Sketching Plans

After read Kaplan and Sullivan last week, this week’s reading from Bill Buxton’s Sketching User Experiences reminded me even more of the idea of a writing process. As a composition teacher, I am constantly talking to my students about their processes and encouraging different steps for them to take, whether they are prewriting strategies, data gathering, drafting strategies, or techniques for revision and/or proofreading.

So Buxton’s section on sketching reminded me of the prewriting and data gathering steps of the writing process. His sketches – because he suggests that many are created – are very similar to the  freewriting stage for our freshmen composition students. We tell them to write, and write as much as they can, and then go back and pick out what works. This relates to the “quick” and  “plentiful” attributes (111). We tell them to not worry much about details, just get the form and fill in the rest later. Here we see the “minimal detail” and “ambiguity” attirbutes (111-2). And we tell them to throw out what doesn’t work. Obviously, the “disposable” attribute (111). Then we tell our students to get feedback on what they’ve written – either through conferences, group/peer review, or workshops. And here we have Buxton’s idea that the sketch should be open enough to get suggestions and feedback from others, whether they are on the design team or role-playing the part of the user.

One problem I had with this reading was the ceramics class analogy on page 141. The students in a ceramics class were divided into two groups, and one half of the class was graded on quantity while the other was graded on quality. The result was that the students who were creating just to fulfill a quantity ended up with pieces that had the highest quality.

While this analogy would seem to support Buxton’s ideas on sketching, it sort of subverts it. For starters, Buxton says that as designers, we should not jump in and start creating, but that we should sketch. In this analogy, the students do jump in and start creating right away, without any plans or sketches. Second, the fact that the quantity students had the highest quality because they were “busily churning out piles of work –and learning from their mistakes” (141) implies that they were drafting their works, not just creating sketches (which is arguable in itself). There were no rules against the quality students sketching and reworking their pieces, but the analogy implies that they didn’t. Since they ended up with “little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay” (141), that only implies that the students were procrastinators. Again, there were no rules against reworking, so if those students had started work right away one their one piece, they too could have learned from their mistakes and created higher quality pieces. This would have illustrated Buxton’s point more strongly, because this would have been analogous to creating sketches and making them disposable, while the quantity students need to keep all of their work, making it not so disposable.

Overall, this section was helpful to me as a composition teacher. This semester, my students must create a multi-modal project. The assignment I settled on was for them to create a three minute video which is essentially a presidential ad campaign for a fictional character. Thanks to Buxton, I can more clearly explain to them why a storyboard is necessary for such an endeavor. Not only will it serve as a sketch for their video, but as Buxton says, it is cheaper, easier and more timely to create many sketches than it is to create a video and then go back and edit it (299). 

Technological Advances

 In “Ideology, Technology, and the Future of Writing Instruction,” Nancy Kaplan discusses the impact of computer technology on writing instruction. Admittedly, the essay was published in 1991, so much of the discussion has become irrelevant or even archaic. But she brings up some important points, and makes the reader realize that even twenty years later, some things remain the same.

While Kaplan is examining the role that the computer will play in the writing classroom, she also looks at hypertext and how it might create an interactive writing/reading experience.  She compares how a traditionally published work differs from that of a hypertextually published work, by saying that

As readers interpret or make sense of a printed work, they can, of course, mutter and muse in the margins of the page, can (in memory at least) produce sets of conceptual links that obliquely traverse the whole collection, representing their constructions of the text's meaning, as the theorists would have it, against the strictly linear tug of the work's representation on the page. Readers' annotations and their conceptual representation of the text's meanings comprise the reinscription or understanding of the work. If readers choose, they can photocopy "their" versions, complete with their commentaries, or write, on separate pieces of paper, rejoinders or reinterpretations. And readers can distribute the new document. But the traces that originate with these readers always remain distinct and visually differentiable from the "primary" text. (Kaplan 19)

A hypertext work, on the other hand, has the potential of being revised and edited without creating a distinction between the primary work and the reader’s contributions. Kaplan also says,

