity of computers in the world today, designers need to design programs and things that people can use easily if they have never encountered them before.
#1. A fact can only be comprehended within the context of an idea because without the idea's information and structure there is no fact.
#2. Relating information to ideas already in your mind help you understand data, and help you learn.
There is more than one side to a story, in fact, there can be two, three, four, or how many stories it takes to unreveal an object or person. Thats why you investigate by observing them through different vantage points.
You experience all things through your own senses, and eventually make your own opinions and views, and that is what you base your information hierarchy on. Thats why everyone that creates a mental map will have a different map than another. People consciously and subconsciously exclude certain data when catagorizing information in thier minds.
#3. We personalize information by taking recieved data and contorting it in different ways through opinon and bias towards different aspects.
#4. Category, Time, Alphabet, Location, and Continuum.
Category: Objects organized by different obvious features
Time: Objects organized by different ages.
Alphabet: Easier to find things if organized according to the alphabet 26 character system.
Location: Objects organized by where they are in the world.
Continuum: Objects organized by how large or small, extreme or lame.
#5. Identity Design is a company's face, personality...it's being. A simple glance of what a company does, and what it is.
Information Design is the way data is organized to make it comprehenable and easier to find.
Interactivity Design is a way two or more objects can interact by mediating eachother and working together, checks and balances.
Technologies have had such a massive effect on designers. From new computers developing every year, getting faster and faster, to being able to extract any kind of information anywhere in the world to having computer programs that make real, surreal, programs that have no boundries. If a designer does not keep up with the most recent technology, that designer will fall behind and is most likely to fail because the rest of the design world will move on into the future.
1) To understand the truth behind a fact is to have the experience to understand it. Facts will not make sense unless one can compare and relate it to something he already knows to be a truth.
2) Info hierarchies are created based on the creators opinion of importance, what he knows to be true, and where his point of view is heading. It is a process of simplifying all the information found into one clear, yet bias message. Everyone is given or has access to the same information, what one chooses to do with this freedom is entirely up to him.
3) We personalize information when we absorb the facts and place them in scenarios of our lives. By comparing these new facts to what we had learned to be truths, we can put them into context and apply them to new situations. It does become bias based on whose point of view it comes from and their personal understandings.
4) Category - an organization of goods; Time - an organization of events during certain time periods; Location - to understand/ compare information from a multitude of sources; Alphabet - an incredible organization of large quantities of information; Continuum - an organization by size variable i.e. - small to large. The many ways information can be organized allows for the insight to new possibilities and new methods of coming to the same conclusions. Giving us multiple view points and solutions to one problem.
5) Identity design allows a company to reach out to their intented audience by expressing the companies true meanings and view points. The logo is just the tip of the iceberg, but if created correctly will make the audience interested to find out more. Information design allows the information to become understandable by giving it a background; a definition. It brings focus and organization to the unceasing masses. Interactivity design allows for two already working systems to be brought together and work in a new way thereby bringing about a new meaning; with the possibility of improvement.
The role of the designer now has many positives and negatives. A positive being that there is now a plethera of ways to come up with a myriad of design solutions. A negative being that there is so much information traffic to sort through to get to the preferred solutions; making the designers duties much more difficult. The technology that has allegedly had the most impact would be the computer and its internet counterpart. If it hadn't been for the creation of the computer, humans wouldn't have been able to web them all together through the internet to create such sites as these.
1. What Wurman means by “a fact can only be comprehended within the context of an idea” is that a fact stated is only understood if the receiver has previous knowledge of that topic. This previous knowledge is learned through historical contexts and through their own experiences and can be applied to understanding future “facts” that they are told.
2. Information hierarchies are created based on the person’s opinion of what is most important out of what he perceives to be the truth, and how the person is trying to express that information to others. Personal bias is a large factor in information hierarchies. Making the mental map, people included, excluded, and detailed different information that was important to them.
3. We personalize information by taking in the facts presented to us of interest, and relating it to our own lives.
4. The five ways to organize information are by category, time, location, alphabet, and continuum. Categorizing helps organize items into specific listings of similar importance. Time is a chronological scheduling of information. Location compares information from different sources or locales. The alphabet uses twenty-six symbols and allows for a large quantity of information to be organized in one system. Continuum organizes information by scale, by assigning a value or weight to each piece of information.
