1.the legibility of a cup
2.talk equal: a conversational space for the balanced opportunity of speech
Monday, February 25, 2008
talk equal
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-a closed curve forms the conversational area
-the shape of closed curve is defined by the number of participant-each participants has their own area of petal shape
-the area of each petal increases and decreases in proportion to the amount of talk of its owner-the total area of closed curve is fixed
-when one participant dominates the conversation and the petal gets too big, the text becomes dimmer and illegible-the background color changes warning of the dominancy of conversation
-the background color aslo helps making the dominant text illegible
-the invisible text prevents the dominant participant from continuing talking until the size of overall petals recovers its balance-because of the invisible text, other participants have more chance to talk while the petals recover the balance
-as the petal size recovers, the background color and the intensity of text color recovers as well
the legibility of a cup
What is it? What do we do with this hollow and empty cylinder? It is a container. The cylindric hollow is good for holding things within the structure. It can contain anything from liquid, grain, rocks, air, and clothes. Of course, I know it is a cup. A cup is the container for drinks which we grasp and take toward the lips to slide the liquid into the mouth. Then how do we read it as a cup just by looking at it? What visual cues make us to perceive it as a cup among other containers?(1)Scale
The scale gives us the clue about how we relate to a cup. It can be decoded from the scale that the cup is small enough to be graspable.(2)Shape
The shape can add more clue about whether it invites our hands to touch it, whether it helps liquid to flow in an intended direction, and whether it invites us to put our lips onto it. It can be decoded from a spiky surface that this object is not meant to be grabbed. The smooth surface invites the touching of hands. Also, the rounded edge of the cylindric shape is proper for the lips to touch. If it is square-shaped, it is not as inviting as a rounded edge from an ergonomic point of view. Also, the liquid will only flow in an intended direction at the four points of the end of four sides.
Some clues about handling is a very useful way in judging whether it is a cup or not. A square does not help the object to look like a cup, while adding an ear-shaped handle suddenly makes the object to look like a cup although the object is square-shaped. The shape of a handle is also one reason why the giant sculpture above looks like a cup in spite of its scale. But the unconventional shape of handle does not help the object to look like a cup, because the visual and experiential unfamiliarity interrupts the efficiency of object recognition. So it can be said that the acquired social knowledge also affects the legibility.
In some cases, the shape also tells which part to direct the cup toward the lips.(3)Material
The material can be another clue for decoding of the meaning of the object. Although it has the shape of the cup, the mesh and cloth does not make the object to look like an actual cup, because it seems not to be able to function as a cup. The container made of mesh or cloth would not hold the liquid. It will spill the liquid or it will get wet(and spill the liquid).Conclusion
A cup becomes distinguishable among other containers based on the clues coded, for example, in its scale, shape and material. And these clues form our conventional expectation about something perceived as a cup. The contribution of the clues sometimes differs. The legibility of a cup depends on whether or how easily these clues can be decoded from the object.
a question:
The left one is a cup for infant, and the right one is a water glass. The left one seems to have many clues for being perceived as a cup. It is round, it has smooth surface, it has two handles for the ones with weaker grasping strength, and it has the direction for locating the mouth. On the other hand, the right one has less clues. It is round and smooth. However, the left one does not seem to be more legible than the right one. Then why is the left one less legible when it has more clues? How does the right one achieve more legibility? Does it relate to the efficiency of communication achieved by focusing the point? Or does it mean the abstractness(of the right one’s shape) can convey more powerful and intuitive meaning?
Monday, February 11, 2008
1st week's assignment
The different metaphor in Flickr and Wordpress and its influence on user’s perception and use
People put their photos and share them on Flickr. The same thing happens with blogging tool such as Wordpress except that they put and share the articles. The features within Flickr allow the users to upload and share a large number of photo images easily and quickly. Wordpress provides more powerful text editing tool and this feature obviously helps users to upload and share more organized articles. However, the overall features within these two services are basically quite similar. Both services provide the photo uploading feature and text uploading feature, and it is also possible to post a long text on Flickr and a series of photographs on Wordpress. What makes the perception and the use of Flickr and Wordpress different is not the features they provide. What really distinguishes the use of these services is the metaphor they are bearing. Here, metaphor helps highlighting the specific use of the service, but at the same time it hides other potential uses.
The metaphor used in Flickr, which is a kind of a blogging, is that this online service which consists of features for creating and managing data and online storage space is a photo album. The users can get the sense that it is a photo album by noticing the specific labels on the front page such as ‘Upload Photos.” In Flickr, your page(which is another metaphor) is called “Your photos” and the digital photo data are arranged on the page in the way the physical photos are arranged in the physical photo album. The photos also can be categorized into sets, which look like stacks of polaroid photographs. While users can “upload(this term makes the digital data to sound like a physical and tangible thing which can be lifted and loaded to somewhere else)” the photos, users merely can “add a description” even though they can actually put a five-pages-long essay in terms of its function. The label “add” also implies that the textual data would be attached in addition to something more fundamental, the photo. The labels used within Flickr system are specifically crafted and it seems that setting the photo as a dominant content and the text as a minor addition is intentional. This intention is aimed at limiting the potential use and guiding users to focus on specific behavior such as uploading more and only photos. By doing so, the identity of the service which is specialized in image data can be promoted more easily and users also would be able to use the service without being puzzled what to do with it.
