CPA and Finding the Fish

The Ongoing Moment" - this fabulous book by geoff dyer has taught me a big big needed lesson on slowing down. in his essays, photographs that i probably wouldn't have looked at twice become microworlds of association and storytelling through his imagineering - all you need for your own imagineering is to just have the patience to 'stop by' and look and dive into what's there. achieving that mental state though is the hard bit.

slow food etc, we've been there, but the whole discussion can be taken to a whole new next level when we take it from a (physical) consumption to a (mental) perception context. how could we be in control speeding up and down our own visual perception / contemplation mechanisms? i'd like to train myself a bit better, i'd like to become more fluent in my visual thinking.

constant partial attention: driven by the desire to not miss anything, we feel compelled to always have 'half an eye' out there for something else. this isn't necessarily a bad thing, however some times the scanning and skimming mechanisms do take over, and it takes a conscious effort to change gears, to change direction, to find the way out of this semi-automatic surface scanning in order to dive into the 'depth' of a textual or a visual world.

what are interface mechanisms that can help explore (digital) content in both breadth and depth? current design explorations seem to hint at a better combination and integration of zooming and scrolling such as seen for example in microsoft's seadragon or other maps like browsing paradigms (ok, that was soo 2 years ago, but what's next?) ... however, these mechanisms are somewhat limited as they do not help making decisions at a very top level - people who access maps do usually know where they want to start, and the actual experience is about the seduction of 'falling down' into the richness of content that lies in the depth ahead somewhere.

so how to design for top-level blink of an eye decisions? presented with a 'streaming ton' of information, what are the signals and signposts in (digital) content itself that can help people make decisions which routes to take alongside an x, y and z-axis of an 'information engagement' space? (x,y,z-axis, ie 3d space, is probably not the right metaphor and working model here in the first place; i think that understanding information happens in one at the same time deep and shapeless space... but that's just me and how it feels to me).

what are the rules behind non-digital artefacts that successfully manage to 'turn my attention round' to them? rule nr1 (there is only 1 so far... but i am searching for more): they do give me enough info and resolution on both detail and distance level at a first glance. i start to move them 'around in my head' immediately, and i turn my attention towards them a tiny tick later (most people probably know that feeling when they have turned over a page too quickly and then having to flip it back because there's something that needs to be 'looked' at). this seamless/simultaneous resolution across detail and distance... it doesn't exist in digital at all.

detail design and preserving detail traces in a digital context: i came across this same photo (top of post - a whale being butchered) in the guardian's online- and offline editions. in the online edition, i barely noticed the photo (to be fair i think i had forgotten it before i'd even seen it if that is somehow possible). in the offline edition i couldn't take my eyes off it - the image was too well resolved, i could see the fine fur (do you call it fur??) of the whale, and i could see the men butchering it, standing ON THE WHALE'S BODY in puddles of whale blood, splashing around in their yellow wellies... i can think of no way of reusing the same content (here: the photo) to convey the same meaning in both offline and online - a simple 'enlarge photo' function preempts itself as we are looking to design for instant encounters.

we have accepted different editorial- and production needs for offline/online textual content long ago, but how to appropriate that insight for visual offline/online content?

ps i love the fact that the wikipedia entry on continuous partial attention starts off with a quote about finding the fish (ok, a whale is a mammal.... but still):

"[CPA] usually involves skimming the surface of the incoming data, picking out the relevant details, and moving on to the next stream. You're paying attention, but only partially. That lets you cast a wider net, but it also runs the risk of keeping you from really studying the fish."

