History 513 2007-08 06. Studio

24 Oct 2007

We focus in on our task of designing interactive devices that put their users in touch with history in some way. This week we break into four groups to focus on visual, auditory, material and performative interactions.

Agre, Philip E. “Designing Genres for New Media: Social, Economic and Political Contexts,” in Steve Jones, ed. CyberSociety 2.0: Revisiting CMC and Community. Sage, 1998.

Saffer, Dan. “Ch. 2: Starting Points,” in Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices. Peachpit Press, 2006.
In-class Group Exercise

Do a generic analysis of historical practice. Following the process described in Agre’s paper, analyze the genres that you use for your research.

1. Choose a genre that relates in some way to the practice of public history. This might be some kind of primary source (image, document, artifact) or some kind of secondary source (exhibit panel, plaque, costume) or some combination of the two.
   

2. Describe the audience implied by the genre.
   

3. Describe the activities implied by the genre.
   

4. Who produces the material?
   

5. Who consumes the material?
   

6. How would you characterize the relationship(s) between producers and consumers?
   

7. How is this relationship mediated?
   

8. How does the stream of documents shape expectations about future instances?
   

9. How does the stream of documents “permit the establishment of efficient, familiar, habitual routines for using the materials”?
   

10. How might the genre be read ironically or against the grain? How might expectations be thwarted or spoofed?
    

11. What other genres are implied by the one that you are analyzing?
    

12. How might your selected genre have changed or change over time? What forces stabilize it? What forces disrupt it?
    

13. What digital tools are or might be used to reshape the generic processes that you have analyzed?

Basic CSS.

Eli Blevis and Martin A. Siegel. “The Explanation for Design Explanations,” 11th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Interaction Design Education and Research: Current and Future Trends. Las Vegas, NV: 2005.

Easy. Work through the W3 Schools tutorial on CSS.