Learning Agreement new draft

Neil Owen
Draft Learning Agreement

“Most often, when people are asked to describe the current media landscape, they respond by making an inventory of tools and technologies. Our focus should be not on emerging technologies but on emerging cultural practices.”
Henry Jenkins
Eight Traits of the New Media Landscape
http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/11/eight_traits_of_the_new_media.html

“There is a misconception that all the changes we are experiencing as a society are the result of new technologies, but the real changes are profoundly cultural. As we shift to a DIY culture that runs on creativity, the implications could be as profound as when society went from farming to manufacturing”
Matt Mason
The Pirates Dilemma

“Web1.0: get Noise.
Web2.0: make Noise
Web3.0: filter Noise
Web4.0: Deaf - or SmartNoise?”
Gerd Leonhard
http://www.mediafuturist.com/2008/05/web10-to-web40.html

I work in an emerging area of design and media, which could be described as Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. I see these new forms of design and media radically altering the way in which society creates, experiences and consumes all forms of media; from print to TV to web to mobile to live events. This will redefine the role of a traditional graphic designer.

These new forms of media allow users to consume content across so many platforms and in so many different ways that role of graphic designer as decorator is no longer enough. I see the role of the graphic designer as a problem solver, architect, communication designer, consumer, viewer, curator and mapper. This is not that far removed from many current areas of graphic design but what these new forms of media do is give the viewer just any many choices as the designer as how they view, consume and use the finished work.

Some definitions

Web 1.0 allowed designers to create websites with limited user interaction, it was a one way conversation. Here the designer had control over how the user consumed the design. The designer could dictate which pages a user viewed, how they navigated through the site and how they would interact with a site. New techniques and tools but not that far removed from traditional graphic design.

Web 2.0 starts to redefine the roles of designer, maker and critic. Web 2.0 is a term used to describe a range of websites, software and design on the Internet.
The O ’ R e i l l y R a d a r report Web 2.0: Principles and Best Practices describes Web 2.0 as “ a variety of guises, names, and technologies: social computing, user-generated content, software as a service, podcasting, blogs, and the read–write web. Taken together, they are Web 2.0, the next-generation, userdriven, intelligent web.” Web 2.0 allows far more interaction by the user. The user can be the person uploading a video to Youtube, someone viewing the video, someone commenting on the video or someone posting a video response to a comment.

The idea of Web 3.0 goes further, expanding a users role and blurring further the role of maker and consumer. The role of a designer will be increasingly that of curator or mapper, designing ways of filtering content, helping users to find what is most relevant to them. The graphic designers role will be less about the way work is consumed, as the audience will decide how they want to consume it.
Web 3.0 involves issues of copyright, distribution, making and publishing work. It involves issues of control, and ownership. It involves blended distribution; working across media, web, mobile, TV, print and live events. Where each media platform has equal relevance; there is no destination site. Content is tailored for the platform and the end user. It means being prepared to give up control of how and where your work might be used.
Matt Locke, Commissioning Editor for Education and New Media Channel 4, says “Channel 4 hasn't bothered with designing a dedicated teen site, like BBC Switch. We only use existing sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo to deliver and promote content. Outside of Skins, Hollyoaks and Big Brother Channel 4 doesn't exist for teenagers. A dedicated teen site wouldn't reach an audience in the same way as these existing social networking sites do.”
As a designer, filmmaker or musician how do you alter your approach to making work to adapt and fit with these new media?

What I do as a designer

Currently I am the project manager and designer for NOISE Festival, a cross-media showcase for creative talent, aged 25 years and under. Users can upload work and create an online portfolio of work which is judged by a panel of curators, selected work is showcased during the October festival. I can design the static content on the front page but this has to be constantly updated and redesigned to encourage viewers to return to the site after they have initially uploaded work. I can design the recent submissions and public rating tools but I can't decide on the content that is uploaded by users or which work is rated by viewers. I can design the portfolio pages and collaboration tools but ultimately I can't decide how or if these tools will be used. I can try to anticipate how people may use a site but I have to be prepared to give up some control and ownership.
Matt Jones co-founder of Dopplr, an online tool for frequent travellers, says this about current website design “easy use is a bug, make the site difficult, make people aware of what they are doings, add clues. Think speed bumps to slow a user down or DDA floor patterns to indicate a change in space. But ultimately people decide how to use technology, people don't use the manual”

As web 3.0 develops the role of the designer will develop further into that of curator, capturing meta data and using that data to develop the design experience for a user. This form of design will increasingly become a two way interaction between designer and user. Feedback between designer and user will become seamless.