In blogging service such as Wordpress, the metaphor is that this online service which consists of features for creating and managing data and online storage space is a personal publishing system. The users see they can “Write a post” although they can technically upload only photos without writing a word. Even when users want to upload only photos, they will notice they have to choose “insert image” feature, which suggests that the image is supposed to be inserted somewhere between other type of more dominant contents, the text. The thing the user is writing and editing, which is supposedly to be an article, will be called “a draft” when it is not ready to set public, and it finally becomes “published” and becomes visible to other users when it is finished. The articles will be “archived” when they exceed a certain number or when a certain amount of time passes. The labels within Wordpress system have to be carefully framed, especially because it does not prevent users from using this service as a photo album. There is no functional restriction in Wordpress when the users want to put only a photo on the article, while Flickr restricts putting only a text on its photo album by not providing the feature. So, in Wordpress’s case, the intention of labeling aims at comparatively weak recommendation on what to do with the service, writing, and this recommendation also slightly forces the users to be more serious about using the service than uploading series of photographs at a time. The labeling of Wordpress is literal and it ties up the metaphor of publishing with the online service. But, at the same time, it is still reasonable to say that Wordpress maintains more balanced use of two main types of contents--text and image--and can get privileged by more versatile use by adopting the metaphor of publication, which also involves more versatile editing tactics and contents these days such as video clips, hyper links, and instant polls.
The similar highlighting and hiding effects happen in YouTube.com where the blog is labeled as a channel and people run the channel with a certain attitude of a broadcasting station, and in Cyworld.com(the largest SNS in Korea) where the blog is visually represented as a personal diary and people post fairly personal and trivial essays. The linguistic and visual cues are efficiently highlighting--or restricting--the perception and use of the services which have seemingly similar features. On the other hand, Multiply.com is not so widely used as Flickr or Wordpress although it has abundant useful features and powerful photo uploading tool as well. The reason might be found in the fact that it emphasizes too many potential uses by providing too many metaphors of similar weight--diary, photo album, recipe book, etc. It suggests the users too many things that they could not get clearly highlighted visions about what the user can do within the system. And finally every potential uses become all hidden.
People put their photos and share them on Flickr. The same thing happens with blogging tool such as Wordpress except that they put and share the articles. The features within Flickr allow the users to upload and share a large number of photo images easily and quickly. Wordpress provides more powerful text editing tool and this feature obviously helps users to upload and share more organized articles. However, the overall features within these two services are basically quite similar. Both services provide the photo uploading feature and text uploading feature, and it is also possible to post a long text on Flickr and a series of photographs on Wordpress. What makes the perception and the use of Flickr and Wordpress different is not the features they provide. What really distinguishes the use of these services is the metaphor they are bearing. Here, metaphor helps highlighting the specific use of the service, but at the same time it hides other potential uses.
The metaphor used in Flickr, which is a kind of a blogging, is that this online service which consists of features for creating and managing data and online storage space is a photo album. The users can get the sense that it is a photo album by noticing the specific labels on the front page such as ‘Upload Photos.” In Flickr, your page(which is another metaphor) is called “Your photos” and the digital photo data are arranged on the page in the way the physical photos are arranged in the physical photo album. The photos also can be categorized into sets, which look like stacks of polaroid photographs. While users can “upload(this term makes the digital data to sound like a physical and tangible thing which can be lifted and loaded to somewhere else)” the photos, users merely can “add a description” even though they can actually put a five-pages-long essay in terms of its function. The label “add” also implies that the textual data would be attached in addition to something more fundamental, the photo. The labels used within Flickr system are specifically crafted and it seems that setting the photo as a dominant content and the text as a minor addition is intentional. This intention is aimed at limiting the potential use and guiding users to focus on specific behavior such as uploading more and only photos. By doing so, the identity of the service which is specialized in image data can be promoted more easily and users also would be able to use the service without being puzzled what to do with it.
In blogging service such as Wordpress, the metaphor is that this online service which consists of features for creating and managing data and online storage space is a personal publishing system. The users see they can “Write a post” although they can technically upload only photos without writing a word. Even when users want to upload only photos, they will notice they have to choose “insert image” feature, which suggests that the image is supposed to be inserted somewhere between other type of more dominant contents, the text. The thing the user is writing and editing, which is supposedly to be an article, will be called “a draft” when it is not ready to set public, and it finally becomes “published” and becomes visible to other users when it is finished. The articles will be “archived” when they exceed a certain number or when a certain amount of time passes. The labels within Wordpress system have to be carefully framed, especially because it does not prevent users from using this service as a photo album. There is no functional restriction in Wordpress when the users want to put only a photo on the article, while Flickr restricts putting only a text on its photo album by not providing the feature. So, in Wordpress’s case, the intention of labeling aims at comparatively weak recommendation on what to do with the service, writing, and this recommendation also slightly forces the users to be more serious about using the service than uploading series of photographs at a time. The labeling of Wordpress is literal and it ties up the metaphor of publishing with the online service. But, at the same time, it is still reasonable to say that Wordpress maintains more balanced use of two main types of contents--text and image--and can get privileged by more versatile use by adopting the metaphor of publication, which also involves more versatile editing tactics and contents these days such as video clips, hyper links, and instant polls.
The similar highlighting and hiding effects happen in YouTube.com where the blog is labeled as a channel and people run the channel with a certain attitude of a broadcasting station, and in Cyworld.com(the largest SNS in Korea) where the blog is visually represented as a personal diary and people post fairly personal and trivial essays. The linguistic and visual cues are efficiently highlighting--or restricting--the perception and use of the services which have seemingly similar features. On the other hand, Multiply.com is not so widely used as Flickr or Wordpress although it has abundant useful features and powerful photo uploading tool as well. The reason might be found in the fact that it emphasizes too many potential uses by providing too many metaphors of similar weight--diary, photo album, recipe book, etc. It suggests the users too many things that they could not get clearly highlighted visions about what the user can do within the system. And finally every potential uses become all hidden.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)