5. Identity design is the perception of the product or company. It is important at all times because a good design, whether it is a logo or an entire branding system, will get the company’s name out to consumers, new and old alike. Information design simplifies the companies operations for clients to understand, by using maps, charts, etc. Interactivity design is being able to make two different systems work and communicate with each other. Information technologies have affected the role of the designer greatly. It has given the opportunity for information to be outputted in various ways. It makes the job more exciting because information can reach clients and be understood, as well as visually pleasing. The most impactful technology began with the computer and continued onto the internet age. It is quick, easy to use, and accessible to a mass amount of viewers. It is the tool that everyone can relate to these days.
1) " a fact can only be comprehended with in the context of ideas" means that, people can not understand a fact with out having prior knowledge of the ideas or information which supports this fact. Facts are subjective, and will not make sense unless we can form a relationship between new information, and ideas which we already accept.
2)Information hierarchies and bias toward specific data are created because everyone learns and understands things at a different rate, and through different processes. We also need different hierarchies or biases that are practical for unique situations.
In order to organize information, we must use hierarchies to group information by category, time, location, alphabet, or continuum. This will allow us to easily find information when we need it (which is the most important resource to have while being overwhelmed by information anxiety).
Another time hierarchies or biases are created is when we view information from different vantage points. Once you have learned information, you can begin to ask yourself more analytical questions about these facts. You can then figure out more details, figure out how the information can be useful to you, and also understand the information even better.
Also, biases and hierarchies are created because we all have our own opinions and view-points, so we interpret information individually from eachother, and deem different details as most important.
3) We personalize information by using our own opinions or knowledge to interpret or present information in various ways. This will also illustrate how information is subjective, and the way we poresent it is usually egotistical.
4) Five ways to organize information is by: Category, Time, Location, Alphabet, and Continuum. This mode of organization provides new information because it allows us to group and regroup information into these classifications, which then allows us to realize and form different relationships between these facts that we might not have realized before. Also, as we recognize more relationships and form additional ideas, we begin to understand the material better.
5) Identity design is an expression of a company's outlook, perspective, and, intentions, principles, and objectives. Information design makes information comprehensible by giving it context or framework (and as we know the best way to understand facts is by giving context to ideas). Interactivity design is used when figuring out relationships between two systems and how they can work together, and how they communicate with eachother.
Information technologies make information more readily available to designers, and everyone else else. This effects the designers role in two ways. It makes thier role easier because of the and mass amounts of info and its availabilty. It also makes thier role more challenging because thier is a lot more information to handle, learn, and present in new and innovative ways.
The technologies that have made the most impact must be computers and the internet. Computers allow designers to easily and effectively manipulate and layout information, as well as conveniently duplicating these things. The internet has allowed so much more information to be stored, presented, found, and always available at our finger tips. "The information super-highway" has made information much more accessible.
1) What Werman Means by "a fact can only be comprehended within the context of an idea", is that we must have a referance or previous knoledge of whatever the subject is.
2)Information Hierarchies are created the moment you look at at things and therefore, how you look at them. Observing people is something everyone masters in ther own way by using there own methods of dividing time and space.
3)To organize information the first important thing to remember is that the information only works if the person who gathers it, understands what they have gathered. Everyone is different and understands things different. Sometimes information is already givin to us and organized in a manner which is assumed to be understood by some or most. At times the path to the solution is not as easy for some therefore they must develope there owm methods.
4)There are five ways a person can organize information. Category is a specific list, Time is used for schedualing purposes, Location is for the divercity of the place, the alphabet gives a wide range of options for different words, and continium is directed to scale.
5)Identity design is an analysis of all of the information about a company’s products or services, like a web page. It is how a company wants to be seen by its consumers. Information design structures the relationships between ideas, and the way the ideas are visualized. It is taking information and making understandable to anyone that may want to utilize it. If it is hard to understand, the consumer will think the information is to hard to translate. Interactivity design finds understandable ways for two systems, humans & technology to interact with each other. The example Mok uses is keyboards to put characters on the computer. The Technology of today has had a mayjor effect on designers. New computers are developing every year, getting faster and more complex. With the constant growth of technology, designers also have to be constantly learning about the technology themselves. If a designer does not keep up with the most recent technology, the designer will be out of date and is most likely to be unsuccesfull because the rest of the design world will be growing with the technology it’s fate rests on.
