lawaugh

Polyvore is a website where users can go to mix and match fashion-based mood boards. Polyvore is similar to one of my mini studies from study 1, the clipping bin storyboard. I think mood boards are a good way to generate the feeling of something—this same type of concept would be interesting to use in argument construction.

What is Ushahidi? from Ushahidi on Vimeo.

I came across Ushahidi while doing thesis research on existing tools for citizen journalists. The service started in Kenya as a way for people to report situations of crisis in real time. It includes geotagging so that information can be sorted through quickly, based on who’s posting, where they are, and when they are posting. It was used last year to cover swine flu outbreaks in conjunction with Google Maps. What’s great about this service is that it’s open source, so it can be used as a valuable tool for citizen journalists within their communities.

I’m currently looking at Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais’ Millennial Makeover to get an idea of the audience I’m considering for thesis. The authors published an article in The Washington Post in February 2008 describing this digital generation they call the Millennials. Being born in 1982, I’m apparently one of the oldest members of this generation, but I didn’t even know it. Looking forward to exploring more…

How can interactive visualization tools in an online writing space help 18-30 year-olds construct an argument when articulating opinions about national political campaigns?

• How can the design of annotative tools within an online writing space create affordances for research, conversation, and response?
• How can visual literacy tools within an online writing space facilitate the use of persuasive appeal in expressing arguments?
• How can visual cues within an online writing space guide a writer’s assessment of audience and context to determine tone and style of writing?

While researching for Project 2, I came across Kickstarter, a website that gives people the opportunity to raise money to fund their projects (they say “funding for creativity and ambition”). People who come to the site can pledge a certain amount toward a given project and the money is collected only if the project gets enough money. There are lots of interesting projects to sort through, including (at the time of this posting) the proposal for a Designing for Obama book.

This article is from last week’s NY Times. It kind of makes me wonder, who/what will be Facebook’s predecessors? What are we in for?

Since I’ve been in grad school, I’ve become really interested in how people are interacting more and more on a digital level and the implications of this on face to face contact. Last semester, my final paper discussed how design has started to address this and how it’s becoming part of a shift within the design world.

I came across this article on Time.com about how digital networking can actually enhance human physical relationships. Since I’m just starting to develop an opinion on this, I admit I never thought about it that way. Even though I’m on Facebook, I’m still a little anti-Facebook in that I don’t use many of the features and don’t get on much if I can help it. I guess I’m just afraid of that time suck. And maybe the TMI aspect. It feels a little too voyeuristic at times, but at the same time it’s interesting to think about the value it may have in furthering relationships.