Square Smileys on Google Reader?

oh the extravaganza :) - also nice how the star icon looks soo distinctly 90s compared with the happy face

Poetic Failure

i'm a sucker for random poetic breakdown like this (can't render uncertainty in wikipedia's "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics" :)

- btw this has been fixed now -

Smile by Design

i have been mulling about the question what makes us laugh in design, where we accept obvious failings with a smile and where we just get frustrated.

i've learned quite a lot about our instinct to smile from 2d/character design. full-on posters of grinning disney figures always make us smile back, but how does this instinct work in a functional design context (and by functional i mean, electronically enhanced and interactive)? when have i last smiled back at a piece of grinning technology?

doesn't happen often with (perceived) multi function products. i don't say good morning to my nokia, and i don't accept it's oddities or failures with some form of character recognition and/or sympathy for the poor thing. (ok, if i had an iphone. but no, don't think so either).

could happen rather often with (perceived) single function products. i can imagine an alarm clock that i say good morning to as well as good night, and i would know exactly when to slap it and when to leave it alone in case of a malfunction. (no, i don't have a million tamagotchis at home, and i don't intend to get a tama-farm started soon).

the less perceived functionality, the more room for bonding, dialogue and character design in digital devices?

"No photographs please"

i want to be able to take pictures, fairly, as i please and with respect, wherever i go - especially in inspirational/educational environments such as art galleries and museums. i've been reading up on this mission impossible and have been entangled in a whole web of arguments why this could be too hard to come true.

there's the bad-bad-artists against the good-good museums stance, aka copyright issues: firstly, museums do not generally hold any copyrights for the artworks they physically own or exhibit. secondly, museums ~might~ be held responsible by the copyright holders ie artists to protect the holder's copyright within their four museal walls. thirdly, museums will just switch off any threat of copyright infringement by default as a consequence as anything else will be too hard to manage. (i haven't found any signs of a shared directive across museums on this copyright/protection issue so do believe that interpretations and actions are mostly down to individual and institutional contracts and policies. omg, just imagine the operational mess that comes with every major exhibition...)

then there's the museums-as-moneymakers conspiracy: museums would have a vital interest in not allowing photography of public domain artwork* from their collection as that would immediately affect postcard sales from their museum shop. really?? this seems a pretty stupid argument, i don't think so. someone who'd like to have a sketchy mona lisa snapshot on their iPhone wouldn't be in the market for a high-end mona lisa postcard reproduction in the first place. i would love to hear some museum employees' voices on this one, i don't think we'd be having much of a fight here...

picking up on the word reproduction, there's a slightly more esoteric conversation around reproduction and aura on flickr initiated by an actual museum containing rather interesting thoughts of actual people entitled "Why do people take pictures of works of art?"? so why are people doing such crazy things? some just want to capture the moment. some just want to capture themselves. some do create unique photographs, portraing the whole gallery space rather than any individual pieces of art (i just love the example of the photo series exploring reflections of art on gallery surfaces). some want to document a detail of an artwork that won't be covered in any kind of professional reproduction (a repro, i'm pretty sure, will always aim to produce an 'average' visitor's view on any artwork - which is the same as saying its product will be a compromise on personal seeing, more apt to please someone who _has not actually visited_ the artwork rather than a person who has experienced it with their own eyes).

so... where does that leave me with my quest?

there's no point in trying to convince museums and art galleries to change their policies long-term... camera phones will win. there's some short-term gains to be made though by making today's visitor experience less miserable. don't make people feel bad about carrying a camera, don't make them hide their tech like they had just gone shoplifting. be transparent and actively inform you visitors about your photo/copy policy and the reasons behind it. make sure people know which artist is ok with visual takeaways and which isn't (as soon as artists get individually and visibly marked... they might change their attitude). allow your visitors to photograph without flash as much as they like and as long as they don't go in full repro mode. if the artist/copyright holder doesn't mind, do allow them to go into full repro mode. have museum guides offering to take pictures of visitors in front of artworks. sell better digital photos in your shop and allow people to send and share them. (where's all your other digital products, in the first place?). last but not least, make sure your guides know whom and what they are supposed to protect.

ps i read in a quote the other day where a school girl was told to cease and desist sketching in front of a classic painting... much to learn from that mal-behaviour.