JAMcArthur
Information Design & User-Experience
Spaces of Learning meet User Experience Design
Those planning construction or renovation projects for educational facilities might want to study the people using the proposed space as part of the construction and planning process. Dr. John A. McArthur makes this case in an article in the American Clearinghouse on Educational Facilities Journal. The publication, titled “Practical Lessons from User-Experience Design for Spaces of Learning,” uses information design theory to advocate for user participation in facilities improvement and management.
In the Editor’s Note, Mark Littleton writes, “John McArthur provides an eloquent discussion of user-experience design, a discussion that centers on facility design which favors spaces designed for learning over spaces designed for teaching.”
Dr. John A. McArthur is an assistant professor and director of undergraduate programs in the Knight School of Communication at Queens University of Charlotte.
Read the article – “Practical Lessons from User-Experience Design for Spaces of Learning” - in the journal’s online edition.
Voicing a Campus Icon: Twitter, a bronze goddess, and hyperlocal community engagement
Where do information design theory, digital media, and community engagment intersect? One location is on the Queens University of Charlotte campus inside a fountain in the middle of a major courtyard. That’s the home of @QueensDiana.
At the National Communication Association annual conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, I presented a paper on the hyperlocal community engagement enhanced by @QueensDiana, the Twitter page of the bronze statue Diana, Goddess of the Hunt.
My presentation surrounded the intersection between the user-experience of Diana and the sense of community created in that experience. Here are the visuals that accompanied my presentation.
If you’re interested in this topic and other case studies about the intersection of digital media and information design, look forward to our book on the topic coming out this spring.
9/11 Remembered in Memorials
This column was featured as "Share Your Own Memory" in today's Greenville News.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was sitting in a classroom on the first day of the term at Furman University. I had just finished the first course of my senior year – “Freedom in the Western Tradition” – and was settling into my second of the day – “Islam.”
The irony of that juxtaposition was not lost on me that morning.
As planes crashed in New York City, Washington, DC and a field in Pennsylvania, I watched and prayed. Two days later, as news was still developing, student leaders at Furman led a prayer vigil for our country. At our opening of school convocation, the Furman community sang a hopeful “America, the Beautiful” in place of the typical rendition of our alma mater.
A decade after 9/11, each of us can remember our feelings of shock, anger, and fear and tell the story of where we were when the news found us. When we take the time to share our stories, we memorialize the event. But the stories of those that perished in the attacks will be forever told through our national memorials.
The Pentagon’s 9/11 memorial was dedicated three years ago. 184 benches, each representing one of the lives lost at the site, jut up from the ground and hover over reflection pools. The benches are arranged along an age line – from the youngest victim aged 3 to the oldest, 71. Each is engraved with the name of the victim for whom it stands.
While facing the Pentagon, visitors see the inscriptions for those that died in the building; whereas the inscriptions for those who died aboard the plane can be read by facing the sky in the direction from which the plane travelled.
The gravel underfoot, the sound of flowing water, and the peeling paperbark maple trees at the site give the sensation that this is a place of memory, different from the area around it.
The memorials at the World Trade Center in New York City and the site of the Flight 93 crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania will be dedicated this weekend. Like the Pentagon Memorial, the two memorials to be dedicated on this solemn anniversary tell the stories of the lives lost there.
Each memorial is set apart from its surroundings, creating a place for reflection. Each shares the stories of the victims as individuals. And each creates a space designed for national remembrance.
Memorials move us from saying an independent, “I will never forget,” to declaring as a nation, “We will always remember.” They cause us to pause, to contemplate our history, and to share our own stories.
This September 11th, take the time to learn about our three national memorials and the stories of the lives they represent, reflect on the events of these last ten years, and tell your own story of remembrance.
Dr. John A. McArthur is an assistant professor in the Knight School of Communication at Queens University of Charlotte and resides in Greenville, SC. Contact Dr. McArthur at http://jamcarthur.com
“Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope”
As I entered the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC this week, I marched through the mountain of despair. Looking through the gap, all I saw was the east, the water, the promise of life greater than myself. I can only imagine that this was the designer’s intent: that we would walk through the mountain of despair with King and emerge still looking forward.
Then, by turning around, I could look back on King’s likeness and memories of his work. This turning, this remembrance, is important. But King’s eyes direct me back to the east into the water, pushing me forward, spurring me to add to his work.