Matt Kasprzyk said...
What Wurman meant by the statement, “a fact can only be comprehended within the context of an idea,” is that facts are subjective to the individual interpreting the idea. Several people can be given the same fact, but based on the individual’s understanding and influences from their environment several interpretations can be made. This reflects the indivualality of the message receiver. Information needs to be easily understood by all to ensure the correct message is being sent to everyone.
From my experience making a mental map, information hierarchies are made from neccessaty, revalance, and knowledge. When making my map I wanted to show how I got to school, the route traveled was necessary, what was not on that route wasn’t relevant, and my knowledge of the area effected the information I provided.
We personalize information by how we interpret it. Different perceptions or vantage points are influenced by our environment and experiences. The same information can be seen differently by two people because of their diverse backgrounds, which are based on experiences. These vantage points cause information to be seen with personalized meaning.
The five ways to organize information are category, time, location, alphabet, and continuum:
-Category is often used when organizing goods. This organization of information is well used with items of similar importance and is reinforced with use of color.
-Time, works best when organizing events. It is an easily understood guide that changes and comparisons can be made.
-Location is the organization of information to use when trying to examine and compare information from diverse sources and locales.
-Alphabet is the method used to organize large bodies of information such as words in a dictionary or names. This is also a good method to use when the audience encompasses a broad spectrum and might not understand a different classification method.
-Continuum organizes information by magnitude, from small to large for example. This mode is used when a value needs to be places on an item and is illustrated with numbers or units.
Depending on how the information is arranged you see different relationships. The items do not change but the information perceived about them does. The simpler the point of view the clearer the information.
Identity design is not just a company logo. Although, that is what usually makes the first impression. “Identity is the expression of a company’s vision and intent.” The job as a designer is to express that vision and intent.
Information Design brings focus and order to content and the media used to express it. “It analyzes, defines, and structures the relationships between ideas and the ways the ideas are visualized.” “Its end products are navigational structures.”
Interactivity Design is making two separate systems work together, such as the human system and a computer system. The role of a designer is to make the systems understandable.
Very useful Stephanie, I can use what you've got here on Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th as well as your other stuff for the research we're doing for organized living. Cheers, Anny.
Stephanie I've enjoyed this on Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th and it's been useful for our own project on ##LINK#. Thanks. Anny.
I'm researching for file organization and this on Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th is useful so thanks Stephanie. Anny
Great post Stephanie I'm working with the writer of this course for organize work and Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th has helped so thanks. Anny
Just wanted to say that I've sent some notes I gathered from your blog including Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th for research on organize household which I'm helping with, with so thanks a lot Stephanie. Anny.
Just wanted to say that I've sent some notes I gathered from your blog including Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th for research on organized living which I'm helping with, with so thanks a lot Stephanie. Anny.
Very useful Stephanie, I can use what you've got here on Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th as well as your other stuff for the research we're doing for how to organize clutter. Cheers, Anny.
Very useful Stephanie, I can use what you've got here on Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th as well as your other stuff for the research we're doing for how to organize time. Cheers, Anny.
Just wanted to say that I've sent some notes I gathered from your blog including Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th for research on organise home which I'm helping with, with so thanks a lot Stephanie. Anny.
Stephanie I've enjoyed this on Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th and it's been useful for our own project on ##LINK#. Thanks. Anny.
Stephanie I've enjoyed this on Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th and it's been useful for our own project on ##LINK#. Thanks. Anny.
Just wanted to say that I've sent some notes I gathered from your blog including Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th for research on organize your home which I'm helping with, with so thanks a lot Stephanie. Anny.
Just wanted to say that I've sent some notes I gathered from your blog including Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th for research on organize your files which I'm helping with, with so thanks a lot Stephanie. Anny.
Just wanted to say that I've sent some notes I gathered from your blog including Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th for research on organize files which I'm helping with, with so thanks a lot Stephanie. Anny.
Great post Stephanie I'm working with the writer of this course for organize life and Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th has helped so thanks. Anny
I'm researching for organize files and this on Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th is useful so thanks Stephanie. Anny
Very useful Stephanie, I can use what you've got here on Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th as well as your other stuff for the research we're doing for personal organization. Cheers, Anny.
Just wanted to say that I've sent some notes I gathered from your blog including Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th for research on how to organize time which I'm helping with, with so thanks a lot Stephanie. Anny.
Post a Comment
<< Home