The power of these new tools of publication leads to hopeful, even utopian, visions: in a brave new electronic world, anyone with access to the right technology will be able to produce and distribute texts, both in print and in electronic form, which cannot be easily distinguished by visual signs from those which have issued from the keyboards of highly acclaimed authors and which have been privileged by the process of "official" publication. In theory, at least, electronic environments potentially offer a free flow of information and ideas from all to all. (Kaplan 21)

Having the advantage of looking back from a distance of twenty years, readers are reminded that the both situations are still relevant. Pages like Wikipedia demonstrate her claim that hypertext works can be edited without a clear distinction between authors. (Although it should be noted that Wikipedia does track all changes, so this seamless appearance is only on the surface.) But readers are still faced with the traditionally published – static – text, even on the web.

Ironically, while Kaplan discusses Bitnet and its shortcomings, we are reading the unchanged text in a world where it is possible to send large chunks of texts, containing their original formatting, anywhere in the world that has the technology to receive them. Yet, we are still reading the text as it was written, along with the margin notes (presumably those of Dr. Howard), as they were printed on the page.

What does this mean for those of us in RCID 805? Taken with Patricia Sullivan’s article “Taking Control of the Page: Electronic Writing and Word Publishing,” we are reminded of the hope that technology would create a more equal means of text production. For Sullivan, the computer in the classroom was seen as a way to change the writing process, not just as an aid to the writer. When producing a text, the writer in an electronic classroom could move away from a more linear writing process which involved prewriting, writing, then rewriting, and could merge all of the steps into stages of writing. As Sullivan says,

the electronic drafting process could be seen to make the distinction between early and late drafts increasingly seamless and less distinctive. Writers and readers often interact with segments of an emerging draft, a draft that becomes final only in those minutes before it is printed or mailed to the teacher. In this way, the segmented stages that have contributed to our linear writing paradigm of prewriting, writing, and rewriting begin to dissolve in the electronic classroom. (48)

For those of us teaching first-year composition, we can view the writing process in a new light. No longer do we need to require a first draft and a revision if we are aware that much of the revising goes on during the drafting process. For those of us not teaching, we can take these two essays and apply them to the projects we are producing for class, or that we may someday produce for the industry. For many people, the use of the computer and the internet is a natural thing (much like Kaplan’s comparison of the index of a book.) Getting the perspective of what was expected as early as twenty years ago and comparing it to what is available today can help us design for the user. Realizing that much has changed, and much has also stayed the same, can give us new perspective on what is possible in digital publishing, whether we are creating an interactive web page, a forum, or designing a user-experience/marketing product, such as the wine label.

"If it ain't broke..."

I found it somewhat timely/appropriate to read Buxton’s case study on Apple (and Steve Jobs) in Sketching User Experiences this week. With Jobs recent passing, there was an outpouring of information and emotion, and this chapter felt like another piece of the puzzle. After seeing post after post on Facebook with the “Stay hungry. Stay foolish” quote, and the posting of the Stanford commencement address, it was interesting to read a business study of Jobs without the sentiment.

According to Buxton, the first step that Jobs took to turn Apple around was the redesign of the product. Buxton says of the iMac, “that virtually all of the changes were … on the front side of the glass” (46). It was the look of the machine, the neon colors and shape of the body, that made it popular, not the “guts.” In fact, “underlying these systems was the old familiar graphical user interface (GUI), with perhaps a bit of an updating in graphical style” (Buxton 46). Of course, the updating in graphical style is just another instance of redesign, which is Buxton’s point. There was no need to reinvent the wheel, Jobs just made it more visually appealing.

While function is important, many designers forget that visual appeal is just as, if not more, important. After all, we as designers can create an amazing web site that does things no other has done before, but if it is over- or under-designed, it’s not going to get a second look from the user. Even though Buxton points out that Jobs make mistakes and encountered failures, it was the risk he took with design that saved the company. Or more than saved it. So while we must be concerned with design, we must also take risks. Mistakes can be reengineered, and signature elements can be improved upon.