King is larger than life, standing 28 feet tall and emerging from a stone. The stone that was once part of the mountain of despair has been cut free, pulled forward, and engraved. A quote on its side reads, “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”
His gaze is transfixed eastward across the tidal basin toward the Jefferson Memorial and Jefferson’s promise that “All men are created equal.” His back is turned toward the Lincoln Memorial, building on the nation’s progress in the fight for justice. His likeness emerges from the stone – complete, yet giving the appearance that more work can still be done.
Behind King, the arc of the memorial veers from the mountain of despair toward the Washington monument in one direction and toward the water in the other. The quotes engraved into the arc remind us that King’s legacy is one of hope, democracy, justice, and peace, reminding us that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (Letter from a Birmingham Jail).
Water flows down from the mountain of despair, and the cherry trees in the plaza – now green – will blossom anew each spring. In the darkness, the monument is washed in light from beneath and from the reflection of the water on the gleaming likeness of King.
Like King himself, the memorial calls on us to remember the past, but more importantly to look forward to a brighter future.
Author’s note: My visit to the memorial on Tuesday August 29, 2011, was 2 days after the planned dedication of the site and 1 day after the anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech, for which a time capsule was buried on the site. Due to Hurricane Irene, the dedication was postponed for a later date. I wonder if the chains surrounding the statue of King in this image are permanent – in the same way that they serve as a barrier in the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, or if the chains will be removed - leaving the site open like the FDR memorial - following the dedication.
Usability + Design = User Experience
I have stumbled along this sometimes somewhat stony path: from an analysis of users’ perceptions, to the notion of user satisfaction, to user experience… [alongside] some of the attractive theories that may have led me and others astray.
-Dr. Jurek Kirakowski
Clemson University’s MATRF, Usability Testing Center, and student chapter of the Society for Technical Communication welcomed Dr. Jurek Kirakowski to campus on June 20, 2011. As Director of the Human Factors Research Group at University College Cork in Ireland, Dr. Kirakowski studies human-computer interaction and presented today to a standing-room-only crowd of interested students, faculty, and at least one proud alum.
Among the highlights of Dr. Kirakowski’s lecture today was a brief overview of the history of usability testing in computers, beginning with analyses of behavioral tendencies and culminating in today’s focus on the user’s experience. In the trajectory of the field, usability has transitioned from a behavioral field toward one that understands the user as an individual, with individual needs and past experiences.
Usability can measure quantitative affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses, but it also needs qualitative explanations to really understand the user. An individual user’s experience with technology remains shaped not only by the technology she is using, but also by her past experiences with technology similar (and dissimilar) to the one being tested.
“We are humans who interact with the technology we create. We have the experience of using the technology, sure (experience of use); but we also have the experience of the technology in our lives (experience in use),” says Kirakowski. “It is our duty as researchers to extrapolate satisfying explanatory theories from the data ‐ and to test them.”
About Dr. Jurek Kirakowski
Dr. Jurek Kirakowski comes from a practical computer science and psychology background, which he applies in his specialty of study: the quantitative measurement of human‐computer interaction. He is the Director of the Human Factors Research Group at University College Cork in Ireland. This group has contributed the SUMI (Software Usability Measurement Inventory), and most recently the WAMMI (Web site Analysis and Measurement Inventory) questionnaires, which are both by now ‘de‐facto’ standards in their respective areas, showing how user experience can be objectively analysed and measured. He is a Statutory Lecturer in the Department of Applied Psychology where he teaches on methodology and statistics issues as well as HCI, and his Introduction to the Science of Psychology course is an extremely popular one among students.
Google Designs a Birthday Experience
In honor of Les Paul‘s birthday, Google has once again re-presented its iconic logo in a new form. This time, the guitar image plays on the user’s command to create an interactive experience.
To commemorate the reason for the design, I tried out my guitar skills. They don’t rival Paul’s, but here’s a sample:
The design of an experience like this one invites the user to play, to learn, and to be engaged – in this case, with a company’s logo. Such design asks the question, was this logo designed for Les Paul, or was it designed for me, the user?
Either way, it’s compelling design.
Designing Nutrition
The food pyramid is ancient history. In a move toward better communication, the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) ousted the pyramid in favor of “My Plate.” Is this better information design?
The new design certainly gives viewers the image of their dinner and a reference point for the way their plates should look. A quick glance reveals that half of a dinner plate should be filled with fruits and vegetables. A longer look suggests that the protein shouldn’t be the star of the plate.
Nanci Hellmich of USA Today reports that nutritionists like the practical change from the complicated pyramid released in 1992, and quotes first lady Michelle Obama as saying, “This is a quick, simple reminder for all of us to be more mindful of the foods that we’re eating.” After all, we don’t eat in pyramids.