I'm not a content creator. I don't make my own films and upload them to Youtube. I don't write articles, publish them online and consider myself a journalist. This concept of content creator takes a limited view of what it means to be involved in web 2.0 and contribute to "making Noise".
I blog, I comment and read other blogs from design to music to football, I upload images to Flickr, I listen to streamed radio through the BBC and Last FM, subscribe to podcasts, I download music from the HypeMachine, iTunes and BitTorrent, I watch videos on iPlayer/Youtube/BlipTV and on blogs as embedded content, I subscribe to RSS Feeds, post links to De.li.cous and Digg, I post on Facebook. I'm not looking for and don't expect a response to what I publish online but all this is noise. There are millions of other people doing the same.

The idea of what is good and bad becomes almost irrelevant with web 2.0 and web 3.0, as Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing argues “Most things created online are shit. YouTube videos, the blog page abandoned after three posts. But this is positive because it means technology and software is becoming so cheap and easy to use anyone can do it. Lowering the cost of experimentation is good. Does your idea suck? Doesn't matter, do it/make it find out.”

So how do you as a consumer or viewer start to filter all this stuff into what is relevant to you? How do you start to filter and find your niche interests, removing the useless stuff along the way? The filtering process and making sense of this information is where the concept of web 3.0 becomes crucial. The designers role within this is to develop ways in which this content can be found, discovered, curated, recommended and rated.
This curation and filtering process work can work in a number of ways. Recommendation and reviews by friends and other users, tagging of work, online profiles, RSS feeds, comments left, listening to free streamed music or video, downloading an MP3 from a blog or forum. Again this is not just the design of a single website. This curation and filtering process happens across different websites, platforms and media, as a designer you must be aware of this process.

Example, my iPod is synced with my iTunes, my LastFM account scrobbles what I've played on my iTunes. This information can be viewed by anyone, I can get music recommendations through neighbors and friends on Last FM. I can listen to my similar artist station on Last FM and find new music. I can embed a widget to Facebook to tell everyone what I've listened too, I can click on favourite artists in my Facebook profile and find out who else listens to the same music and which artists they are listening too. I can fill in my LastFM user name to www.soundamus.net, subscribe to the RSS Feed and get daily recommendations of new album releases on Amazon based on what I'm listening to. I only need to visit Soundamus once to fill in my username and I never need to see the site again. It will constantly update itself on what I am playing through iTunes/Last FM. My RSS feed from Pitchfork gives me the latest reviews from my favourite artists, I can pick and choose simply by looking at the first line whether they are of interest, if so I can read more. I no longer need to search for this information, someone or something will feed me this information.

In that example there are dozens of ways that a designers role can be redefined. Painstakingly designed sites, with beautiful interaction design can be stripped back to text, meta data and a database/spreadsheet. An RSS feed means the user may choose to never even see the beautifully designed site. The API and meta data from companies such as Last FM and Amazon, is freely available allowing anyone to design and develop their own applications.

What becomes crucial with design as curation or mapping is the concept of fuzzy data.
Chris Heathcote from Nokia Design describes fuzzy data as “the information around the edges of a search. This has more relevance to a user than a narrow pinpointed search. Fuzzy data, that is less accurate but is of more use to someone”
Matt Jones from Dopplr, discussing the building of Dopplr “Something we’ve heard a lot from Dopplr users is: “make my trips more ‘fuzzy’”.
What they mean is that they would like to see coincidences in the surrounding area of ‘social spacetime’ “
As a designer how can you develop ways of incorporating fuzzy data into design avoiding boxing a user into their likes and dislikes. Making sure that users find what is relevant but allow for the unexpected, random, coincidence and surprise. This isn't easy and requires the careful design of tools that capture the initial meta data from user and the planning of how this data could be used later on.

Artists should be looking at ways of exploiting these new media. How do you reach an audience? How do you narrow it down so the relevant audience sees your work? This is hard for many designers, artists and musicians to do but a younger generation of artists are happy to do this. The web is just something that is there in the same way they might watch TV or or use the phone. The idea of creating and distributing work becomes equally as straightforward.
In a band? Post your tracks on Last FM and MySpace. Make films or animations? Create your own YouTube channel and post them there. Take photographs? Upload them to Flickr, add them to a group. Make illustrations? Create a Deviant Art portfolio. and upload there
Again this is not about making the best work, making money or becoming famous. It is the simple act of doing because you can.

Over the course of the next twenty proposals I will illustrate the key themes and emerging developments of Wb 2.0 and Web 3.0 and how this will alter the role of the graphic designer over the coming years. Print this post