When the iPod was introduced in 2001, it had a mechanical scroll wheel (Buxton 56). This scroll wheel and the shape of the screen became the symbols for the iPod. (As well as the white ear buds that make the iPod recognizable, even when it’s tucked away in a pocket (Buxton 53)). While the mechanical scroll wheel had its issues, the idea behind it was solid. Today, the iPod still maintains the circular wheel, but it is now a touch-sensitive controller. The functionality it the same, the design is (somewhat) the same, but the mechanics have improved.

As designers, we sometimes create our initial design and then put all of our energy in function. But what can we learn from Steve Jobs? Buxton says that “each generation of the iPod has its design problems, but these were more than compensated for by the iPod’s strengths as a fashion item” (50). I think what we can learn from Jobs it to put just as much thought into design as we do into function. If a product is designed well enough, the customer can become loyal through all of the functional improvements. And once the bugs are worked out, we shouldn’t rest.  After all, we’ve all heard “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” but that doesn’t mean we can’t redesign it.

Movie Extras

I was a big fan of The Matrix – the original one, anyway. But when The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions came out – notably both in the same year – I was (pardon the pun) disenfranchised.

In Convergence Culture, Henry Jenkins dedicates a chapter to The Matrix, and the “transmedia storytelling” (106) of the movies, the video games, and the comics/graphic novels. He claims that “this is probably where The Matrix fell out of favor with the film critics, who were used to reviewing the film and not the surrounding apparatus (106). He also states that the viewers who were invested in the video games – such as retrieving a letter from the post office and getting it into the hands of the heroes in Enter the Matrix, or getting Niobe to the rendezvous point – are more invested in the movies because they have the knowledge that fills “the gaps” for those who only viewed the movie (105-6). ). (Ironically, Jenkins mentions several films in this chapter, and they all seem to be science fiction. What does this say about “transmedia storytelling?”)

Admittedly, I did not play the video games, nor did I read the graphic novels before the second and third movies were released. But I’m not sure that Jenkins claim that I would have enjoyed the movies more if I had is entirely correct. In fact, one of my critiques of the third movie was that it was too much like a graphic novel. It’s not that I don’t enjoy graphic novels, I really do, and have even written papers about graphic novels translated onto the screen. But that isn’t what I wanted from the Matrix franchise.

Perhaps one reason for my discontent was the fact that there was a four year wait between The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded, with only a few month wait for The Matrix Revolutions. The suspense of waiting for the second movie went on too long, and the immediacy of the third was too soon. Granted, had I been playing the games, watching the cartoons, and reading the graphic novels, the wait might not have seemed so long. But that’s not what I want from a movie franchise. Not that I would begrudge those who do like the peripherals (although Jenkins is arguing that these are no longer peripherals), but they shouldn’t be necessary for the storytelling process. And I don’t really think they were necessary for The Matrix; I followed the storyline just fine. I just didn’t like the second and third movies.

I think if the sequels had been less “transmedia” in the movie, then I really could have enjoyed them more. There isn’t anything wrong with making the franchise transmedia, but the movies should be strictly that – a movie. For those who want the transmedia experience, they can pursue it with the games, books, cartoons, and such, but for those who don’t want it, leave it off of the screen.

(I’ll also just say that I think the reason I like the first movie the best was because it was chock full of philosophical elements, and I think the Wachowski’s raised my expectations for the sequels and then didn’t deliver.)

With all that being said, how does this help us in this class? One idea is that as we are designing for a user experience, we should keep in mind that some users will enjoy a transmedia platform, but others will not. While they can be tied together, they shouldn’t necessarily be tied together. As a consumer, when a franchise (or a TV show) requires that I be familiar with or participate through some other platform, I will purposely avoid these experiences. Part of it is my cynical nature – I don’t want to be charged texting fees or have to buy video games in order to enjoy my entertainment. I understand that people in the entertainment industry are in it to make money, but when it costs more and more money to maintain a feeling of inclusion, I’d rather be excluded. So when we are creating for our audiences, we should keep in mind that we can provide these peripherals, but we should not require them.