Simplicity, elegance, and ease of information transfer are hallmarks of good design. “My Plate” is a vast improvement over the pyramid in those areas.In thinking about my own food consumption, I’ll remember “My Plate” when I look at, well, my plate.
My initial question is whether the plate suggests that we should be drinking dairy. The guidelines accompanying My Plate suggest we might choose to drink water.
What are your thoughts about the design of our new nutritional model?
Are newspapers all washed-up?
Even though our copy of the Greenville News was drenched by a downpour this Saturday morning, my commitment to reading the paper did not wane. As I stood in my garage methodically drying wet newsprint with a discarded hair dryer, several things occurred to me:
- Content is king. As I dried the paper, I crumpled 2-page spreads of ads for Kias, rooms of furniture and sporting equipment. Why waste my time? I even cut stories from ad-dominated pages so I didn’t have to dry the whole thing. The ads are all in my garage – still wet.
- Newsprint doesn’t bleed when wet. The drying process left less ink on my hands than a typical day of reading. Perhaps this is foreshadowing of the indelible nature of the journalistic process. Or maybe its just a sign of high quality ink.
- Layout hasn’t significantly changed in years. Would a newspaper layout be better served with a web-type-look: more available content up front so that readers could choose how to move through the paper? Or could we get annoyed by the constant flipping? A magazine-style approach might work, but good stories could get lost in the middle.
- Whereas they are better read from outside in, newspapers dry better from the inside out. As the water bled from the paper, I saw connections between the newspaper’s format and digital print. Reading a story that jumps across pages is similar to a click through online. I found myself wondering why I still take a daily rather than using my iPhone to deliver my news.
I hate to say it, but my newspaper may have transitioned this subscriber from paper to digital simply by not utilizing the convenient newspaper slot on my mailbox on a rainy day.
Emotional Design (Norman, 2004)
Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things (Donald Norman, 2004)
Three basic processes (visceral, emotional, and reflective) guide our interactions with the everyday things in our lives. The visceral reaction is our gut reaction; the behavioral reaction is based upon our ability to use a product; and the reflective process is the cognitive analysis an emotional reaction. “Emotion is inseparable from cognition,” says Bill Gary.
Kristen Odell notes that successful films are those that touch us on one (or more) of these three levels. The combination of these three levels make a robust experience for the user/viewer.
“Emotional design is not only for a product, but also for a process,” notes Valarie Udeh. The book reaffirmed the management style that provides a relaxed place for people to be creative, to brainstorm, and to perform. From a product development perspective, these designs impact enhancement and innovation.
“Most accidents are not cause by human error, but by poor design,” says Gary (quoting Norman). The role of design is to create aesthetic pleasure, ease of use, or fond memories. Processes that we design create opportunities for successful (or failed) social interaction.
Even though this book isn’t about digital media, the author addresses the products and processes that we use everyday and the way that they interact with us.
- Overall Response: This well designed book was full of worthwhile ideas and compelling commentary for both product and process. We loved it.
About Digital Media Book Club: In the growing field of strategic communication, social media rockstars, academics, and digital thinkers are investing time and energy to share their learning with others. In my Digital Strategic Communication class, students in the Master of Arts in Organizational and Strategic Communication program at Queens University of Charlotte are sifting through a variety of texts to discover the embedded wisdom. These are their thoughts and reactions.
Space in the Margins
When I teach Layout and Design, we spend a great deal of time talking about margins. Margins organize space in a design by allowing “white space” to offset the area containing the content on a page.
For example, on this website, you’ll see a margin to the left containing, well, nothing, and a margin to the right with links to all kinds of information. The header on this site contains both text and white space. These spaces provide a visual pattern for the reader that allows the viewer to focus more acutely on the important information.
Margins often achieve an anesthetic ideal, meaning that when they are used correctly, we don’t even notice their presence. When margins are too large you’ll notice the white space more than the content; and when margins are too small you won’t know what to examine first.
When I came across Dr. Richard Swenson’s book, Margin (2004), I was surprised to see this concept applied to life as we live it each day. Swenson talks about margin as it relates to our emotional, physical, financial, relational, and spiritual activities, advocating for a society in which people can make space for their priorities: “Margin is not (just) having time to finish the book you’re reading on stress; margin is having the time to read it twice.”
What Swenson calls us toward is a lifestyle in which the margin is a space that we actively create for ourselves. How? By carving out time and energy for living, relating, and enjoying the opportunity for the unexpected.
So often our lives, like our websites, are full of stuff we’ve designed. In the midst of such fullness, let us remember to also design the margin.
What could you achieve with space in the margin?
